‘Shark Tank’ revisited: Wondercide, Beer Blizard, LovePop, Vengo, and The Good Promise
Tonight, “Shark Tank” is looking back at an episode from earlier this year, and as always with our Revisited series, we’re here to chronicle precisely how much these businesses have grown and changed since they were first on TV.
We have to be honest: In some cases, we’re not seeing a lot of progress from a couple of these companies, but that’s also because a couple of them are very simple by design or are not geared necessarily to the average consumer. (We’ll explain more below.) At the same time, we do think that a couple of others are making the most of the opportunity given to them on the show.
For the record, the update product tonight is LovePop, a greeting-card company that may be one of the better ones to come out of the past few years. With Kevin O’Leary and his Something Wonderful group of businesses, they’ve had a tremendous opportunity for revenue over the years.
Beer Blizzard – When they were first on the show, it was super-easy to be impressed with the amount of enthusiasm that they showed for a relatively simple product. In looking at where they are now, it’s hard to really gauge progress since for the most part, they are a company geared around a single product. (They do have a bottle-opener too, but there’s nothing altogether proprietary about that.) We think that they’ll continue to do just fine with what it is they sell (a disc that helps to cool drinks), but there’s nothing complicated here to discuss.
Vengo Labs – Beer Blizzard is not flashy in the sense that it’s a single product; meanwhile, these innovations on vending machines are not necessarily flashy in that we don’t think many individuals are out there buying these. This is geared more towards existing corporations / college campuses / hotels / other destinations looking to create a more efficient and useful vending-machine solution. We do still wonder about their small size, but it does seem based on our research that they are continuing to expand into new campuses. If the word gets out there enough about these, we do imagine that they could be rather profitable.
The Good Promise – There’s not exactly much to report on from this portable smoothie company, who advertised drinks-in-a-pouch that contained health benefits and multiple servings of vegetables. Their social-media accounts have remained quiet for some time, and some of their products on their official site appear to be sold out as of this writing.
Wondercide – They struck a deal with Lori Greiner when they were first on the show, and we love what they’ve been working on ever since, continuing to promote their natural flea-and-tick-removal solution for pets. If you visit their website, you can receive a wide array of information about what makes their product different from the competitors. Also, we like that they are actively promoting tonight’s episode, offering sales, and reaching out to their target audience on social media. We can’t quite gauge sales, but they are doing everything that they can to establish themselves as something more than a flash-in-a-pan elevated by a TV show.
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