When a funky new hairstyling product for pets appeared on this week’s Shark Tank, two of the sharks had a major bone to pick that ultimately ended up killing the deal. This should be an example for all businesses, especially start-ups operating on very tight budgets.

The reality is that some products have a high propensity to go viral and those that do must take advantage of all social media has to offer. In this case, PetPaint had not done any online marketing which raised a major red flag for Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec, and ultimately pushed them to back out.

From a marketer’s perspective, pet photos are one of the hottest topics on Instagram and other social networks, so failing to utilize such channels is a ginormous mistake.

I wish PetPaint the best of luck and hope they jump on the social media bandwagon sooner rather than later.