GoodLove Foods earned primetime attention for its frozen, ready-to-bake, gluten-free goodies
On Sept. 8, 2022, Chennelle Diong stood in Room 340 of the University of Denver’s Burwell Center for Career Achievement. She looked south and pitched an audience on her frozen, ready-to-bake, gluten-free goodies.
Two-and-a-half years later, on March 7, 2025, Diong was back in Room 340. This time, she looked north, part of an audience tuned to the latest episode of Shark Tank, watching Diong pitch GoodLove Foods to a cagey room of celebrity investors.
Diong (MBA 2022) has come a long way from her days at BASE Camp, a summer startup accelerator orchestrated by Entrepreneurship@DU at the Daniels College of Business. The five-week program arms students and alumni with professional mentoring, office space, a collaborative cohort, a stipend, and—yes—plenty of practice pitching their product.
What started as a deeply uncomfortable experience has become a strength of Diong’s. Since graduating from BASE Camp, she has pitched her biscuits, cinnamon rolls and pizza crusts everywhere from Denver Startup Week to the Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam in Anaheim, California, to the five-time Emmy-winning Shark Tank.
On Friday night, in ABC primetime, Diong gave a focused, colorful 90-second pitch, and then answered a rapid-fire round of questions. Ultimately, Diong secured the backing of Lori Greiner (“The Queen of QVC”), who offered the entrepreneur a $150,000 investment in exchange for an 18% stake in the company.
“We know what our value is and we know we’re going to take this brand places,” Diong said on the show. “It’s great to have someone that believes in us too.”
Ready for liftoff
Diong has plenty of believers at DU. Faculty, staff, classmates and members of her MBA cohort all helped her push GoodLove to the next level.
“There was something I didn’t realize was within me until I started BASE Camp,” Diong said at a Q&A panel before her episode aired. “I don’t know if I’d be here today without the encouragement to dig deep, the support I received and the feedback. I’m so grateful.”
GoodLove existed before she signed up for the accelerator, but the five-week program elevated her startup to new heights. Before August 2022, all of Diong’s energy had been focused on producing her product. BASE Camp would teach her how to run her company.
“I have to attribute so much [of my success] to E@DU,” she said. “It changed so much of me as an entrepreneur.”
There was something I didn’t realize was within me until I started BASE Camp. I don’t know if I’d be here today without the encouragement to dig deep, the support I received and the feedback. I’m so grateful. I have to attribute so much [of my success] to E@DU.
The E@DU experience was so impactful, in fact, that Diong chose to watch her episode’s premiere on the DU campus, in the company of her former faculty.
“It is such a privilege to experience moments where you are happier to see someone else achieve something than you would be if it were yourself in their shoes,” said Neil Pollard, a teaching assistant professor. “It is hard to explain how special it was to watch Chennelle and [her husband and business partner,] Justin[,] represent their brand knowing firsthand the energy, blood, sweat and tears that they’ve put into GoodLove. I literally had tears in my eyes the whole time she was on screen. We met Chennelle when she had just a few thousand dollars in revenue and a dream to build something special and they have done just that.”
Catching a shark
Every time Diong has hit a milestone, she has been driven to achieve something bigger, she said. That attitude (plus a denial from a different opportunity) pushed her to apply to Shark Tank last year.
Being accepted was just the first step in a long, arduous process—one that had no guarantee of ending on the TV screen. Diong had no idea if she would actually pitch to the sharks or if her appearance would ever be televised.
Once she was told she would be going to Los Angeles, she began crafting a short pitch and designing the visual display that would stand behind her. Diong knew she had to keep her pitch short—under two minutes—and she knew that she had to ham it up a bit for the reality TV crowd.
The result was a practiced pitch from a “biscuitologist,” ready to “spill the tea on gluten-free.” She pleaded for the sharks to become her GFF (gluten-free friend) and “risk it for this biscuit.” To aid her case, her husband and two other men entered on roller skates, dancing to “GoodLove” music.
“We had to go all out,” Diong said. “It’s reality TV so you have to have a little bit of that edge to it.”
Diong, by her account, blacked out. But she felt good about the pitch she had practiced by recording herself and listening over and over.
She felt even better about the sharks’ reaction to her biscuits, which had been prepared by a studio chef in a food truck while Diong waited in the green room.
“This is amazing,” said Greiner, incredulously. “Like, blow my mind amazing.”
The subsequent questioning was intense. The sharks pried to learn more about GoodLove and pick it apart.
“It was like a snowball fight,” Diong said of the Q&A. “[Questions were] coming from every single angle. You would be asked something and before you could finish someone would ask something else.”
One by one, the sharks dropped their support for GoodLove, citing the company’s low profit margins, difficult retail model and inexperience.
Greiner, however, offered an investment—in exchange for a 20% stake in the company. Diong countered with 18%, raising eyebrows from the other sharks in the room.
“That shows a level of sophistication,” said an impressed and intrigued Daniel Lubetzky, “or desperation.”
Diong agreed to the deal and walked back, elated, to the green room, where Greiner’s family immediately came to congratulate her.
A celebration of success
Though Diong had lived the Shark Tank experience and knew how her episode was going to end, the viewing party still proved to be a thrillingly nerve-wracking experience.
As the room waited for the show to start, Diong answered questions from the audience and John Sebesta, the Koch Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship, who was in awe of Diong’s growth and overjoyed with her success.
“The thing I’m most proud of and impressed by is Chennelle’s continued humility and willingness to give back,” he said. “The fact that [Chennelle and Justin] chose to spend the evening at DU, open and available to answer any question that our students and community might have demonstrates their heart of service. We can all be more successful when we focus on serving others, and it’s inspiring to see Chennelle and Justin continue to live that out.”
Many of Diong’s answers returned to the hard work required to launch and maintain a business—and the network of support needed to succeed.
“The scariest part of starting this business isn’t starting the business; it’s starting to love it, because then you’re really in it,” Diong said. “Having someone that will support you through the really, really tough times will get you through because you understand the vision collectively. The only reason we’re here [on Shark Tank] is that we’ve fallen down and gotten back up again.”