Shark Tank season 16 episode 14 featured a pitch from entrepreneur Joel Pennington, who owns the company called Blackdot. He talked about the tattoo industry and how it hasn't seen much innovation since "5000 years."
He highlighted the issue of pain around getting a tattoo and how there is a huge demographic of people who are willing to get inked, but this is what stops them, along with the limited design choices.
Joel says that in an age of social media, people are also able to compare what the top tattoo artists are offering and wish to work with them but do not have access to them. However, this is where Blackdot comes in and solves all the issues. He reveals,
"We've recently introduced the world's first automatic tattooing device paired with an online marketplace for high-end tattoo art. Licensed designs are uploaded into our platform and the Blackdot device tattoos at a level of precision that hasn't existed until now. We use fantastically small black dots, roughly the size of a human hair as the pixels to create our tattoos. With Blackdot we've created something that's scalable."
The investors on Shark Tank were appreciative of the pitch until they heard that Joel was seeking $1.5 million for 5% equity in the company. Talking about how he pays the artists whose licensed designs are being put into the machine, Joel reveals that a small percentage of the income goes to them, making the business scalable to many artists in the world.
He also revealed that the company is venture-backed and he has raised 4.5 million dollars till now. Joel said that their supply is quite limited at the time, as he only has one Blackdot device at hand. As for the pain levels, he told Lori that there is 2 out of 10 pain, while traditionally, a person would experience 5 or 8 out of 10 pain levels.
But soon, when the sharks started to talk about the numbers, Joel fumbled and couldn't give them a clear business model and neither could provide the channel he had spent the $4.5 million money that had raised.
He has only currently decided to lease the machines to tattoo shops because it costs him $120,000 to make just one. This prompted Kevin to say,
"Joel, am I wrong in saying this? There is no business plan. You want me to give you $1.5 million for 5% to go into a journey of chaos with you?"
Shark Tank investors criticize Blackdot's business model and offer no deal to the owner
Upon questioning the worth of the business and the product itself, Joel got defensive and stated that he holds four patents under his name for Blackdot.
When Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank investor, asked about the numbers and the math that he must have done before coming in on Shark Tank, Joel fumbled once again and Lori caught the issue.
Daymond, who was interested in the product and the technology at the beginning of the pitch and has over $70,000 worth of tattoos, also got confused and opted out of the deal after much consideration.
Rashaun and Lori opted out, claiming that Joel just has a product but he has not figured out the business side of it yet and is on Shark Tank "so early." Soon, Kevin and Mark followed suit and the Blackdot entrepreneur had to walk out empty-handed from the tank.
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Shark Tank season 16 episodes are released weekly on ABC at 8 PM Eastern Time on Fridays. They are later available to watch on Hulu.
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