I love your question!
I'm a snarky int'l business adviser and entrepreneur, so first my bull-shit free snarky comment:
You can complain all you want but this is what makes our country great - is called capitalism. You hate it because you don't fully understand it and you are not benefiting from it.
Moving on...

The shark-tank effect is due to the show's and the shark's own brand power. Thousands, even possibly millions watch the show every week religiously and is hosted by already branded individuals. Business, regardless of the environment, is about people. So yes, when a branded well known individual makes a call to Costco you bet your butt that someone will be impressed about it and take the call and want to please. You know the rest.

Growth...
Is about strategy right, marketing just to the right mix of people (your demographic) and providing them with leverage to make educated decisions while getting a good value for something. You said it best! - Is all about being at the right place at the right time.

So how do you get there at the right time?
Well, do your homework. Right now you are working hard but not smart. You don't have a branded likeness so you have to stick to the marketing that every other non branded person or company does - traditional & digital marketing. Do this by doing your homework and finding out where your ideal demographic is, what they talk about, for how long, what they dislike, what motivates them... (this is called creating a persona) ...Then approaching them in just the right ways, I wrote an answer regarding just how find these individuals and how to kind of approach this, here: https://clarity.fm/questions/2542/what-is-the-best-marketing-tool-to-boost-our-documentary-crowdfunding-campaign/8559
Create landing pages (A/B testing) to find out what speaks best to them and what converts user the most. Once you have this figure out then implement heavily that theme through multiple platforms and networks to 'rapidly' generate users & buyers not just browsers.

What you are looking for is growth hacking.
I do however hope that you feel comfortable enough to give this a try but I would be happy to help you out. If you would like some help, I am for hire. You can google Humberto Valle Unthink and find out more about me or also visit my web page www.Unthink.Me

Best of luck and please do keep us posted! We'd be eternally intrigued!