Pristine
Pristine is a company from Dallas, TX, that wants to help people find the magic place between using toilet paper and wet wipes in the bathroom. As such, they have created a spray that can be applied to "double-fold" sheets of toilet paper to get the benefits of a wet wipe across a user's butt while drawing none of the negatives such as clogging the sewage system or contributing non-bio-degradable waste to the environment.
The entrepreneurs behind Pristine recommend an application of three to five pumps from the spray bottle onto "double fold"[1] toilet paper to achieve the full effectiveness of their product.
One of the entrepreneurs is a mother of three and stated that that meant she "wiped four butts on a daily basis." She had previously used wet wipes and flushed them but soon saw the error of her ways when the sewer under her yard exploded and presumably left it in an unpleasant state. Her partner in the business is her cousin who had secretly been a wet wipe user, had experienced similar problems, and had also begun having skin allergy issues from the formula within the wipes. The two collaborated to produce Pristine.
Year to date, Pristine has grossed $11,000 in sales on Amazon. A bottle costs $1.50 per unit to manufacture, wholesales for $3.50, and sells at retail for $7.
The entrepreneurs behind Pristine readily admit that they have as many as ten other competitors but claim that they all manufacture a sub-par product, claiming that all of them cause skin issues in as few as five uses.
When questioned about their $250,000 valuation, they claim that it is based on their sales thus far and that they did not want to overvalue themselves. The sharks appeared to believe that this was fair.
In terms of future products, beyond just the spray, the entrepreneurs stated that they were interested in licensing an automatic no-touch dispenser they could put their brand name on and sell as part of a "system" in which the current spray would be sold as re-fill cartridges.
This deal aired on Episode 10.10.
Making A Deal
Robert dropped out right away because he saw there being too much effort in creating the marketing niche necessary to effectively sell the product. Daymond was more specific, citing people's being uncomfortable with the subject dropped out for the same reasons as Robert. Mark, also, dropped out citing a conflict of interests with his investment into Dudewipes, a company he invested in back in the fourth episode of Season Seven. Guest shark Bethenny Frankel dropped out, whining that the bottle looked too much like hand sanitizer and taking issue with what she saw as the entrepreneurs not going far enough in terms of brand and marketing with the subject matter.
That left Lori as the last shark in the tank with the possibility of making a deal. She said that it seemed like a natural pairing with Squatty Potty, a deal she make back in the eighth episode of Season Six. She stated that Squatty Potty has surpassed $100,000,000 in sales since the deal was made. However, she worried about a potential conflict of interest and made her offer contingent on whether Squatty Potty was working on something similar or not.
The entrepreneurs attempted to get Lori to remove the contingency but Lori refused to, probably doing so because of how profitable Squatty Potty has been. The entrepreneurs then attempted to extract a promise that the Pristine name would be present on any of their products that were sold through Squatty Potty but Lori also would not make any promises and seemed to indicate that it was much more likely they would sell Pristine products under the Squatty Potty brand.
Having been able to get Lori to accede to any of their issues, the entrepreneurs still agreed to forward with the deal giving Lori 25% equity in the business in exchange for the $50,000 still contingent on what Squatty Potty might have been working on.
In the end, one of the entrepreneurs said, "[Squatty Potty's] trying to help people poop and we're trying to help clean it."
Notes
- ↑ What, exactly, the entrepreneurs mean by "double fold" remains unclear. Does it refer to dual-ply toilet paper or does it refer to toilet paper that is folded over twice? These questions, plus the number of people who stopped using it after their wet toilet paper broke and they were left with shit on their hands remains unknown.