S14.E11: Kinfield; Metric Mate; Wildwonder; Cabinet Health

[JTMacc99]

Quote

Tony Xu, DoorDash CEO and co-founder of the largest food delivery service in America, makes his first appearance in the Tank as a guest Shark. First into the Tank is an entrepreneur from San Francisco who presents her clean beauty brand alternative aimed at protecting you while in the great outdoors. Entrepreneurs from Atlanta introduce their innovative technology designed to help maximize your workout and progress at the gym, while an entrepreneur from San Francisco trusts her gut and hopes the Sharks do too with her modern twist on a traditional healthy beverage. Last into the Tank are entrepreneurs from New York City who want to make a dent in the growing plastic waste problem with their sustainable health care product line. 

 

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The Sharks in this episode are Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner and guest Shark Tony Xu.

 

 

[CrazyInAlabama]

Sharks-Guest is Tony Xu of Door Dash, Kevin, Mark, Lori, Barbara.

1-Kinfield- Clean beauty brand to use in the outdoors, with bug repellent, and sunscreen.  There might be a good product for the sun screen, because so many competitors are not environmentally safe.  Bug spray uses Citronella. Sunscreen and Bug line are separate products.  Repellant give 3 hours of protection time.   All sales are online, with $1.5 million in 22.   Margins are good. Average sale is $45. They still aren’t making a profit.   However, I’m sure being on Shark Tank will result in lots of new customers, and sales.  She has four offers, Kevin, Lori, Barbara, and now Tony.   Tony and Barbara bid straight equity, Kevin and Lori want royalties.

Deal is made with Tony and Barbara.

2- Metric Mate-An app to help you make progress at the gym with your strength training routine.  You can turn any gym equipment into a smart machine, tailored to you, can be shared with trainers, physical therapists, etc.   App analyzes all kinds of factors, talks to you about progress, and makes sure you do the exercise completely.   You can use it with ear buds.   Their focus is on personal trainers, but they want to make it applicable to individuals, without the trainer there.  They market through trainers.  They only have pre-orders for individuals, direct to consumer. 

I agree with the Sharks, it’s a consumer product first, and that should be their focus.  So the three partners need funding, and help with marketing.   Kevin wants a bigger percentage, to combine with his exercise equipment company.  Barbara, Lori, Tony, and Mark are out.  

They turn Kevin down, so no deal.   I think they made a huge mistake turning Kevin down.

3-Wildwonder-sparkling tonic drink to improve gut health.  Tony makes a great offer.  

Tony makes the deal for equity, and advisory shares.

4-Cabinet Health- Sustainable health care line, in plastic free packaging.  To replace the single use plastic bottles the medicine industry produces in huge quantities.  Pill bottles and containers in recyclable, refillable, and stackable bottles.   There are child safe caps too.   You buy a starter set, and then refill and reuse the bottle.  Valuation is $20 million!  They expect $14 million this year in sales.  Their goal is to replace single use plastics in medicine.   Kevin and Tony make offers.   Sellers want Tony and Kevin to join up.   Kevin and Tony consider an equity, and royalty.

(My question is how this works with your prescription service on your health plan? I could get mail order refills, or pick up at my pharmacy, but how does this work with the refillables, since it looks like you get an envelope with the refills? )

Kevin and Tony make the deal.

Tony Xu is fascinating.   Every person at Door Dash does a day of deliveries once a month, including him.   His parents brought him to the U.S. from China when he was 4.   His mother was a doctor in China, but her license didn’t transfer, so she worked three jobs.

Edited January 14, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[DEL901]

2 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

Sharks-Guest is Tony Xu of Door Dash, Kevin, Mark, Lori, Barbara.

  Reveal spoiler

1-Kinfield- Clean beauty brand to use in the outdoors, with bug repellent, and sunscreen.  There might be a good product for the sun screen, because so many competitors are not environmentally safe.  Bug spray uses Citronella. Sunscreen and Bug line are separate products.  Repellant give 3 hours of protection time.   All sales are online, with $1.5 million in 22.   Margins are good. Average sale is $45. They still aren’t making a profit.   However, I’m sure being on Shark Tank will result in lots of new customers, and sales.  She has four offers, Kevin, Lori, Barbara, and now Tony.   Tony and Barbara bid straight equity, Kevin and Lori want royalties.

Deal is made with Tony and Barbara.

2- Metric Mate-An app to help you make progress at the gym with your strength training routine.  You can turn any gym equipment into a smart machine, tailored to you, can be shared with trainers, physical therapists, etc.   App analyzes all kinds of factors, talks to you about progress, and makes sure you do the exercise completely.   You can use it with ear buds.   Their focus is on personal trainers, but they want to make it applicable to individuals, without the trainer there.  They market through trainers.  They only have pre-orders for individuals, direct to consumer. 

I agree with the Sharks, it’s a consumer product first, and that should be their focus.  So the three partners need funding, and help with marketing.   Kevin wants a bigger percentage, to combine with his exercise equipment company.  Barbara, Lori, Tony, and Mark are out.  

They turn Kevin down, so no deal.   I think they made a huge mistake turning Kevin down.

3-Wildwonder-sparkling tonic drink to improve gut health.  Tony makes a great offer.  

Tony makes the deal for equity, and advisory shares.

4-Cabinet Health- Sustainable health care line, in plastic free packaging.  To replace the single use plastic bottles the medicine industry produces in huge quantities.  Pill bottles and containers in recyclable, refillable, and stackable bottles.   There are child safe caps too.   You buy a starter set, and then refill and reuse the bottle.  Valuation is $20 million!  They expect $14 million this year in sales.  Their goal is to replace single use plastics in medicine.   Kevin and Tony make offers.   Sellers want Tony and Kevin to join up.   Kevin and Tony consider an equity, and royalty.

Kevin and Tony make the deal.

Tony Xu is fascinating.   Every person at Door Dash does a day of deliveries once a month, including him.   His parents brought him to the U.S. from China when he was 4.   His mother was a doctor in China, but her license didn’t transfer, so she worked three jobs.

He also came to make deals, unlike Paltrow last week. 

[DrSpaceman73]

No to the crappy bug spray. Studies have been done. You can hate deet if you want but it's incredibly effective and safe.  It literally saves millions of lives considering how many diseases are spread by mosquitos. 

She should use eucalyptus not citronella if she is going for effectiveness.  Only thing that compares to deet

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/30/623865454/a-guide-to-mosquito-repellents-from-deet-to-gin-and-tonic

Picardy snd soybean oil products also provide similar effectiveness to 10% deet. 

 

https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/cd/diseases/deet.html#:~:text=Products with concentrations around 10,of five hours of protection.

Edited January 14, 2023 by DrSpaceman73

[tired and hungry]

Wow I'm impressed that Tony was able to make 3 deals. He definitely seems more open to investing and taking risks unlike other guest sharks...

 

[seacliffsal]

I thought the prices were too high for the bug spray and sunscreen.  Often times I wonder just who the targeted market is for some of the products they feature. 

I guess my old-fashioned "count and remember how many reps I am doing" is too old school these days as the metric product would count and remember a person's reps, etc.  I know it did more than that.  I would think people may end up forgetting it and just leaving it in the machines.

I would definitely try the beverage.  Interesting that the presenter knew Tony.

As for the prescription packaging-I think part of the deal included the prescriptions component-they were selling drugs as well as packaging if I recall correctly.  Not sure what to think about the product.

I get so tired of the Sharks who have already declared themselves out then making comments about the 'greed' of the Sharks who do make offers.  At least Lori stopped when Kevin challenged her to make her own deal for the metric thing.  I agreed with Mark and with other posters that the metric men really should have taken Kevin's deal.  Too many presenters get caught up in how much they have invested, etc., etc., and how many mega millions they think their product is worth when, in reality, they need help and although I may criticize various Sharks they do have expertise in various products, etc.  

And I, too, really liked Tony.  Gwyneth was a snooze-fest, Tony really added energy.

[DrSpaceman73]

I was surprised mark didn't make a deal with the cabinet guys since he is running an online pharmacy now 

But I agree with him something didn't seem to add up in their numbers. 

The strawberry beverage sounded Interesting. The other flavors sounded gross. As several mentioned though it's such money intensive and crowded market. Hard to get traction. 

I liked the door dash guy, especially as the parent of a Chinese adopted child. but my daughter working in a restaurant says door dash is a pain for them to deal with.  It's a love hate relationship. They need door dash but it cuts into their profits using them.  They charge service fees to the restaurants. And dan be demanding to manage the orders. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by DrSpaceman73

[Tango64]

I keep noticing that white sculpture behind the sharks, this time behind the nice DoorDash guy, that looks like a chocolate fountain from Golden Corral. 
I’d love it if we came back from commercial and the chocolate was flowing. 

[eel21788]

23 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

Wildwonder-sparkling tonic drink to improve gut health.  Tony makes a great offer.  

Tony makes the deal for equity, and advisory shares.

I can't wait to see him lose his shirt on this one. 

He bought into a company with a value of $5M that has sold a total of 400,000 cans of beverages in 100 stores with no profit. 

I also cringe at hearing the word "probiotics." I tried taking a probiotic once, and I ended up with intestinal flora growing in my throat. It took 2 rounds of antibiotics to get rid of the proteus mirabilis and another round to get rid of the subsequent pseudomonas infection. Never again.

[eel21788]

12 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

As for the prescription packaging-I think part of the deal included the prescriptions component-they were selling drugs as well as packaging if I recall correctly.  Not sure what to think about the product.

11 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I agree with him something didn't seem to add up in their numbers.  

On 1/13/2023 at 7:02 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

(My question is how this works with your prescription service on your health plan? I could get mail order refills, or pick up at my pharmacy, but how does this work with the refillables, since it looks like you get an envelope with the refills? )

My impression is that they are only selling over the counter medications.

With 700K customers buying $14million in products, that comes to sales of $20 per customers (not per order). What prescription drugs could be sold at that price, especially if you're on multiple meds? They said the first order is usual $10-20 dollars in order to send the glass bottle to you, but if customers average $20 in total payments, that means people are buying the jars but not coming to them for the refills. 

Then there is also the logistics of getting a prescription from your doctor to their pharmacy, them having to verify that it is a legit prescription, then having to deal with your insurance carrier to get payment, then getting the medication to you in a timely manner (eg before your previous supply runs out or to get you started on a medication immediately).

I also don't think the FDA would allow repackaging of a prescription into a glass bottle that simply says "coumadin" on it with none of the other prescribing information.

As for the biodegradable envelopes they were sending the refills in, I didn't see anything that would make them childproof. How do you keep your kid from ripping into the envelope if he grabs the mail before you do? Then there are the logistics of an elderly person having to transfer the meds from the envelope into the glass bottle. How inconvenient is that?

If the whole idea is to end buying a lot of small plastic bottles, you can get most OTC meds in bulk sizes. It eliminates the waste, brings the price down, and only requires to you buy at the store very infrequently (500 extra strength generic tylenol for $8; how many people would need to buy a bottle more than once a year?)

Maybe they are hoping to branch out into prescription meds eventually; however, there are already companies who will package all your prescription meds into individual dosage packets for you and deliver them to you monthly (https://www.cvs.com/content/pharmacy/simpledose). All you have to do is find the packet in their box that says "Wednesday Noon" on it, and you know you are taking everything that was prescribed for your lunchtime meds every Wednesday. If these guys are trying to compete with that, they have a long way to go towards reinventing the wheel. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by eel21788

[DrSpaceman73]

Yes all their stuff was otc for now. 

[eel21788]

22 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

No to the crappy bug spray. Studies have been done. You can hate deet if you want but it's incredibly effective and safe.  It literally saves millions of lives considering how many diseases are spread by mosquitos. 

When they asked her how it compared to DEET, her response was "ours only needs to be reapplied after 3 hours." She really didn't answer the question as to whether or not it was as effective.

They also didn't ask her about competition. There are plenty of other organic bug sprays and sunscreens on the market. The reason they don't sell as well is because they aren't as effective. Maybe the snarks will figure that out when they do their due diligence and 86 the deal. 

With the average sale being $45 and having sold $1.5million worth (with no profit), she has made a total of 33,333 sales. The snarks were right to want royalty deals. That is probably the only way they will get their money back.

Edited January 15, 2023 by eel21788

[CrazyInAlabama]

1 hour ago, eel21788 said:

I can't wait to see him lose his shirt on this one. 

He bought into a company with a value of $5M that has sold a total of 400,000 cans of beverages in 100 stores with no profit. 

I also cringe at hearing the word "probiotics." I tried taking a probiotic once, and I ended up with intestinal flora growing in my throat. It took 2 rounds of antibiotics to get rid of the proteus mirabilis and another round to get rid of the subsequent pseudomonas infection. Never again.

 The sharks who make an offer also do a due diligence after the show, where they look at the books, and everything.   A lot of deals don't close after that phase.    I wasn't impressed with another upscale specialty drink, they've had similar drink lines on the show before, and I don't remember seeing any of them in grocery stores. 

Edited January 15, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[eel21788]

1 hour ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I wasn't impressed with another upscale specialty drink, they've had similar drink lines on the show before, and I don't remember seeing any of them in grocery stores. 

Considering how he had just been warned by everyone else, especially Barbara, what I bad idea it is to invest in the beverage space, the only reason I can think of that he went ahead with it is because he has delusions of grandeur.

[Cotypubby]

There are already tons and tons of deet-free bug spray products being sold for way cheaper than hers. I’m so sick of watching pitches for products that already exist and the only difference is the name. I want to see new inventions and things that aren’t already out there!

And yet another dumbass probiotic drink. Another product that already exists and will make no money.

[eel21788]

50 minutes ago, Cotypubby said:

There are already tons and tons of deet-free bug spray products being sold for way cheaper than hers. I’m so sick of watching pitches for products that already exist and the only difference is the name. I want to see new inventions and things that aren’t already out there!

And yet another dumbass probiotic drink. Another product that already exists and will make no money.

The worst part about this is it never gets mentioned that the product already exists. They all act as though it is a brilliant new idea with absolutely zero competition, and they will have the market cornered. How do the snarks not realize this? Do they live in caves, never see TV commercials or never venture into any store except their own aisle in Bed, Bath & Beyond?

[eel21788]

On 1/13/2023 at 7:02 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

Kinfield- Clean beauty brand to use in the outdoors, with bug repellent, and sunscreen.  There might be a good product for the sun screen, because so many competitors are not environmentally safe.

Go to any tourist destination such as The Great Barrier Reef in Australia or Xcaret in Mexico or the US Virgin Islands or anywhere in the state of Hawaii, and you will find plenty of competitors for her as well as a ban on any sunscreen and insect repellent that isn't environmentally friendly. When traveling to any of these places, it is best to buy your products once you get there for 2 reasons: you know you are being compliant with their rules, and you don't have to bring it in small quantities to meet the 100g restriction on liquids with the airlines. Unless she can get herself into these markets, she is going to lose out on vacation tourist sales.

Many other places such as Costa Rica or the Florida Everglades have environmentally friendly products available but don't have a ban on other commercial products yet; however, I can certainly see that happening in the near future.

Her best marketing strategy would be to get herself into all the tourist shops in Hawaii and the USVI at a competitive price and hope that people like it enough to buy more once they get back home. She can worry about the import/export side of the business later.

[lh25]

I use Acetaminophen often, so looked it up.  I can get a bottle of 500 for $19 on Amazon.  The works out to .04 a pill.  From what I see on their site, a refill pack of 30 is $8.  So about .26 a pill.

[eel21788]

1 hour ago, lh25 said:

I use Acetaminophen often, so looked it up.  I can get a bottle of 500 for $19 on Amazon.  The works out to .04 a pill.  From what I see on their site, a refill pack of 30 is $8.  So about .26 a pill.

I got the 500 count extra strength tablets for $8 from a King Soopers' website which comes to less than 2cents per tablet. I'm assuming it's cheaper than the one you found because it didn't include shipping, but I admit I didn't read the ad that closely.

If their refill pack only has 30 tablets and you need 2 a day, you're going to need a refill every 2 weeks. Can their service keep up with that demand or can you customize how many tablets you want per order?

Edited January 16, 2023 by eel21788

[jabRI]

Cabinet guys seemed like they were hiding some numbers, same maybe for drinks girl.  Last 2 episodes, they had a few people on who think its ok not to make any money until like 5 years down the road.  Does not sound investible to me.