‘Shark Tank’ preview: Milk + Brookies, Dude Wipes, Table 87 Coal Oven Pizza, EZ Pee-Z, and Roominate
Friday night’s new episode of “Shark Tank” promises a wide array of interesting ideas … at least in two fields. It’s somewhat odd that a producer thought that combining food and bathroom products into a single hour of entertainment would make for a good idea, but yet here we are.
The synopsis for this episode is below, right above our quick-takes on the products. Featured this time around are Robert Herjavec, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Barbara Corcoran, and Kevin O’Leary.
“Pitches include a self-described “dad-trepreneur” from Riverview, FL who asks the Sharks to join his “potty” and invest in a device that helps simplify potty-training; and three friends from Los Angeles hope to start a tasty trend with their baked-to-order brownies & cookies mashup. Also, an update on Bettina Chen & Alice Brooks from Sunnyvale, CA and their Roominate inspirational toy business, in which Mark Cuban invested in during Season Six.”
Table 87 Coal Oven Pizza – We’ve seen that they seem to be coming more on the tank to pitch a line of frozen pizzas, but the easy question here is what in the world makes this different. They’re far from the first New York pizza place to launch a frozen component; even Artichoke, a pretty well-known New York pizza place, has one. We love pizza and maybe we’d be a consumer if this is good, but unless it completely changes everything we know about pizza, it is hard to ultimately imagine any Shark investing in something so risky.
Milk + Brookies – The sort of thing that makes us instantly hungry. Apparently they sell some sort of brownie / cookie hybrid in the Los Angeles area, and we’re curious to see what they are hoping to get out of their time in the Tank. What makes this at least a little different than the pizza is that you’ve got a cool name, a product that at least promises some innovation, and a history of dessert products on the show getting good sales.
Dude Wipes – Male grooming products are a little bit “all the rage” these days, as are better ways to treat your bum. With a great name and branding behind this here, Dude Wipes could be the next Squatty Potty in terms of a bathroom success story. The only different and challenge here is that this is far from the first specialty “bathroom wipe” we’ve heard of. This just has a better name attached to it.
EZ Pee-Z – The first challenge this product has is simply that it also falls within the bathroom category, and specific a subsection that is already very competitive: Bathroom products. A toilet seat that seems to have some of the technology of a Russian nesting doll (i.e. it turns into a smaller toilet seat for potty training) is super-smart, but the name follows the terrible trend of using “EZ” like millions of other brands out there. The innovation to us is more investment-worthy than the actual brand, so we feel like this will come down to a patent and/or maybe someone hoping to turn this into a licensing deal with an established manufacturer.
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