Among these distinguished entrepreneurs is Joshua Green, a 2003 alumnus of the University of Miami's Patti and Allan Herbert Business School. Green earned his entrepreneurial stripes last year on the show. In front of venture capitalist Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary and millions of viewers, Green confidently pitched his venture, Pie Wine. This innovative product is a canned, sparkling red wine, specifically designed to complement pizza, for which he sought an investment of $200,000.
“I’ve put close to $300,000 into the company,” said Green, who currently lives in Los Angeles and who pitched Pie Wine on network television with his business partner and best friend, popular L.A. radio D.J. Kevin Klein. “Wine can cost thousands of dollars, and our goal is to make something most people enjoy drinking that’s fun, easy, and unpretentious.”
How did the dots linking Green, Herbert Miami, and Shark Tank come to materialize? Part of the credit goes to the Miami native’s preference for roads less traveled. This is why at the Green family’s Los Angeles abode, two massive stadium chairs painted ’Canes orange adorn a wall inside the bedroom of Green’s 12-year-old son.
“My grandfather had tickets to watch UM play football in the Orange Bowl,” Green explained. “My seat is actually hanging up in my son’s room. The two seats there – Section T, Seats 19 and 20, Row 11 – were literally right next to the UM President’s box in the Orange Bowl.”
“About half my family went to UM, or its law school,” said Green, who picked up a University of Miami law degree in 2006, three years after graduating from Miami Herbert with a master’s degree in accounting. After law school, Green traveled north to New York City, where he spent five years working for Merrill Lynch as an investment banker.
When an opportunity arose to join a private equity investing platform that served financier Michael Milken’s family office, as well as Knowledge University–Milken’s education enterprise–Green pulled the trigger. He was already living in Los Angeles, Milken’s home base, after moving to the city in 2008 during a downturn in the financial markets.
“I worked for Mike a long time, and I love Mike,” Green said. “He was an amazing mentor for me and he’s still a dear friend.”
During Green’s association with Milken, whose high-yield bonds fueled the leveraged-buyout craze of the 1980s, Green began to think about utilizing his business skills in a corporate setting. Could he handle the daily cut and thrust of running a business?
To find out, Green left Milken’s shop in 2017 and began helping startup corporations raise investment capital. One of the firms Green worked with was an urgent care business that was able to expand from eight locations to having more than 50, thanks in large part to Green’s fundraising acumen.
In 2019 he became the CFO for Survios, a virtual reality game developer and software publisher based in Los Angeles. To Green’s delight, he discovered his expansive knowledge of finance and investing served him well at Survios, where he’s now EVP of Corporate Development, in addition to being the CFO.
After proving to himself that he could comfortably help a company oversee $25 million in annual revenues, Green began to entertain thoughts of starting a corporation of his own. In the summer of 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged nationwide, Green and his friend Kevin Klein began taking a hard look at entrepreneurship. Friends since they were 8 years old, Green and Klein both love to devour pizza and then wash it down with Lambrusco, a red sparkling Italian wine.
Could a viable business idea be lurking in their shared gastronomical leanings? “Let’s create a company that has a canned wine that’s all about pizza,” they agreed. Pie Wine was born and Green emptied out his 401 (k) to fund their fledgling business enterprise, while Klein sold his L.A. home.
“There’s something freeing about taking a chance,” Green mused. “What’s the worst that can happen? If I lose my money, I’ll just keep working hard at my Survios job.”
Green and Klein hired a beverage consultant and set out to make a canned wine their palates found pleasing. “We started formulating, and were buying every Lambrusco we could,” Green recalled. “We spent about eight months doing that and actually went to Las Vegas in 2022 to do beta testing at Pizza Expo, the largest gathering of pizza aficionados in the world.”
When the Pizza Expo crowd eagerly snapped up thousands of 12-ounce, promotional cans of Pie Wine that it cost Green and Klein $50,000 to schlep to Las Vegas, the business partners knew they were on to something. The duo returned to Pizza Expo with their 12-proof concoction in 2023 and, in Green’s words, they “crushed the Expo! Pie Wine was a hit of the show, and in the Washington Post and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, too.”
Thanks to Klein’s showbiz connections, he was able to get himself and Green onto the first episode of Shark Tank’s 15th season, which aired in late 2023.
“You pretty much sign your life away,” Green said of preparing to appear on Shark Tank. “They vet you and your business pretty vigorously. They do a full background check.
“Once you’re in there and you walk down that Shark Tank walkway, it’s game time!” Green said. “When you have to step up to the plate, you just do it. Sink or swim. A lot of people sink, but I knew that we’d be good.”
They recited their humor-filled pitch flawlessly in front of five rapt, laughing sharks; Daymond John, Candace Nelson; Mark Cuban; Lori Greiner; and Kevin O’Leary. But whether you’re at the beach or in a TV studio, the sight of a shark baring its teeth may signal imminent danger.
“We have distribution in eight states,” Green informed the judges. “We’ve already had distributor commitments for between three and four hundred thousand dollars already, and we’re talking to eighteen other states.”
That elicited more smiles and even a couple of hearty “Congratulations!” The Shark Tank venture capitalists were evidently charmed by Green and Klein, as well as the Pie Wine, which they sampled alongside slices of pizza. Despite their fondness for the product, each judge provided a solid business rationale for their decision not to invest in Pie Wine. For instance, Mark Cuban cited the impending launch of his own competing beverage line.
While Green had “a blast” on Shark Tank, there’s no way he and Klein are quitting until they reach their objectives for Pie Wine.
“Some people want the exposure—I wanted a deal,” Green said after his Shark Tank cameo. “We’re raising money and got signed by one of the largest sales agencies in the United States.
“My hope is that we can get into distribution in several more states,” said Green, who said that in addition to working as a CFO and getting his own company up and running, he’d enjoy having an opportunity to mentor Miami Herbert students about business.
