a bright morning in October, and Barbara Corcoran is sitting in her
street-level headquarters, a converted doctor’s office on upper Park
Avenue in New York City, trying to convince Jen and Jeff Martin to
wear popcorn bags on their heads.
The Martins, a brother-and-sister team, are the founders of
Pipsnacks, one of the fastest-growing companies in Corcoran’s port-
folio. Their original product is the mini-popcorn snack Pipcorn—
crunchy, largely hull-less, and sold in seven flavors, including the
much-beloved truffle. The Martins launched the company six years
ago and had their big breakthrough in 2014, when they appeared
before Corcoran and the other sharks on the ABC prime-time reality
seriesShark Tank,nabbing a $200,000 investment from her in
exchange for 10 percent of the company.
Since then, growth has exploded. Pipcorn is now available around
the country, in Whole Foods, Target, and numerous other outlets. The
farmer who supplies their kernels has granted them exclusive rights
to his crop. They’ve begun outsourcing some of the manufacturing
work to a contract packager, allowing them to ramp up production at
a moment’s notice. Margins are solid at around 50 percent, and the
business is steadily profitable, having grown by 2,000 percent since the
company’sShark Tankappearance.
Over the course of an hour-long catch-up meeting, the Martins—he,
32, with a Jimmy Neutron pompadour and thick-framed glasses, and
she, 29, with a formidable mane of curly brown hair—rattle off sales
figures and delve into the nuances of SKUs and shelf space. They dis-
cuss the ins and outs of Costco versus ShopRite versus independent
New York bodegas and delis. And they gripe about a big-time snack-
food distributor that has been spotted elbowing Pipcorn bags out of
sight to better showcase a crunchy rival.
Corcoran, sporting her trademark pixie cut and clad in Chuck Taylor
sneakers, a cashmere sweater (both canary yellow), and a pair of skinny
jeans, takes it all in. Unlike the sometimes loopy, exuberant character
she plays on TV, in person she is down-to-earth and salty, a shrewd tell-
it-like-it-is coach, as quick with an F-bomb as an affectionate pat on the
back. “Barbara makes everyone comfortable, and she can talk business
with anyone,” says Mark Cuban, her costar onShark Tank. “That’s not
easy when dealing with entrepreneurs.”
When the Martins mention they will be attending Whole Foods’ big
upcoming sales conference, Corcoran perks up. This is her area of exper-
tise. She sees an opportunity for a marketing coup, a chance to drive
home to her mentees the importance of seizing a customer’s attention by
any means necessary, even at the risk of a little personal embarrassment.
So she suggests they glue popcorn bags to hats and “steal the show.”
The Martins look dubious. This conference is serious. At last year’s
regional event, Jeff points out, Jaden Smith performed. Will Smith
even showed up. Corcoran shrugs. Then, upping the ante, she suggests
that Jen glue hair extensions to the top of her bag-hat, in homage to her
own coiffure. “You would endear everybody with that million-dollar
smile,” she adds before turning to Jeff and suggesting he adorn his bag-
hat with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to match his own. “You would
bring the house down, really, really. Poor Will Smith and his son. You’ll
make yourselves stars of the show.”
The Martins promise to consider the idea.
“I’m telling you, as stupid as it is, people would just be drawn to you,”
Corcoran says. Then she offers them $500 apiece to follow through.
“But you have to snitch on each other,” she cautions. “That hat comes
off, no money. Because the truth is, I know it will work.”
It’s not hard to understand what Corcoran sees in the Martins.
They’re adorable—good-looking, youthful, and effervescent. They
actually like each other and function well as a team. In short, they’re as
irresistible as their product. And in some sense, they are their product.
That’s why Corcoran invested. Yes, she knew the Martins were over-
valuing the business and that their special kernels were not proprietary.
But Corcoran, who built her empire in large part on the appeal of her
own colorful personality, understands something her young partners
haven’t entirely grasped: Frito-Lay could start churning out mini pop-
corn tomorrow, but the Martin siblings themselves—their story, their
energy, and their winning smiles—are theirs alone. That is the point of
differentiation. That is the thing that will help them win.
“I felt from the beginning, your personality is it,” she tells them while
nibbling at her breakfast, a doughnut from a nearby coffee cart. “It’s
more important than any shit you’re turning out here, honestly.”
arbara Corcoran knows the power of a good story. After all,
she’s still telling the one about how she was but a lowly waitress
in Jersey some 45 years ago, before borrowing a grand from her
then boyfriend at 23 and using it to open a real estate agency,
which she then expanded to a bona fide real estate empire.
Yes, she knows it’s a little trite. And she’s well aware of the
ways in which her rags-to-riches origin story manages not only to over-
sell the importance of her inimitable Jersey girl pluck but also to soften
and belittle the mix of intelligence, management acumen, and ambi-
tion with which she fought her way to the top of a fiercely competitive
industry. But she keeps telling it. For one simple reason: It works.
“I have lots of stories now, but that’s the one everybody wants, and I
can’t shake it,” she says. “You think I want to talk about being a waitress?
I’m so bored, I almost fall asleep! But you know what? I tell it with glee.”
If Corcoran is emphatic, it’s because she speaks from experience. Her
willingness to do anything to get noticed marked her initial assault on
the clubby world of Manhattan luxury real estate. Her gutsy, up-for-any-
thing attitude, eye-catching suits, and Lucille Ball–in-a-pixie-cut per-
sona set her apart from the pinstriped glad-handers and society ladies
who had long dominated the scene. As she bulldozed her way into this
January-February 2018 / TREPRENEUR.COMEN / 37“ Barbara can talk
business with anyone,”
SAYS MARK CUBAN.
“ That’s not easy
when dealing with
entrepreneurs.”