Our Journey to Shark Tank - Part 1
We had an absolute blast pitching the sharks, but what you didn't see on camera were the three years of hard work it took to get there. Over the next three days, we'll be sharing our Shark Tank experience in a three part e-mail series.
Here's Part One:
2017
Our Shark Tank journey started in January 2017 at the Dallas Casting Call for Season 9. I was fresh off of putting in my two week notice at my aerospace job. After every coworker asked me if I was going to try out for Shark Tank, I decided to look up the information.
Coincidentally, there was a casting call in Dallas for the very next week. So, I prepped my pitch, grabbed a Single Edge razor, and headed out to Dallas. After waiting in line for an hour and a half, I was given a wristband and pitch time: 11:30 AM.
11:30 AM pitch time quickly became 1:30 PM. As time passed, the nerves grew. There was the fear of messing up the pitch or fumbling the demonstration of the unique blade loading feature of the Single Edge. My number was called: it was now or never.
I nailed the pitch, and the demonstration went smoothly. [thank goodness] I felt good about my interaction with the producer, but you never know. The next step was to wait for a phone call from a producer if you were continuing in the application process.
Long story short, I DID get that phone call from a producer. After tons of paperwork and phone calls with casting and producers, Supply was unfortunately cut from Season 9 of ABC's Shark Tank.
To say I was bummed is an understatement. However, looking back, 2017 wouldn't have been the best timing for our company, and I'm grateful for that no.
Shortly after the rejection, we went on to raise over 300K in a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new production line and launch our Single Edge 2.0 design. I was still bummed about Shark Tank, but things were starting to look up.
We finished out 2017 with a bang. We were profitable, hit a revenue goal, and - oh yeah, we grew our family. Our infertility journey ended when our beautiful, long-awaited daughter was born on November 28th, the Tuesday after Cyber Monday. Comical timing, right?
2018
While Jennifer returned to work in January, I ran Supply full-time from home and kept our 2 month old alive [see photo evidence]. I knew I wanted to reapply for Shark Tank, so I sent the updated application to producers and waited for a call.
Crickets. Crickets. Then, I received one, very concise e-mail: We wouldn't be going forward in Season 10. Again - I was bummed, but moved on. In June, Jennifer finished her career teaching high school math and became the second full-time employee at Supply.
We were all in.
In January, it was clear Supply was outgrowing our home. We were able to find an amazing office space just three minutes from our home. In March, we moved Supply HQ to a real, no-kidding office. Cue the praise hands!
As we were moving in, the time came to reapply for Season 11 of Shark Tank. This time we applied together as a husband and wife duo, sent over our updated application and waited.
A couple weeks later, as we were driving out of town, we both heard our phones ding at the same time. Shark Tank Season 11 was in the subject line. We couldn't believe it. And our journey to the tank began.
