Tuesday, July 19, 2011

7/19 Larry Manetti Talks with Entrepreneur and Shark Tank Panelist Kevin Harrington

Kevin Harrington, chairman and founder of TVGoods, Inc., is a pioneer and principal architect of the infomercial industry. But we've come to know him as the sharp-looking shark seated at the left end of the tank.

In 1984, Kevin produced one of the industry's first 30-minute infomercials. Since then he has been involved with over 500 product launches that resulted in sales of over $4 billion worldwide, with 20 products that reached individual sales of over $100 million. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Kevin founded Quantum International, Ltd. in the mid-1980s, which merged into National Media Corporation in 1991. Under his leadership as President, National Media reached $500 million in annual sales, distributing in over 100 countries and 20 languages. This company's success has been chronicled in a case study at Harvard/MIT for over a decade.

Kevin was also CEO of several other entrepreneurial companies, including HSN Direct, a joint venture with Home Shopping Network in 1994 and Reliant International Media in 1997. Throughout his career, Kevin helped to establish two of the most important and recognized global networking associations, the Entrepreneur's Organization, or EO (formally known as the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization), and the Electronic Retailing Association, or ERA.

Today, the EO has 113 chapters in 38 countries and more than 924,000 members. The ERA represents the $125 billion electronic retailing industry and is comprised of over 450 member companies and subsidiaries that use the power of electronic retailing to sell directly to consumers via television, radio, Internet and wireless media in over 100 countries worldwide.

Kevin recently released a book entitled Act Now: How I Turn Ideas into Million-Dollar Productsthat chronicles his life and experiences in the DRTV industry. As you can see, Kevin is a fairly busy guy. But there's always time to make a few bucks gobbling up a good idea in the Shark Tank!

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