S14.E04: Storage Scholars; Expedition Subsahara; Ghia; Woosh

[JTMacc99]

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First into the Tank are entrepreneurs from Austin, Texas, who introduce their all-inclusive solution to make moving to and from college as easy as ever. An entrepreneur from Florissant, Missouri, presents her handmade, African-inspired home-decor line; while an entrepreneur from Los Angeles hopes to give all the highs of life without the booze with her natural nonalcoholic beverage. An entrepreneur from San Francisco is in the business of improving air quality with his smart product designed to bring clean air into homes on an all-new episode.

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In a "Shark Tank" update, Oliver Zak from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and Selom Ogbitor from Dallas and their investor Mark Cuban give an update on Mad Rabbit, their tattoo aftercare line made with all-natural and organic ingredients.

The Sharks in this episode are Mark Cuban, Daymond John, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner and Robert Herjavec.

[CrazyInAlabama]

Season 14 Episode 4

Sharks are: Mark, Daymond, , Kevin, Lori, and Robert

1- Storage Scholars-make moving to and from college easier. You go online, open an account, and the company packs up your belongings, and store them until you need it.   Then they deliver them.  $559 packing, storage for 4 months, and delivery.  It costs the company $199 to do this service.   33% margins. Both creators did this, and their college was paid off.    They have no debt.  This year $1.826 million to date. They started at Wake Forest.     The universities put this on their websites.   Their workforce is made up of all students.  I bet there's a basic service, and then packing for you, etc. is extra.   

They make the deal with Mark.   

 2--Ghia Beverage- Non-alcoholic beverage.  Robert, Kevin and Lori like it. Margins are good. Sales are 75% online, and made $2.5 million, but lost $1 million by stocking inventory.    The Sharks point out the problems getting into the crowded beverage space.   Lori and Daymond can’t even drink this.  Robert drops out, now Kevin wants 10%, instead of Robert’s 5% for the same money.  Chef Wonderful offers, but no deal. She should have accepted Robert’s offer, it was the money she wanted, at the percentage. 

No deal.  (I fail to see why anyone should invest in this, there are many competitors).

3--Expedition Subsahara- African Baskets-founder is from Senegal, West Africa.  Handcrafted storage baskets, practical and artistic too. Sofi Seck is so impressive. All are handwoven, made of sweet grass, elephant grass, and other grasses.   95% online.    Sales this year are $900k, 60% margins.     The master weavers teach the baby weavers, and will become master weavers too.   $160k in sales last month.   Problem is customer acquisition.   I think being on Shark Tank will help create a huge demand.   She wants to go to retail, I think that’s a terrible idea.    She has no debt, uses only her own money.    Mark tells her to stay a sole proprietorship.   I’m hoping Daymond will make a deal, but he doesn’t. Customer reviews are great.  I looked at her online store, her baskets are lovely. 

No deal.  

4-Woosh- Smart Air Filter-Home air filters that says when it needs to be changed. Filter is two-part, filter and filter frame, when it needs to be changed the filter tells the company, and they send you another refill, it’s connected to WiFi.  It’s in two parts to make the filter center easier to ship.    Winston. founder left Google to do this. Unfortunately, they are pre-revenue.  They partner with Emerson, with their smart thermostat.  They have an add-on that partners with your home smart thermostat. They sell online frame and one filter filling for $99.    Margin is 33%.   Founder will partner for licensing deals with the huge filter companies.  People with heat pumps that use circulating air year round will go for this.  

Kevin makes a royalty/equity deal.

Update for Mad Rabbit Tattoo aftercare line.   They’re doing great, have an expanded line, sell worldwide and have a deal with Inked magazine.  

I've read that Mark makes the most deals, after due diligence is done,   I've read a lot of Shark deals fall apart after the Shark looks at the books, and sees if what the seller says is true.   

Edited October 17, 2022 by CrazyInAlabama

[hifihifi]

1. The Filter guy made a stupid deal with Kevin. I can't believe he did it.

2. While I hate Robert, I do give the guy props for not falling for anyone's Sob Stories & just saying no!

3. I didn't get the appeal for the non-alcoholic beverage. I drink a Coca Cola when I'm eating in a Restaurant, Robert really screwed that poor girl over though he did offer her what she asked. I think she wanted to hear Kevin's offer because he has more expertise in that area & she probably would have taken a deal with him if his offer matched Kevin's.

4. The Storage Company would have been great for me when I was in College.

Edited October 15, 2022 by hifihifi

[LakeGal]

Ghia woman refused an offer for exactly what she asked for.  I always suspect these people are only on the show for the free publicity.

[nlkm9]

Did not appreciate ghia ladys snark about robert not allowing others to speak. She screwed up bigtime. 

[KaveDweller]

I think it is obnoxious when the Sharks make the person accept their deal without letting others speak. Robert does this a lot, it makes me suspect he is insecure and needs to be people's first choice.

For all that Ghia woman knew, Kevin was going to offer her a better offer than what she asked for. It has happened. It would be bad business to accept an offer without letting the other person speak.

[bilgistic]

Mark does it, too, with his "shot clock". Someone else pointed out on these forums that the Sharks would never do business like that themselves.

Edited October 16, 2022 by bilgistic

[eel21788]

16 hours ago, hifihifi said:

The Filter guy made a stupid deal with Kevin. I can't believe he did it.

There had to be some reason that he was desperate for an influx of cash that didn't get mentioned on the show. I can't think of any other reason he would take a deal that would never prove to be beneficial to him.

[eel21788]

17 hours ago, hifihifi said:

I didn't get the appeal for the non-alcoholic beverage. 

Ditto. I don't drink alcohol, but I don't drink fruity mocktails, either. She said the purpose was somehow supposed to save you from embarrassment when everyone else was drinking. I'm unclear exactly how that would happen. Then again, I've never been embarrassed when I wasn't drinking alongside everyone else, so I'm obviously not the target market

17 hours ago, hifihifi said:

Robert really screwed that poor girl over though he did offer her what she asked. 

Robert didn't screw her over. She screwed herself over, or possibly, it could be said that she screwed Robert.

She said she couldn't go over 5% on the equity (which means to me, she never should have come on the show to begin with), or she would lose her controlling interest in the company. Robert was the only one willing to offer her that, and she still thought she was going to get a better deal elsewhere after Kevin was the only other snark left in.

Has anyone ever turned down a deal when they were offered exactly what they came in asking for? That is someone with absolutely zero business acumen or just plain dumb. Why would anyone want to do business with her after that?

[dogdays2]

My thought on the Ghia woman is that she didn’t want to deal with Robert. That’s her right, but the alternative could be no deal, which is what happened.  I think some of the “take my deal now or I’m out” is for drama.  It’s TV, not real life.  

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, bilgistic said:

Mark does it, too, with his "shot clock". Someone else pointed out on these forums that the Sharks would never do business like that themselves.

Yes, Mark does it often, he always come off badly with it. He would definitely never let anyone else do that to him.

1 hour ago, eel21788 said:

Ditto. I don't drink alcohol, but I don't drink fruity mocktails, either. She said the purpose was somehow supposed to save you from embarrassment when everyone else was drinking. I'm unclear exactly how that would happen. Then again, I've never been embarrassed when I wasn't drinking alongside everyone else, so I'm obviously not the target market

Yeah, I don't get how it would save you from embarrassment because people would be able to see what you are drinking and may even ask what it is if they can't tell. I tend to think people are jerks if they give someone a hard time for not drinking. I don't drink either and most people are fine about it.

She kept saying non-alcoholic beverages were the future, and I don't really see that either. I think there will always be a market for both alcohol and non-alcoholic stuff.

[eel21788]

22 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

She kept saying non-alcoholic beverages were the future, and I don't really see that either. I think there will always be a market for both alcohol and non-alcoholic stuff.

Maybe she thinks the US will reinstate Prohibition (because you know how well that worked the first time)!

[LuvMyShows]

On 10/14/2022 at 9:10 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

1- Storage Scholars-make moving to and from college easier. You go online, open an account, and the company packs up your belongings, and store them until you need it.   Then they deliver them.  

Before I came here to read the recap, I couldn't remember their company's name, and wanted to look them up so I could see if there's any evidence of how they're doing. I was doing Google searches to try and find it, and never did, but I did find their competition, called College Boxes.   I noticed that College Boxes doesn't pack up your stuff for you, but then when I went to Storage Scholars' website, it looks like they don't pack your stuff either!  Guess they made the change to get rid of that service either because of liability or because it was so labor-intensive.  They also need to work on their SEO, given that their site never came up in my many searches.  That's surprising to me, since Mark is big on that kind of thing.

[I Want My MBTV]

On 10/15/2022 at 8:01 PM, KaveDweller said:

Yes, Mark does it often, he always come off badly with it. He would definitely never let anyone else do that to him.

Mark will do it before any of the other Sharks have had a chance to say anything not when there's only one Shark left and he's offering exactly what the person is asking for.  I can't stand Mark but sadly I think a lot of the entrepreneurs come on here specifically for Mark.  You can always tell when everyone else but Mark has spoken the they'll be like "is there anyone else?  Have we heard from everyone?" while desperately staring in his direction.   Robert's made a lot of offers where people go with someone else for one reason or another.  I think that's why he was "now or never".  Either way I don't think it's fair that they rush the people to go with the first deal on the table.  I greatly miss Dragon's Den.   It seemed like the Dragon's always encouraged the entrepreneurs to hear from everyone.  I also don't remember them all talking over each other or making a bunch of comments about another offer when they've gone out (can't stand that!).

On the college storage thing - I was really surprised that no one mentioned that that was a seasonal business.  Or am i missing something?  Also, if you're using current students to do the work aren't you always having to attract and retrain a new workforce?  How much stuff are college kids bringing these days?  

[DEL901]

44 minutes ago, I Want My MBTV said:

Mark will do it before any of the other Sharks have had a chance to say anything not when there's only one Shark left and he's offering exactly what the person is asking for.  I can't stand Mark but sadly I think a lot of the entrepreneurs come on here specifically for Mark.  You can always tell when everyone else but Mark has spoken the they'll be like "is there anyone else?  Have we heard from everyone?" while desperately staring in his direction.   Robert's made a lot of offers where people go with someone else for one reason or another.  I think that's why he was "now or never".  Either way I don't think it's fair that they rush the people to go with the first deal on the table.  I greatly miss Dragon's Den.   It seemed like the Dragon's always encouraged the entrepreneurs to hear from everyone.  I also don't remember them all talking over each other or making a bunch of comments about another offer when they've gone out (can't stand that!).

On the college storage thing - I was really surprised that no one mentioned that that was a seasonal business.  Or am i missing something?  Also, if you're using current students to do the work aren't you always having to attract and retrain a new workforce?  How much stuff are college kids bringing these days?  

I saw an ad for Dragons Den’s new season and it looks like Robert may be back?

As for Mark, while I hate the ultimatums, 1) according to analysis, he is the Shark most like to go through with the deal once the show is over, and Robert was near the bottom in the % of deals that actually closed, so I get why people want to work with him.   2) Mark’s pharmacy venture.  That buys him a lot of good will from me (even though I’m not in the US). 

[30 Helens]

3 minutes ago, DEL901 said:

As for Mark, while I hate the ultimatums, 1) according to analysis, he is the Shark most like to go through with the deal once the show is over, and Robert was near the bottom in the % of deals that actually closed, so I get why people want to work with him.  

I think half of them just want Mavericks tickets. Or the bragging rights to say, I’m working with Mark Cuban! He is the highest profile investor, outside of the Shark Tank fandom.

I have always hated Mark’s countdown clock and refusal to allow competing offers. I find it rude and a little bullying. Anytime someone tries to pressure me with a now-or-never deal, I walk away. If it’s truly a good deal for both sides, it should hold up to a little contemplation or competition. 

Another thing about Mark: It always bugs me when he says “and for those reasons, I’m out” after giving only one reason. Yes, I’m a little nitpicky that way.

Things I do like about Mark: His stance against pseudoscience. I also get the sense that he takes a personal interest in his investments and is relatively hands-on, although that could just be for show. 

[KaveDweller]

3 hours ago, I Want My MBTV said:

Mark will do it before any of the other Sharks have had a chance to say anything not when there's only one Shark left and he's offering exactly what the person is asking for.  I can't stand Mark but sadly I think a lot of the entrepreneurs come on here specifically for Mark.  You can always tell when everyone else but Mark has spoken the they'll be like "is there anyone else?  Have we heard from everyone?" while desperately staring in his direction.   Robert's made a lot of offers where people go with someone else for one reason or another.  I think that's why he was "now or never".  Either way I don't think it's fair that they rush the people to go with the first deal on the table.  I greatly miss Dragon's Den.   It seemed like the Dragon's always encouraged the entrepreneurs to hear from everyone.  I also don't remember them all talking over each other or making a bunch of comments about another offer when they've gone out (can't stand that!).

Yes, Mark is worse with not letting other Sharks speak. 

I actually thought it was crappy of Kevin to not speak up and tell her to go with Robert. He could have said, I'm not going to give you as good an offer so you should take Robert's deal. Of course, Robert still may have been annoyed about that.

[eel21788]

On 10/16/2022 at 8:44 PM, LuvMyShows said:

 I noticed that College Boxes doesn't pack up your stuff for you, but then when I went to Storage Scholars' website, it looks like they don't pack your stuff either!  

Where I went to college all the dorms had a storage area where you could keep all your stuff over summer vacation for free. All these people would provide would be carrying the boxes up and down the stairs for you. Surely, you can find a friend or two to help you with that and save yourself $599. (My first thought was that this was for rich, spoiled kids; I never would have been able to afford this when I was in college)

On 10/17/2022 at 1:30 PM, I Want My MBTV said:

How much stuff are college kids bringing these days?  

I think it is more about all the stuff you accumulated during the school year that you don't want to have to lug home then bring back when the dorms open again in the fall.

Edited October 19, 2022 by eel21788

[CrazyInAlabama]

Where I went to college, you had a certain amount of time to move your stuff to the new room, if it was for summer school, or from summer school to the new dorm for fall semester, and you could lock what fit on your side of the closet.    If you went home for the summer, then you had to take everything with you.      I suspect some of the school the company works with are the very expensive colleges, and they only had a few hundred students per school that used their service, not everyone.     It would be good for students who lived far away, to store their stuff over the summer.  Where I went, we had a lot of international students, and they had to store their belongings over the summer.    

[KaveDweller]

3 hours ago, eel21788 said:

Where I went to college all the dorms had a storage area where you could keep all your stuff over summer vacation for free. All these people would provide would be carrying the boxes up and down the stairs for you. Surely, you can find a friend or two to help you with that and save yourself $599. (My first thought was that this was for rich, spoiled kids; I never would have been able to afford this when I was in college)

I think it is more about all the stuff you accumulated during the school year that you don't want to have to lug home then bring back when the dorms open again in the fall.

When I went to college 20 years ago, I had an entire car full of stuff that I brought to and from school every year. Bedding, towels, clothes, computer, printer, TV, lamps. It adds up. I knew some people who brought up mini-fridges and microwaves as well, but my college rented them out and brought them to the dorms for you, so that was one less thing.

[Vermicious Knid]

My school had no storage and no rentals, everything had to be cleaned out on the last day of the semester. After my freshman year we rented a storage space, so everything had to be lugged over for the summer, and then dragged back to campus once school started. Including a dorm fridge. None of the Sharks brought up Pods or U-Box that will do the same thing. U-Box even pitches itself to college students on their website. I tried plugging in a sample and the box, moving and storage was $80 a month, which is only $240 for the three months of summer break. The only advantage Storage Scholars might have is permission to load directly from the dorms. The other services are available nationwide.

[DrSpaceman73]

On 10/19/2022 at 6:21 PM, eel21788 said:

Where I went to college all the dorms had a storage area where you could keep all your stuff over summer vacation for free. All these people would provide would be carrying the boxes up and down the stairs for you. Surely, you can find a friend or two to help you with that and save yourself $599. (My first thought was that this was for rich, spoiled kids; I never would have been able to afford this when I was in college)

I think it is more about all the stuff you accumulated during the school year that you don't want to have to lug home then bring back when the dorms open again in the fall.

Really you could store your stuff?  Not true for me but it was 30 years ago. 

The college storage I thought was a good idea. I just wonder where they store all that stuff. 

None of the others appealed to me.  Shipping baskets from Africa?  No.  The drink I didn't get at all. 

Air filter seems way too high tech and not needed.