SHARK TANK APPLICATION: FINAL THREE QUESTIONS, PART. IV.

What attempts have you made to build your business? Have you been successful?

I have built my business solely on a cash-flow positive growth strategy. I started with selling to friends and family and was fortunate to have enough of their support to be able to access weekend-markets. Now, that we have been fortunate enough again to have found support from our customers at those weekend-markets to be able to invest in the expansion of our product line to develop a product that will be better suited and received in a retail-store setting (i.e., our Atlas Travel Journals).  

In addition, we have developed a customization feature for our first product to allow it to be customized for hotels and travel groups and used as a marketing merchandise for them. So far, we have been quite successful, as we have been able to invest and build the infrastructure needed to explore these potential sales channels solely from the performance of our two products, despite being limited to sales only on the weekend, which is weather dependent.

 Why do you want to pitch your business?

I want to pitch our business because I believe that we are on the precipitous of taking our venture from a fun weekend side hustle and hobby into a full-size and legitimate business that has some serious growth potential. I’ve proven the concept, developed two high-performing and unique products in the marketplace, and am at a stage where with a little outside investment and guidance, I can grow this venture into an established growing business with excellent margins.

How did you hear about applying for “Shark Tank”?

Every one of our customers would ask whether or not we’ve been on Shark Tank or if we planned on it. But even before we had customers, in order to launch this venture, I got my old job back at UPS where I would load trucks from 4 am to about 10 am. During that time, I would listen to every business podcast I could find to learn how to best structure and build my business. One of those podcasts I listened to was How I Built This where three of the investors from Shark Tank who were kind enough to volunteer their time to share their story in an interview with Guy Raz. I was nothing more than a guy loading trucks at 4 o’clock in the morning listening to their stories and thinking maybe, just maybe my idea and I have a shot! A year later, that idea has grown into a business and that business is now ready to be presented before some of the very people who inspired it!

And, with this final blog post on the Shark Tank application, we are excited to share with all of you that our application has officially been submitted, so only time will tell us where this road will take us next!