Our Shark Tank Story
Brush Hero airs on Shark Tank Sunday January 21st at 9/8 central!
This was a long road!
Jen (our Marketing Director) and I had "Shark Tank App" on our to-do list for over a year, but we were all super busy building the brand. My partner Glenn thought Shark Tank might be a distraction from that...and also a long shot. Bob (our other partner) was very gung-ho about Shark Tank and we prettily easily convinced Glenn that we should go for it. Couldn't hurt, right?
For our first audition video, I flew from where I now live in Utah to meet up with Glenn and Bob in Washington DC.
We filmed at Bob's house, which also happens to be where we filmed all of our promo videos. Driving through his neighborhood you can see all of our old props...even the sweet yellow dog who gets a Brush Hero bath!Alas, the helmet was a total mess! Microphones didn't pick up his voice and - worse - he couldn't see the laptop we had set up as a teleprompter. You could also see Bob and I filming in the reflection from the visor. I'm still kinda jealous. I want a fighter helmet! Glenn...maybe for my birthday?
After the video, it was a long time before we heard back. We realized that one of the filming opportunities had already passed, so we were pretty disappointed. Then BANG - it was on again!
We needed to film an actual "intro" pitch to try and sell the producers on the idea but we had no time for me to fly out so we had to hack together a split screen. It's blurry because...it was. STILL not videographers.
Once again, we waited and hoped! And then we learned that we'd made one of the final rounds!
Even so, we wouldn't let ourselves consider it a done deal. Even when we had actual plane tickets, we remained cautiously optimistic.
Welcome to L.A.!
So we can't talk a lot about the process for obvious reasons, but it was amazing...and intense...and occasionally boring. There was a point where we decided that we needed all sort of "extra" stuff for the Brush Hero to clean so I conscripted a friend and headed off to Home Depot to buy weird stuff! I think that I walked away with a shovel, a BBQ, a hose, a hose reel, a sink...and a pumpkin. I imagine that the stores near the studio actually see a lot of this last minute frantic shopping.
We weren't allowed to bring staff and we aren't, as a company, located anywhere close to California. We were adopted by the mom of Marketing Director Jen, who happens to live not too far from the studio. She brought provisions and hugs, despite the air of mystery surrounding our visit to La La Land! Hi Pam!
We met a lot of cool people from the other companies...but of course, none of us could talk about what went on during our time in the tank! So there was a weird sort of surface-layer conversation going on during what was certainly the "biggest moment" for all of our businesses.
Shooting day...
Well, I *really* can't talk about what exactly goes down in the Shark Tank, but it was every bit as intense as it looks! We tried hard to be both sharp businessmen AND nice guys...because we ARE! We tried to focus as much as we could on our awesome product! Hopefully we pulled that off and I sincerely hope I don't soon end up writing a whiny blog about the unfairness of editing on reality TV...
I'll see it for the first time on Jan 21st...so, we'll all find out how it went together. Can't wait!