0:07

Hey everyone, and welcome to another bite

0:09

where we rewatch the most innovative and

0:11

intriguing pitches from Shark Tank. I'm Jory

0:13

and I'm joined by the agreeable, the

0:16

adventurous, and the affable Ariel. Hey Jory!

0:19

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about

0:21

today's product. Call me

0:23

an optician, but it's quite the spectacle.

0:26

Today's product aims to help folks with their glasses

0:28

with a new way to keep them secure. Will

0:31

the Sharks buy this vision of success or

0:33

will they choose to not even bat an

0:35

eye at this new invention? Blink

0:37

and you'll miss it after this ad. Helpdesk

0:41

software, payment software, email

0:43

marketing tools, CMS and

0:45

blogging tools, SEO tools,

0:47

deal management tracking, pipeline

0:50

tracking. You don't need

0:52

more tools to get more out of

0:54

your business. You just need HubSpot.

0:57

Their all-in-one customer platform is a dream

0:59

come true for every member of your

1:01

team. With best-in-class campaigns

1:03

and workflows to generate more leads

1:06

for marketing, category-leading pipeline management to

1:08

help sales close more deals, powerful

1:11

AI chatbots and a knowledge base

1:13

to help service teams scale, and

1:16

it's all built to deliver results

1:18

and revenue faster to help your

1:20

business grow. So dump

1:22

the disconnected tools and the chaos that comes

1:24

with them. Discover what HubSpot's

1:27

all-in-one platform can do to streamline

1:29

your business. Visit hubspot.com

1:31

to grow better today. Today

1:34

in the tank we have Read-A-Rest, and Read-A-Rest is brought

1:36

to us by founder Rick who's asking for $150,000 for

1:38

15% of his business, which is a whopping $1 million

1:40

valuation. This

1:45

was an episode from 2012, so do with that

1:47

as you will. Season

1:49

three. Yeah, season three. Can you

1:51

imagine? So the

1:53

problem that Rick is trying to

1:55

solve with Read-A-Rest is that people

1:59

often lose The

4:00

sharks are like, oh, it's bad theater, which I thought,

4:02

oh, okay, it's going into his pitch, but never... But

4:04

then you're right. He never mentions that he fell over.

4:06

Yep. Versus like, oh, I have my glasses. That wouldn't

4:09

have happened. Right. I think

4:11

there are ways he could have strengthened that

4:13

intro. And it just sets things off on

4:15

the literal wrong foot. So I feel like

4:17

we're kind of wasn't set up for success

4:20

to start with. Secondly, let's talk about the

4:22

branding, Rutter Rest or Read-A-Rest. Exactly. Point proven

4:24

already. If the name doesn't... It's

4:26

not very clear. I think we had

4:28

another product we reviewed that was either

4:30

the wristlet or... The glasses that became

4:32

like a bracelet. Yep. Yes. Which actually

4:34

ties into the functionality of the product,

4:36

what it's utilized for. This isn't really

4:38

highlighted as a reading accessible tool or

4:40

this makes your glasses easier to pull

4:42

from. So that way you don't have

4:44

to wear it as the granny chain,

4:46

as you call it. And I'm just

4:48

going to call it the granny chain,

4:50

Jory. It hurts my heart. There's probably

4:52

a more formal name for it. Not

4:54

the granny chain. But I think there's

4:56

a clear kind of lack of

4:59

direction around the use case of

5:01

this. So we see it even

5:03

in his branding. The stock-esque photos

5:05

that he has on the background

5:07

of a girl in a bathing

5:10

suit having her eyeglasses on the

5:12

bikini bottom. It doesn't really explain

5:14

what it's utilized for. So I think there is

5:16

a lot of really easy ways from a marketing

5:18

perspective that he could have just been like, look,

5:21

this is for readers that don't want to have

5:23

to feel the burden around their neck. This is

5:25

for kids when they're going out and playing sports.

5:27

They show photos of that product functionality, but it

5:29

just seems like a whole bunch of just random

5:32

photos kind of pasted together and a

5:34

random name tied in, a random start

5:36

to the pitch. It just set

5:39

off all my red flags. So I feel

5:41

like I was out immediately. I don't know

5:43

about you, Jory. Do you

5:45

remember back in maybe it was around 2012,

5:48

but they used to have these grayscale infomercials

5:50

often around baking equipment where they were like,

5:53

do you worry about your cake being soggy

5:55

and it'd be like someone doing something ridiculous,

5:57

like throwing the cake. out the window. Yes,

5:59

because they're like shaking something. Yeah, and it's

6:02

just like that is not what's happening in

6:04

a kitchen. Yes, the overdramatized. Like it wouldn't

6:06

work in today's market, but it feels like

6:08

it would have been one of those products

6:11

that we would have seen on those grayscale

6:13

sort of infomercials where it's like, do you

6:15

worry about your glasses falling? And it's like

6:17

literally someone throwing them out the window because

6:20

he's being really over the top with some

6:22

of these use cases, which makes it really

6:24

hard as a consumer to be like, I

6:26

really need this where if he had taken

6:29

the more authentic spin of pay,

6:31

like I wear replacements can cost

6:33

up to $500 depending on your

6:35

prescription or more and really leaning

6:37

into like it's often such an

6:39

important product that people carry with

6:41

them in their everyday. I

6:44

just wish there was more authenticity and

6:46

less infomercial in this pitch and

6:48

in the branding because I do think

6:50

that if it is this super strong

6:52

magnet, it's something that he's making himself.

6:55

I almost wish that he had brought that

6:57

in where he's like, I put so much

6:59

effort and personally create every single one

7:01

of these magnets to ensure that you

7:03

never have to worry about losing your

7:05

glasses again. I just think it's

7:08

an issue of tone setting and ultimately

7:10

it sort of felt like it was

7:12

something that would end in that where

7:14

products go to die end cap in

7:16

the checkout line of Walmart because it's

7:18

just like the branding, it's super loud.

7:20

The use cases that are displayed are

7:23

actually not use cases that your everyday

7:25

consumer, there's just to your

7:27

point a lot of disjointed efforts and tone

7:29

setting and marketing that's going on that I

7:31

think just like plus a thousand to what

7:33

you said could have just been tightened up

7:36

way before this pitch. And so

7:38

we get this like messy scramble of ideas

7:41

as the result on Shark Tank. Yeah, that's

7:43

the main route of marketing, being able to

7:45

tie into people's concerns and their fears. So

7:48

I think if he would have came

7:50

to the tank and just been like,

7:53

hey, everyone worries about losing their glasses.

7:55

I think really leaning into that fear

7:57

and we talk about vitamins and painkillers,

7:59

but essentially this is a solution for

8:01

a common frustration or pain point would

8:04

have strengthened and solidified his pitch so

8:06

much more. Because I think once we

8:08

get into the numbers, it just slowly

8:10

starts like unraveling unraveling before us. You

8:13

mentioned numbers. So he's selling these for $9.99

8:15

to $19.99 margin. Good margin. He's selling

8:20

65,000. So clearly even with

8:22

this mixed messaging, he's doing work. Yeah.

8:24

And he's making really good margins. It's

8:27

costing him only $1.05 to make these

8:29

too, if you're getting

8:32

the crystal fancy models. Which was

8:34

completely unnecessary. I'm sorry. I would

8:36

never wear a Swarkovsky crystal. Girl.

8:38

Magnetic glasses holder. Are you kidding?

8:40

That was the moment in the

8:42

pitch that was like, okay, strap.

8:44

Yeah. I was like, buy in,

8:46

where can I get one? Oh,

8:48

Jory. No, that solidified the red

8:50

flag even more for me. I

8:52

was like, what? Who in the

8:54

right mind would ask for this?

8:56

My grandmother would froth at the

8:58

mouth to get her hands on

9:00

this crystal magnet. I tell you

9:02

what. So, oh yes. Oh my

9:04

gosh. Shout out. Grandpa Rose. I

9:07

feel like sharks had the same response to them

9:09

crystals as you did. A lot of work. The

9:11

sharks are starting to see as potentially

9:15

part of scaling this type

9:17

of product. Damon's, Rob, Kevin,

9:20

Mark, way out. Part

9:23

of that though was we kind of

9:25

breezed over it. He's made 65,000. He's valuing

9:27

himself at 1

9:31

million. Yeah. And I feel

9:33

like that differential in the

9:35

numbers game really turned a

9:37

lot of sharks off. So

9:40

we did have the QVC queen

9:42

step into the ring. Lori offers

9:44

$150,000 for 65% of

9:49

the company. He tries to counter

9:51

it down to 49% or offers even a

9:53

total buyout as long as

9:57

he maintains royalties, which maybe I don't know.

9:59

I'm forgetting some of our episodes, but like

10:02

that was the first time I remember a

10:04

founder offering to totally sell the company to

10:06

the shark. Lori is

10:09

not one to be trifled with on

10:11

the business game. So just

10:13

declines all of these counter offers. So

10:15

ultimately they do seal the deal at

10:18

$150,000 for 65%, which

10:21

again, it was an early episode, but

10:23

again, we see the case of

10:26

a founder giving a majority state to a shark

10:28

to ensure that the shark tank deal goes through.

10:31

I feel like that's what's best for

10:33

the business, honestly, is to have a

10:35

shark have the majority stake. And I

10:38

think the fact when the founder was

10:40

willing to just sell the company and

10:42

just get a royalty deal signals to

10:44

me, like, okay, maybe you're not interested

10:46

necessarily in the long term for getting

10:48

this business up to scale. I will

10:50

say though, Jory, I feel like this

10:52

was not a shark response from Lori,

10:54

but it was a very snark response.

10:57

I've never seen her in any of our

10:59

segments ask a founder for 65% like stake.

11:02

I thought she was joking at first. I was like,

11:05

no, she's just like, I don't like this idea. I

11:07

don't like this founder. I'm just gonna say, let's do

11:09

it for 65%. Do

11:12

you think she'd never again offered that because

11:14

of how bad this one? Maybe. Could

11:16

be. It was season three, yeah. It

11:18

was season three. You know, it's interesting

11:20

because I feel like in the earlier

11:22

seasons, Kevin is much nicer and Lori

11:24

is much stricter. And

11:27

Rob was much more intense too, I

11:29

noticed. Yeah, Rob is super chill these

11:31

days. He's interested in founders and growing

11:33

his portfolio, but I feel like it

11:35

switches in the later season where Lori

11:37

is a coach in the later seasons

11:39

and she will often be like, maybe

11:42

you should consider. And

11:44

I feel like Kevin was that role in

11:46

the earlier season. So it's just interesting to

11:48

like go back and also just see the

11:50

difference in, of course all the products, but

11:52

like the difference in the sharks behavior because

11:54

I feel like their type of investing strategy

11:57

also evolves over time. Yeah.