S01.E03: Beyond The Tank: Episode 103

[NikSac]

If bikini guy were really serious about his bikini business he would have found a way to make it work outside of the Shark Tank bump.

 

I think he was wayyyy more serious about throwing a big blowout party than he was about the business. At least that was the impression I got.

[Saylii]

ChordBuddy guy would have better set up with Lori, who has the ability to take one-off products and get them to sell well under her Shark Tank line. He will be chasing that education money for a long time without any big payoffs. I bet he only gets $5,000 to test it in one school, if they don't make him pay for the first school himself. I guarantee you he doesn't see much of the estimated $2.5 million. It also seems like he's going to have copyright issues with the name MathBuddy. He would have done better trying to develop Buddies for other instruments, as well as developing a music book line adapted for ChordBuddy. Even though Robert was there and it was probably reenacted, it surprised me how little he seemed to control the company.

Mix Bikini was rebranded as Versakini and is now being run by the designer, not Frank the Salesman. I bet Barbara still owns 25% of Versakini and is making something off the investment, which is why she wasn't as bitter as she could be about the whole thing. The segment seemed to highlight Frank's failures, not so much the company itself. I guess it goes back to "investing in the person, not the product" that we always hear the Sharks say.

The bagel rebranding was stupid. It should have stayed Bantam Bagels, then the name of the product should describe it. Like Bantam Bagels Chocolate Cake Stuffed Sweet Balls. But Bagel Stuffin's Chocolate Cake is stupid and doesn't invoke anything about pastries, or muffins, or cakes, or bread. It makes me think it's a weird bagel flavor that I wouldn't be interested in trying. I thought Lori was too obsessed with the name and too obsessed with making it pop for a QVC commercial.

[nobodyyoucare]

 

trying to develop Buddies for other instruments, as well as developing a music book line adapted for ChordBuddy.

If you go to the chordbuddy site you see they do have a line of books for the chordbuddy. 

[Saylii]

If you go to the chordbuddy site you see they do have a line of books for the chordbuddy.

Huh, I guess I missed it then. I only saw the instructional stuff in their combo pack. I didn't see any way to buy it seperately.

Edit: I found it, finally after googling for it seperately. My phone browser couldn't handle the drop down menu interface and never let me get past the first set of menus.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Saylii

[slowpoked]

Just saw this episode. I can't believe Barbara got hoodwinked pretty good by that bikini guy. Isn't most of the sharks' first question - "what are you going to do with the money?!" As the deal closed, I'm sure Barbara was well aware of what the bikini guy was doing prior to his shark tank debut. And the guy planning a big NYC party didn't ring alarm bells for her? I can't believe she just went on with the plan without asking where is the money for the party coming from? Or how come you're throwing a huge party without any sales yet? 

 

Bantam Bagels - I went to their website prior to the name change, and they already had the words 'Mini-Stuffed Bagels" around the word "Bantam Bagels" on their original packaging, so I'm not sure what Lori's problem is. Even if you don't get it quite the first time, their logo already says it. I liked Bantam Bagels much more - it has a unique sound, and it sounds more like something that you can build a brand around. Bagel Stuffins is meh. And really, Lori was able to get a Notice of Allowance in a matter of one day?! Oi!

 

I visited their site again after the Beyond the Tank airing and it looks like they came to a compromise - it's now "Bagel Stuffins by Bantam Bagels".

[LeGrandElephant]

Just saw this episode. I can't believe Barbara got hoodwinked pretty good by that bikini guy. Isn't most of the sharks' first question - "what are you going to do with the money?!" As the deal closed, I'm sure Barbara was well aware of what the bikini guy was doing prior to his shark tank debut. And the guy planning a big NYC party didn't ring alarm bells for her? I can't believe she just went on with the plan without asking where is the money for the party coming from? Or how come you're throwing a huge party without any sales yet? 

 

I could possibly believe that when Barbara got invited to the party, she thought it would be a much much smaller affair. But I can't believe that she wasn't shocked and angry the second she showed up and saw it, rather than the next day. 

 

 

I visited their site again after the Beyond the Tank airing and it looks like they came to a compromise - it's now "Bagel Stuffins by Bantam Bagels".

 

 

Oh good. That's along the lines of what a lot of people here suggested. As long as they keep "by Bantam Bagels" they can always change the product name in the future, and add more product lines. 

[nobodyyoucare]

 

But I can't believe that she wasn't shocked and angry the second she showed up and saw it, rather than the next day.

If she was shocked and angry she knew to hide it from the public and the cameras. Parties like that are often quite common upon the launch of a product, company etc and are often a marketing/pr expense since often the press is invited to the party. 

[LeGrandElephant]

Sure, she hid it at the time. But I think if it were Kevin in that place, he might not make a fuss at the actual party, but when talking about it later on Beyond The Tank, he would have said something like "they wasted my money, they're dead to me" not "well, the party made me feel a little weird, and I realized later it was a waste, but I still have a soft spot for the guy". And any of the other guys would have said "you made a huge mistake" in place of "you're dead to me."

Edited May 19, 2015 by LeGrandElephant

[cooksdelight]

I guess Lori's not aware that the word "bantam" means small. When I saw them the first time, I knew why they were calling them Bantam Bagels. Because they were smaller versions of a regular bagel. Should have left well enough alone.

[Amarsir]

The bagel rebranding was stupid. It should have stayed Bantam Bagels, then the name of the product should describe it. Like Bantam Bagels Chocolate Cake Stuffed Sweet Balls. But Bagel Stuffin's Chocolate Cake is stupid and doesn't invoke anything about pastries, or muffins, or cakes, or bread. It makes me think it's a weird bagel flavor that I wouldn't be interested in trying. I thought Lori was too obsessed with the name and too obsessed with making it pop for a QVC commercial.

Here's the (probably mock-up) box:

 

and it looks like they will label the other lines "Cake Stuffins and "Muffin Stuffins", the last of which I can only imagine is purely for the name. (What would you put inside a muffin?)

 

I'm also not confident they can go big with the $6 a box price, but I can see certain supermarkets carrying it.

[cooksdelight]

As a graphic designer, when you have to put the words "mini stuffed bagel balls" with an arrow.... that right there should tell you your name isn't doing it's job. The photo shows what it is. But they aren't confident enough in the name that people will "get it" so they go with the cheesy type, arrow and starburst.

I hate starbursts. Absolutely hate them. Of any type. It's a long story, but I had a senior designer who loved them and the pages we'd layout looked like crap because of that.

[readster]

I'm waiting for the tiny rooster to show up saying: "You'll love them!" 

[designing1]

 

 

As a graphic designer, when you have to put the words "mini stuffed bagel balls" with an arrow.... that right there should tell you your name isn't doing it's job. The photo shows what it is. But they aren't confident enough in the name that people will "get it" so they go with the cheesy type, arrow and starburst.

I hate starbursts. Absolutely hate them. Of any type. It's a long story, but I had a senior designer who loved them and the pages we'd layout looked like crap because of that.

 

cooksdelight, as a fellow graphic designer, if I could I'd give you a thousand thumbs up on that comment. Though I must say, if you're going with a name as low-rent as "Bagel Stuffins'" you might as well go whole hog and use cheesy typefaces (and way too many different typefaces, to boot), starbursts (and you really don't need a reason to hate those, but I can relate!), and arrows. If their intention was to take what I thought was supposed to be a bit of a boutique/trendy item and rebrand it to look like cheap, mass-produced crap, well, mission accomplished. 

 

As a lifelong NYC resident and bagel purist, don't get me started on "Real NYC Bagels". Just because they have a NYC store doesn't make these real NYC bagels, what with their being stuffed balls rather than actual bagels.

 

 

I'm waiting for the tiny rooster to show up saying: "You'll love them!"

 

Please let this happen! Actually, I'd kind of like to see someone -- someone small of course, because: bantam -- in a rooster suit handing out samples on the street. Just be sure he keeps his distance from the Ranch One chicken.

[cooksdelight]

I didn't even delve into the many typefaces, another no-no. I wonder if they got one of Donald Trump's graphic designers from Celebrity Apprentice to do the packaging?

[bilgistic]

My eyes!

[theatremouse]

Ugh, so my first reaction to that box was "So.Many.Exclamation.Points." and then I had to dial back and realize, no, only one actual exclamation point, but all the other bullshit they put on the box, with the 72 fonts and the arrows and the starbursts and the blah blah blah is the emotional equivalent of putting "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in the subject line of an email.

Both make me want to throw things.

[bilgistic]

I'm pretty sure Lori drew that in MS Paint immediately after she came up with "Bagel Stuffins".

[marny]

I'm just surprised there's no photo of Lori and her smirking face sitting on a bagel or something.

[Jamoche]

"Stuffed Sweet Balls" and all its variants makes me think South Park. "Bagel Stuffins" - I expect to find that next to the Hot Pockets and pizza rolls. And is "veggie cream cheese" actually vegetarian "cheese", or cream cheese with veggies? I think the product labeling regulations might hit them there. I can't tell from the picture what percentage of that is filling and what's bread - it doesn't look like enough bread to get a real bagel texture.

 

And I'm not paying for a 60-song chord book without seeing a list of all 60 songs; I've been burned on chord books that seem to assemble their songs based on what rights they can get - the selection is so random that I'd be surprised if anyone liked more than 5-10 of them. Plus I'd like to see how the chords are marked - if it's just color-coded to the Chord Buddy, it's useless.

[theatremouse]

Most cream cheese is naturally vegetarian? Cream cheese doesn't usually involve gelatin, so if it's just cream/milk, that's fine. It's not vegan though, which might be what you're thinking of? That said, "veggie cream cheese" I would assume means cream cheese that has vegetables in it. If they meant vegan cream cheese it'd probably say that explicitly, or "soy cream cheese" or whatever it were made out of instead.

Edited May 30, 2015 by theatremouse