Luscious hair extensions, ludicrous leg extensions and the story of the world’s most expensive toilet – Holy Shito, this week’s episode of Shark Tank Australia has everything.
First up in the tank is Steph and Paul McCleary, a wife and husband team who have just disrupted an entire industry. No biggies.
They’ve come up with a semi-permanent hair extension kit that you can easily apply at home without going to the salon. It lasts in your hair for a month and then you just take it out and reapply it yourself.
It’s taking off, with over 50,000 followers on social media and they’ve already sold over $750,000 worth of extensions in less than a year!
The Sharks gasp their wows while doing the hardcore figures in their notebooks. From early into the pitch to the demonstration, which works beautifully, the Sharks want in.
The Shark men gasp when they find out an extension kit costs an average of $526, while the women in the room barely flinch, knowing it would cost about $2,000 for just as much “quality” hair.
Showpo founder Jane Lu loves that they’re disruptors but what about copycats? Of course there are copycats, and they’re just around the corner. Davie Fogarty steps in and tells us that the same thing happened to him with the Oodie.
But Steph and Paul are all over it. They’ve even seen one pop up in the past month, and get this… they’ve watched the new player’s every move and made some cunning Google plays to cut into their traffic.
Sales for Muse Hair are growing exponentially (it’s still lovely to use the word ‘exponentially’ without referring to COVID), and now 50% of buyers are returning for more.
Jane offers $175,000 for 30%. Other sharks think that’s ‘greedy’.
Davie beat all his Oodie copycats so he knows exactly where to go next. He brings out his blow dryer and blasts Jane’s offer out of the tank with an offer of $200,000 for 20% equity.
Maxine Horne matches Davie’s offer and Steph and Paul’s smiles are as big and bold as the hair extensions they sell.
Jane matches!
But cunning gazillionaire Rob Herjavec is up to something. He opens his pitch with: “Do you think I’ll add value to it?” Of course, they reply, in the US.
Jane bites. “The United States is our second biggest customer. Showpo sells more in this space than Australia. We don’t need Robert!” Rob glares. Them’s fightin’ words.
What’s Rob’s special move? He wants to follow. He wants to take their guidance. He wants whichever Shark they pick to lead the charge while he goes halfsies with them.
Whispering time.
Paul announces they had only one Shark in mind when they entered the room and it was Davie. So it’s yes to Davie.
“And me?”
Yes, and you, Robert!
Hair today, their business flies tomorrow.
We love it when the Sharks small talk while waiting for the next pitch. This chat is amazing.
On seeing the next pitch was toilet-related, Rob, the classic rich-guy, boy-toys-guy, tells a classic rich-guy, boy-toys-guy story. Fitting out one of his homes, he decides to find the world’s most expensive toilet.
They were from Japan and they cost $25,000 so he installed them throughout the house. The problem was there were too many buttons and nobody knew which button flushed the things. He eventually had to handwrite instructions on each of his thrones.
Rich people, huh. They’re just like us. ?
Joe Pittorini and Aldo Werjutina invented Loogeenie, the world’s best…toilet brush!
At the age of 69, Aldo was the world’s oldest plumbing apprentice. Years into his new profession he found that everyone seemed to have crappy toilet brushes.
He’s drinking with his mate, Joe, a lobster fisherman, and they come up with their life-changing idea – a strong toilet brush with cleaning tablets that people have to buy every few months.
Joe starts to demonstrate, putting his heart and soul into brushing deep into a clear plastic toilet’s s-bend, and…. SNAP.
The brush breaks in half.
Disaster. Or is it? Joe explains that’s the reason they need help. The first batch of brushes were snapping and now the real work starts in getting it right and then marketing to bring their brushes into stores.
There was a Kickstarter and the business has since sold 2,000 brushes, but then we find out how much they’ve already invested: $507,000 of their own money. That’s a lot of lobsters.
The Sharks look shocked and concerned. Half a million dollars on a nice-looking brush that’s only made around $30,000 so far.
Maxine dishes out the tough love, saying: “You have to stop. You’re not going to get your money back, and you’re stuck in that cycle of being obsessed about the product, because you see what it does, but nobody else does”.
Just stop. It’s going to impact your life, she pleads.
Fellow Shark Nick Bell loves the idea but as he’s said in previous episodes, he’s all about the execution of ideas and this is “pretty poor”.
Rob thinks it’s a high-quality brush but nobody wants to buy a subscription for their brush. He’s out.
Joe pleads: 25% equity for a carton of beer? Sorry, no.
It was hard to watch.
Christmas’s $150-a-kilo lobster season can’t come fast enough.
Gen from Coast of Gold wants to share her culture with all of us. When she was eight, she moved from Ghana, away from her mother, to live with her grandmother in the UK. Now she’s on Shark Tank, pitching her range of cheekily named, traditionally made African sauces and condiments.
The pitch starts with two drummers and a dancer. They sing a quick traditional tune, the dancer does some ludicrously high jump splits and before we know it, they’re pushed back into the elevator never to be seen again. It felt like art.
The sauces are called ‘Shito’. Yes, Shito. Shito is ‘pepper’ in the Ghan language of Ghana. And yes, Gen is leaning into the joke. The very hot sauce is even called ‘Holy Shito’. Genius.
Food tasting time and the Sharks, because they’re founders, go for the “blasphemously hot” Holy Shito sauce. It’s not as painful as last week’s electric shock demo. They loved it.
Gen runs a fantastic pitch. Fun, high splits, story, answers to every question, and a great-tasting product.
Also, if I put on my marketing and design expert hat, I can tell you that her company’s branding is excellent throughout.
As Rob says, “if anyone can turn Shito into gold, it’s you”.
The problem is that the Sharks’ consensus is that the $80,000 investment she needs is nowhere near enough to get jars of Shito into every Australian pantry.
Gen will keep going, and I reckon I’ll buy a jar on the weekend.
Luke and Liam from CupKings confuse and befuddle our usually unflappable Sharks. They want a $50,000 investment for 10% of their environmentally sustainable party products company.
They came up with the idea when they were looking for beer pong cups soon after Perth banned single-use cups. What if we made metal beer pong cups? What if we sold entire kits?
Since then they’ve generated over $360,000 in revenue with $21,000 in profit – that’s over 65,000 cups sold!
It’s demo time and that means Rob vs Davie in beer pong. Rob gets frustrated with the bouncing ping pong balls and piffs 20 at Davie in one go. Classic Rob, the Sharks’ oldest little boy.
We find out Luke and Liam have always had e-commerce hustles on the go, and this is just the latest.
Why cups?
The sharks are confused. Is this about sustainability, or is this just a non-disposable beer pong game with 12 metal cups and balls for $25- $65?
The beer pong guys struggle in trying to convince the Sharks into thinking they’re more than beer pong guys, so the Sharks drop, one by one.
Rob gives it one more try. What are you, fun or sustainability?
They mention the beer pong tournaments they’ve organised.
Beer pong tournaments?
“Let’s run beer tournaments on college campuses!”, our favourite boys-toys-guy giddily decries.
He offers $50,000 for 25% equity, and it’s a fun-and-done deal.
And for our CupKings, it’s a dream come true.
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