Shark Tank season 10's premiere episode showcased innovative business ideas and pitches that impressed the investors. BoxLock founder, Brad Ruffkess, pitched his product to intrigued investors seeking $1 million for 5% of his business. The app-enabled padlock was to solve the problem of worried customers who were concerned regarding their deliveries safely being delivered.
The solution to this problem, as mentioned by Brad was to use BoxLock which can scan the delivery package's barcode and notify the customers that their package has been delivered. Despite having a strong idea, the Shark Tank investor, Mark Cuban, wasn't confident in placing an offer for this product, he explained the reason why he backed out:
"There's so many problems that you have to solve with so many constituents that it's going to cost you hundreds of millions of dollars and years in order to get it done. There's no path least resistance that gets you to a profitable company that I can see and so for those reasons I'm out."
Other Sharks shared their valid concerns regarding the valuation as well.
Shark Tank's Lori Greiner gave an offer to BoxLock founder Brad Ruffkess
On Shark Tank, Brad was unable to justify his valuation in front of the investors and couldn't showcase the proof of his product working in the market. Brad explained that having delivery packages safely dropped off has been an issue that he has been trying to solve and the solution is a boxlock.
The app-enabled padlock came with a box, for it to work, all the delivery driver has to do is scan the barcode on the package which will automatically open the box and notify the customer that their package has been delivered. Brad explained:
"This is a really complicated problem and it needs to be solved. We're in market, we're actively working with the carriers, and it is all up and running."
However, sharks were not satisfied with the valuation. The guest shark, Jamie Siminoff, was the first one to back out from placing an offer stating that the valuation didn't quite add up. Kevin O'Leary on the other hand wanted to hear "real facts" including the amount of sales, he mentioned:
"Why are you valuing the business at that price right now? We dealing facts today, Real facts like I have this amount of sales, these amount of patents, I mean real facts that we can take."
Meanwhile, Mark Cuban wanted to know if the lock was to be bought with the box. Cuban expressed his doubts regarding the profitability of the company as Brad had mentioned that he planned on providing training to the delivery riders to use his product. Cuban backed out stating there were a lot of problems with the business model that he still had to fix, he said:
"I want to make sure I understand, I have to buy the box?"
Shark Tank investor, Lori Greiner, was the only shark who placed an offer of a $1 million loan at 8% interest with a royalty. She also invited Jamie to join her but Jamie stated he was still out. After not being successful in convincing Lori with his counteroffer, the BoxLock founder left without a deal.
New episodes of Shark Tank air exclusively on ABC on Fridays at 8/7c.
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