The Cut Buddy
The Cut Buddy is a product created by an entrepreneur in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, designed to help home groomers cut their hair correctly. The product is a plastic cutting guide that users can hold along their hairline or beards to shape the cut as well as to prevent taking off more than was intended.
The entrepreneur, originally from St. Lucia, made the first Cut Buddy from one of his father's file folders fifteen years before. When a girlfriend accused him of never finishing anything he started, he was motivated to return to the idea and has been selling the product since 2016.
It was stated that The Cut Buddy has received a patent.[1]
In 2016, the entrepreneur moved 60,000 units for $700,000 in gross sales. Part of that was helped by finding affilliates on YouTube to help demonstrate and pitch the product.
The product sells for $8.50 per unit wholesales and $14.95 per unit retail. According to the entrepreneur, each Cut Buddy costs $2 per unit landed. 20% of the product's sales have been wholesale while the rest have been direct to consumer, either through Amazon or through the product's own site.
This deal aired on Episode 9.11.
Making A Deal
Daymond saw the value in The Cut Buddy and offered up a deal for the $300,000 the entrepreneur was asking for in exchange for 20% equity. The represented twice the amount of equity the entrepreneur was originally looking to give away and worked out to a bite of $1,500,000 from the original value of the company.
Updates
In the seventeenth episode of Season Ten, Shark Tank featured an update on The Cut Buddy. The show stated that the product, after airing, initially went viral but was then quickly knocked off. Even so, the company earned $115,000 in sales for 2017. Additionally, Daymond helped the entrepreneurs form a partnership with Andy's Clippers that included the company selling the Cut Buddy along side their other products in exchange for a royalty. According to the show, the Cut Buddy sold 10,000 units in stores and brought in $800,000 in revenue in under a year. It was also, apparently, successful enough that Andy's Clippers is now selling the Cut Buddy as a standalone product on store shelves.
Footnotes