Billionaire Tim Draper Once Offered To Donate $1 Million To Charity If One Million People Watched His Reality Show. Only 63,000 Tuned In.

Billionaires are accustomed to backing long shots. But in August 2015, venture capitalist Tim Draper made one of the strangest bets of his career.

Draper was starring in an ABC Family reality show called "Startup U." Unfortunately, almost nobody was watching. The show's most recent episode had attracted just 47,000 viewers, a microscopic television audience even by basic cable standards.

So Draper attempted to manufacture a ratings miracle.

"Tell all your friends to watch Startup U Tuesday at 10:00 on ABC Family," he wrote on Facebook. "I will give away $1 million to charities if we get 1 million viewers this week."

All the public had to do was tune in. If the episode attracted one million viewers, Draper would donate $1 million to charity.

Technically, the promotion worked. More people watched.

Just not nearly enough.

The following episode attracted approximately 63,000 viewers—an increase of 16,000. That left Draper about 937,000 viewers short of his goal, meaning the condition required to trigger the $1 million donation was not met.

PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP/Getty Images

What Was "Startup U"?

"Startup U" was built around Draper University, the unconventional entrepreneurship program Draper founded in San Mateo, California.

The series followed a group of aspiring entrepreneurs as they participated in an intensive seven-week program designed to teach them how to launch and grow startup companies. Students took part in business exercises, received advice from Draper and other mentors and developed ideas they hoped could attract funding from venture capitalists.

In other words, it was part business competition, part reality show and part extended advertisement for Draper University.

The concept arrived during a period when startup culture had become mainstream entertainment. "Shark Tank" had already turned investors such as Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary into television personalities, while Silicon Valley figures such as Peter Thiel were becoming increasingly recognizable outside the technology industry.

ABC Family ordered "Startup U" as part of an effort to expand its unscripted programming. The network described its target audience as "Becomers"—young adults navigating the transition between adolescence and adulthood.

"Startup U" premiered in August 2015. Ten entrepreneurs appeared in the program, which ultimately ran for a single 10-episode season.

A Million-Viewer Challenge

By the end of August, it was clear that "Startup U" had not found a meaningful audience.

The episode preceding Draper's pledge attracted only 47,000 viewers. To reach his one-million-viewer target, the show's audience would have needed to multiply by more than 21 times in the span of a week.

That would have been an extraordinary ratings surge for any television program, let alone an obscure basic cable reality show airing at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday.

Still, Draper's offer attracted media coverage. The idea of a billionaire effectively dangling a $1 million charitable donation in front of television viewers was unusual enough to generate headlines far beyond the show's normal audience.

The publicity produced a measurable bump. Approximately 16,000 additional people watched the next episode, lifting the total audience to around 63,000.

In percentage terms, that was a respectable increase of roughly 34%.

In every other respect, it was a disaster.

The episode reached only about 6% of Draper's goal. The charitable pledge was contingent on attracting one million viewers, so the $1 million obligation never kicked in.

There is no indication that Draper promised to make a smaller proportional donation. Had he done so, 63,000 viewers would have translated to $63,000 for charity. Instead, the challenge operated as an all-or-nothing offer—and the audience landed overwhelmingly on the side of nothing.

The Show Disappeared, But Draper Did Just Fine

"Startup U" did not become the entrepreneurial version of "Shark Tank." It completed its first season and did not return for another.

For Draper, however, the failed reality show amounted to little more than an unusual footnote in an extraordinarily successful investment career.

The third-generation venture capitalist backed Hotmail, the email service co-founded by Sabeer Bhatia; Skype, co-founded by Janus Friis; Tesla and SpaceX, led by Elon Musk; and Baidu, founded by Robin Li.

Draper also became one of the most prominent evangelists for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto.

In 2014, Draper paid approximately $19 million at a U.S. Marshals Service auction for 29,657 bitcoins that had been confiscated from the Silk Road marketplace. The purchase later became one of the most spectacular cryptocurrency investments ever made.

The full story of how Draper's $19 million Bitcoin purchase grew into a multibillion-dollar fortune makes the failure of "Startup U" look especially inconsequential.

In retrospect, the show's million-viewer promotion was classic Tim Draper: unconventional, optimistic and built around an extremely ambitious target.

Unfortunately, television viewers were not nearly as enthusiastic about "Startup U" as Draper was.

He needed one million of them to tune in. He got 63,000.