Beardaments
Beardaments is exactly the type of gag product you would expect to see on the annual Shark Tank holiday episode. They are ornaments... you hang from your beard! Which is not to say that it's not cute and, as will be see, successful.
Each Beardament is a clip with a dangling bulb of gold, silver, white, or green hanging from a small chain. It's not a tough concept. If you've hung bulbs from a tree, it's exactly the same idea but in a beard. The entrepreneur used to clip things into his beard before starting the company and people always thought it was "hilarious" so he was inspired by the holiday season to make it more themed.
Strangely, this has actually met with a fair amount of success. In the first season of business, Bearaments made $80,000 in just two months. In the second year, the company saw $155,000 in sales. In the previous year, Beardaments sold $462,000 worth of little beard danglers! Naturally, with this growth curve, the entrepreneur expects to gross somewhere between $600,000 and $700,000. And, of course, the best part is that all sales are direct to consumer though the Beardaments website.
Beardaments actually has a two different sets, normal bulbs and bulbs that light up. The normal bulbs sell in a pack of ten for $9.99, costing just $1.66 per unit to manufacture. The light up package includes ten ornaments and six lights and sells $19.99 per package while costing $4.66 to make.
The entrepreneur states that 55% of men have some kind of facial hair (but cites no numbers on the how many men want to hang shit from it). He's created some videos featuring the product that have gone viral but has, otherwise, spent no money on marketing. And, to save on costs, he ships everything himself from his own basement.
The entrepreneur is looking for a shark so that Beardaments could turn into a year-round business. He believes that Beardaments should get sports licenses as well as into other holidays likes gay pride, Chanukah, and the 4th of July. He also wants to expand internationally.
Making A Deal
Our notes uses the word "swoons" over Mark's reaction to the product. But he also says that he thinks the entrepreneur should put the money into his own pocket instead of going for a shark. He also says that he doesn't see the business as investible and, for that reason, is out. Lori, likewise, thinks the entrepreneur doesn't need a shark and drops out.
The entrepreneur states that he's really not looks so much for the money part of an investment but for the partnership part, stating that he thinks with help the business could grow to between $3,500,000 and $4,000,000 in sales annually.
But Barbara says that she thinks the biggest mistake most single-product companies make is trying to expand to new markets. Obviously seeing that here, she drops out. Robert, likewise, is out.
Kevin lingers in the deal, wondering aloud how he will ever see his money again and the entrepreneur responds that he intends to pay out equity distributions. Kevin responds that the whole thing reminds him of the deal he made with Potato Parcel[1] He says that people though it was crazy but that he's actually made "a lot of money" on crazy deals. He almost passes, saying Beardaments just just "too crazy" then offers $150,000 in exchange for 25% equity.
The entrepreneur immediately accepts!
Because this was over twice as much equity as was originally on offer, Beardaments suffered a bite to its value of $900,000, or over half but, if the entrepreneur was looking for a deal, he ended up with one. Your Stats Shark would actually be really curious for a future update to this one.
Notes
- ↑ Potato Parcel was a gag deal Kevin made back in the Sixth episode of Season Eight where the company would mail people potatoes, writing whatever message the sender wanted on the potato. That was it. that was the product.