‘Shark Tank’ review: SpiritHoods, De-Boned Baby Back Rib Steak, Virtuix Omni, a Fohawx mess

After a week off for Thanksgiving (and giving people time to sleep after waking up at 3:00 a.m. for Black Friday), “Shark Tank” returned on Friday with some of our favorite products of the season. You had funny hats, virtual reality, and tasty-looking ribs! What’s not to like? We don’t even care that not all of the businesses got a deal, since there was still some entertainment throughout.

As always with our “Shark Tank” reviews, we want to make sure you have as easy access to all of the products as possible. Want to visit an individual product’s website? Then just click on the name below!

SpiritHoods (asking for $450,000 for 15%) – Personally, we had the same exact reaction to this product that the sharks did. At first, we thought that these animal-themed hoods / caps were just ridiculous, and nobody would ever possibly wear them. But, they have nearly $10 million in total sales. They know their business well, but they have some problems. It’s falling right now, and you have to figure out a way to revive it and make animal hoods cool again.

But here’s where things get really crazy. Daymond John may have a point in wanting 50% of the business for $450,000 (he has to make it worth his while), but that’s a crazy figure. Daymond went out on their counteroffer, and this was probably a good thing that they didn’t get a deal. He was going to eat them alive, and they get out of here looking pretty good and with their business still together. No deal.

Virtuix Omni (asking for $2 million for 10%) – In theory, we still love the idea of a virtual reality simulator. As a huge gamer, this is something that we dream about. But, there are still problems with the product (as we teased in our preview piece). The product is still crowd-funded, and there is no proof of concept. Also, you’re basically spending $1,000 (more than we even initially thought) just to keep this up and running, and it’s a huge use of space in the room.

In the end, this is a cool idea that is still very far away from actually being mainstream. Gamers don’t have this kind of money lying around, unless you are extremely wealthy and have a ton of space in your house. Basically, Robert Herjavec and his buddies will buy it, and that’s it for that. No deal.

Fohawx (asking for $150,000 for 30%) – in one way, we like what this product is trying to do: it’s encouraging safety by making various sports helmets somewhat cool to wear. Every kid wants to look cool … right? There is a market out there. But, at the same time, this seems to be somewhat specialized. You’re going to be looking at not only responsible parents of kids who ride bicycles, but ones who care enough to get their kids accessories for them. That’s a lot of division.

Also, their sales are low … and the “moms from New Jersey” came across as a little deluded about their success. “We need someone who can talk to China.” They literally just said that. They may work hard, but it feels like they their story was enough to be worthy of a deal. They didn’t get a deal, but more importantly, we don’t really think they came across well. That hurts their sales from the home viewer. No deal.

De-Boned Baby Back Rib Steak (asking for $300,000 for 15%) – This was a heck of a story, and a heck of a product. The biggest thing that is a victory about it is that patent that he has on a food product. That’s almost impossible to find these days! If these ribs are as good as he claims, he could go pretty far with this.

Basically, Daymond John was right to jump on this, and made an offer that was significantly better than Kevin O’Leary’s: $300,000 for 30%. While this is a licensing play more than anything else for Al “Bubba” Baker, he’s going to make a ton of money with this.

All in all, we feel very satisfied watching this entire episode. It was lots of fun, really entertaining, and there was at least one product at the end that we would actually buy. Not bad for an hour on a Friday night. Grade: A-.

Is there any product from tonight’s episode that you are interested in? Vote in our poll below! Also, click here if you want to read about some other notable products this season.

Photo: ABC