‘Shark Tank’ founders walked away empty-handed — until a guest judge chased them down backstage
Children are forever discouraged from dirtying their hands because what follows next is any parent's nightmare- the request to clean up and wash. However, two inventors, Amanat Anand and Shubham Issar, created a fun product that encouraged healthy behavior among kids. They invented - SoaPen, a soap designed to mimic a crayon for children aged between 3-6 years. The fuss-free colored soap comes in the shape of a pen, and kids can enjoy drawing on their hands before finally washing it off. Anand and Issar walked into 'Shark Tank' with the expectation of raising $100k for a 10% stake in their company from the millionaire investors.
"Parents have to ask multiple times a day, let's face it, kids don't like stopping what they're doing to wash their hands, and when they do, they don't wash properly," the duo explained to the 'sharks'. They developed the lifestyle health product in response to their growing concerns about protecting children from fatal infections and preserving hygiene after the pandemic. "We're using food-grade colorants, and we are sulfate free, coconut-derived, so it is a very gentle and mild formula," the Parsons School of Design alumnus further explained. The duo then moved on to the business part of their product and revealed that they initially started in a beta phase in 2019. "Lifetime, we've done 85,000 in sales. At the time, we hadn't raised any funding and had no marketing budget, so we were definitely very lost."
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The women entrepreneurs were then featured on Real Simple Magazine, which eventually got the word out, and their product got buyers. "We sold out of our entire inventory.
It was 5,000 units that would be sold out in three weeks," they admitted. The duo went on to mention that their product was priced at "14.99 for a pack of three, and manufacturing a single pack of three costs around four dollars and 30 cents. Blended profit margin across all channels was 40 percent." However, they lacked marketing sources and were solely relying on running paid ads on Amazon. Their near miss in sales and marketing abilities left the 'sharks' confused, and the investors started backing out one after the other.
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Robert Herjavec, Kevin O'Leary, and Lori Greiner left the table after citing marketing issues. On the other hand, Mark Cuban sounded generous with his sales pitch before dropping out, too. "Look guys, you're not too early, but you haven't found a way to sell it yet, I would get on every message board on Facebook, every group I can find on Nextdoor and everywhere, posting pictures, posting videos and telling them about your product that's a 24 by 7 by 365 job yeah you just have to eat, sleep, and breathe it and be relentless." Anand and Issar were now left with guest shark Nirav Tolia, who had earlier expressed dissatisfaction with the product. The pair turned to leave after failing to close the deal, but Tolia followed them and made an alluring offer.
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Offering mentorship, Tolia demanded "$1 royalty on every unit sold" until his investment was fully recovered. The women entrepreneurs couldn't resist and unexpectedly closed the deal. As per Looper, SoaPen has advanced to creating an Amazon storefront in 2022, and the brand continues to make a splash in the market after its 'Shark Tank' appearance. Despite less well-known information on Tolia and his role, the business remains operational.
