SnapClips
SnapClips is a company and a product by a 19-year old founder from Chicago, IL, that makes it both safer and easier for lifters to secure their weights to a bar.
Functioning much like a snap bracelet from the 80's or 90's, the SnapClip snaps onto a bar and wraps around it, blocking a weight from falling off. It is secured into place by a silicon wrapper that provides friction against the steel. However, this friction merely holds the weights into place, the demonstration shows that it is just as easy to purposely remove as it was to put on.
The entrepreneur stated that he came up with the idea as a Junior in High School and that he has a patent.
The SnapClip retails for $29.99 for a pack of two (which makes sense considering a user would need to secure weights on both sides of the bar) and costs $8.50 to produce per unit.
SnapClips have been on the market for two months and has grossed $6,500 in sales.
This deal aired on Episode 9.20.
Making A Deal
The entrepreneur came to the tank not only to get funding but also for the shark's marketing expertise and to use their connections to license the product to manufacturers in the space. Though he is currently enrolled in college, he stated that he was willing to postpone school in order to pursue the business.
Alex Rodriguez was the guest shark on this episode and, as a professional athlete who presumably has lifted weights at least once in his life, was very interested in the product. He teamed up with Mark and Lori to make an offer of 30% to the young entrepreneur with 10% of the deal going to each shark.
Even though this deal represented a bite of a full 50% from the initial valuation of $1,000,000 on the company, the entrepreneur couldn't resist making a deal with two of the biggest sharks and a baseball player some people still remember.
However, as part of the deal, the entrepreneur had to pledge to remain in school.
Analysis
The sharks frequently stress that entrepreneurs don't dedicate themselves fully to their start ups, often taking them to task for not yet having quit their full time jobs despite the fact that they might have children, sick relatives, or whole families to support (as they did with Sanaia Apple Sauce in Season Ten). And yet this company is run by a 19 year-old who not only has none of these things but has years to pursue something as risky as starting a business and to return to school later if it doesn't work out and the sharks insisted that it was important that he stay in school.
School is certainly important, no one will ever argue that. However, if the business does take off and does require the founder's attention, why not allow someone who can risk everything and still have those be relatively low stakes to do so? Instead, the entrepreneur who may be getting an education that has nothing to do with his business will be saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt that would actually make taking the risk of starting a business more difficult in the future.
College is not and should not be a barrier to success. Even your humble Stats Shark dropped out of college to pursue opportunities that were available to him that would not have been there had he continued in his studies and he has never looked back. Making this a condition of the deal is ridiculous moralizing on the importance of education by three people whose education was the least important part of their success.