Sierra Madre Research
Sierra Madre Research is a company from Vicksburg, MS, that tries to make camping experiences more pleasant with hammocks.
The company makes unique camping equipment to lift people off of the ground in custom built hammock tents. The entrepreneur came up with idea in 2009 while in Honduras helping to bring clean water. It features built in mosquito netting. It is easily assembled through the use of color coded clips to aide in construction. The sharks were impressed by strength and with the comfort.
The hammocks cost $350/unit including the hammock, cover, and suspension system on which they claim a 62% profit margin. Sales the previous year were $208,000. In the year of the show's airing, the entrepreneurs' project finishing the year between $430-500,000 in revenue.
The entrepreneurs intend to donate a percentage of profits to help pay for clean water where it is needed.
Making A Deal
Sir Richard jumped at the chance to invest in this company and offered them exactly what the entrepreneurs were asking for in addition to donating all of his profits from the business to charity. The founders accepted the deal.
Updates
On his personal blog, Sir Richard updated readers with what had been happening at the companies he invested in while on Shark Tank.[1] One of these was, naturally Sierra Madre Research. In it, he stated that Sierra Madre Research had brought three new products to market including "the Ninox (a large flatlay hammock with a bug net attached), and two innovative products (aptly named the Hot Pocket and the Ember) that use solar energy to create heat when the evening chill sets in."
The company brought these products to market by using a Kickstarter campaign to test the waters and managed to make $2,000,000 in pre-sales. Naturally, they've also managed to secure some patents, because... America. Lastly, the entrepreneurs have continued to give back, having built two new clean water systems for villages in Central America.
Notes
- ↑ Richard Branson's Blog, "Three years on from Shark Tank", published October 26th, 2020.