‘Shark Tank’ video: Scholly receives almost-instant offer from Lori Greiner

Tonight on “Shark Tank,” we easily have a first: A company getting an offer well before that customary part in the presentation. The product here is Scholly, which, as we discussed yesterday, is an innovative way to make hunting for scholarships a whole lot easier.

Let us start here with a reminder that we love this idea. It’s a useful application that many can get something out of, since for a reasonable price you can have easier access to a variety of different ways to save money at school. There are no guarantees, but given the small investment you’re making in the platform, it probably is worth it for students to give it a try. Think of it this way: Millions of students go to school every year, and millions of these students leave with mountains of debt that they are not able to really pay off for more than a decade after they graduate. If there is any way to prevent that, this app is a step in the right direction.

Now that we’ve said all of this, we do still feel like Lori Greiner is being a little premature is making them a generous offer almost right away, mostly because she believes in the product. Without knowing the monetization strategy, that’s a little too much of a risk to us for a product in the tech industry (which is well-known to eat away money). We want to know the customer acquisition costs, the average profits, and other key pieces of information. In order for this to be a huge company, it may need to sell to an extremely large consumer base.

The teases for this episode suggest that many of the sharks storm off the set. Why? Maybe the company agrees to work with Lori, and they feel like they really didn’t get a chance to present anything. We’re never going to criticize Lori’s passion (especially since she’s shown to be a great investor for sharks over the years), but we do prefer pitches where we get to know more about all aspects of the product from an entertainment point of view here.

We’ll be back tonight with a full review. For now, head over to this link to get some further TV scoop on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)