Mirmir
Mirmir is a company from Los Angeles, CA, that makes a photo booth for parties and high end events. Their goal is to make every photo taken within their booths to look great.
The company was created by two entrepreneurs, both professional photographers. Forced to disclose what differentiates their company from many others like it, the entrepreneurs said that the secret to their great photos was the lighting and the software. The software auto-corrects otherwise imperfect images.
In three years of operations, the company has grossed $4,000,000 in sales. Thus far, they have made $400,000 in gross profits, pre-tax, a year doing over 500 events a year. Each machine costs $22,000.
The core of Mirmir's business are events doing over 500 a year. However, the entrepreneurs claim that they cannot meet demand. They appeared in the tank because they need money both to create an effective marketing campaign and to purchase more machines to meet the demand they already have as well as any future demand.
The entrepreneurs claim that any investor could see their initial money returned to them in a twelve to eighteen month timeframe if they were able to double their business.
This deal aired on Episode 9.05.
Making A Deal
It turns out that Robert had actually engaged the company for his own wedding and was impressed with their service. While the asking amount was $350,000 for 10% equity, Robert doubled the offer to $700,000 for 20% to have a bigger share within the business. And the entrepreneurs accepted.
The net result was that the company walked out with a shark and the same valuation making the company a rare example of a deal with no Shark Tank Bite.
Analysis
The Stats Shark doesn't think that this was a great business for Robert to invest in. Firstly, the Stats Shark has been to several weddings that offers the "photo booth" experience. And you know what? Every one is like the last. A photo booth. While Mirmir may offer better photos than the traditional photo service, that is a short term advantage. There are more than a few companies out there that specialize in perfecting photos and it's only a matter of time until they begin to engage in licensing their intellectual property to third parties to leverage their platforms. (Instagram... anyone?)
The cost of the booth also seems way too high given the cost of a traditional photo booth and the fact that there is really no way to scale these to mass produce them. Each one will need to be individually constructed meaning that the costs of expansion seem fixed.