‘Shark Tank’ review: Morninghead, Packback Books, Chapul Cricket Bars, Garage Door Lock
If you have a flair for the random, then you will appreciate very much this episode of “Shark Tank” tonight. Literally, you have everything from food made out of crickets to a product that literally you put on your head to get your hair wet. We laughed, we cheered, and we shook our head a couple of times at what the sharks were interested in.
We had fun, and as always, you can check out all of the individual websites for some of the products by clicking on the names of them below.
Chapul Cricket Bars – We still buy what most of this guy is selling when it comes to crickets being a sustainable protein, and we also understand that this is environmentally-friendly and he is a good salesman. The problem? It is still a bar made in part out of insects, and trying to convince America that crickets are actually something that they will want to eat.
During the presentation, the thing that we found the most insane was the evaluation, but during the course of it, a light bulb when off in Robert Herjavec’s brain: He may not have any interest at all in the energy bar, but he loved that there was a flour that was in some ways proprietary to the company thanks to its FDA approval. The funny thing is that Robert coming back in helped helped Chapul get a better deal from Mark Cuban. The company traded 15% to Mark for $50,000, a far more reasonable deal.
Garage Door Lock (asking for $275,000) – This is a case of a product that we suppose fills a need … but not one that is going to excite consumers at all. The inventor is completely boring, and the word “inventor” really does apply here. This guy is not an entrepreneur, and not someone who is going to go out there, market his product, and do anything else. No matter how good an invention this is, no shark has the time to work with him and show him how to do every little thing to market the business … or do they?
We were absolutely shocked that there were offers on the table for this, especially for two people like Daymond John and Robert Herjavec. To be fair, Robert tried to take this guy to the cleaners in exchange for all of his hard work, while Daymond’s $275,000 for 35% of the company was something that he was much more interested in.
Morninghead – Do we think that this is an amazing product? No, but it is one of those crazy things that we could see a bunch of college students buying who are too lazy to hop in the shower to wet their hair. It didn’t deserve the utter mockery from the sharks that it got. Max from the company was a great salesman! He also seems to have a ton of knowledge about how the internet works, and while this is not going to be a billion-dollar brand, he could make good off of his appearance on the show. No deal.
Packback Books -As we said this in a recent preview article for this episode, we absolutely love this product. It is not for every college student out there, but this is an opportunity for some students out there to save a pretty hefty amount of money by renting an ebook of a text that they would barely use. Also, there is a benefit for the publisher in that this takes a big bite out of that used textbook market, which they make little to no money in. This is one reason why these books are so expensive in the first place.
The major issue with it, and the reason that we would be hesitant to make a deal, is that it takes so much time for this product to really be at a scale where it is useful. Understandably, most sharks do not have the time for this … but the good news is that Mark Cuban was interesting. After a hilarious flub that nearly cost them $50,000, Cuban ended up getting 20% of the company for $250,000. A great deal all around.
Also, we like to think of ourselves as a winner in this one, too. Interesting products, and great negotiations. Grade: B+.
As always, share in our poll below if there are any products from this week’s episode that you would have been interested in picking up. You can also sign up now to get more updates courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter, or click here to see some other highlights from this season.
Photo: ABC