Insta-Fire Update | Shark Tank Season 7
Starting a fire for camping or grilling can be a pain, especially with the limited tools on the market today. Konel Banner and Frank Weston created Insta-Fire to help. This instant fire starter easily starts fires, charcoal, and even floats on water. What will the sharks think of this convenient product on
Shark Tank Insta-Fire Update
- Entrepreneurs: Konel Banner and Frank Weston
- Business: Instant fire-starter
- Ask: $300,000 for 10% equity
- Result: $300,000 for 30% equity
- Sharks: Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner
Konel and Frank started their pitch with a demonstration of their Insta-Fire product. They said that they perfected fire by introducing this quick-start system, which created a flame that was difficult to put out (unless you put it out with itself). For charcoal, they introduced a cellulose pouch that made it simple to prepare coals.
Made in USA *** CAMPING FIRMade in USA *** CAMPING FIRE STARTER: Naturally insulated to burn directly on top of water, sleet, snow, ice or anywhere else. Once lit, will sustain winds up to 30 mph and burns up to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and creates 120 fires for 30 packs.
When the sharks asked about their vision, Konel and Frank explained that they had three markets going within the business, including emergency fuel, fire starter, and charcoal lighter pouches.
They started 7 years before, but only had $2.1 million in sales because they hadn’t gotten the product out there until about a year and a half before filming. In the year before filming, they had $378,000 in sales. In the year of filming, they were on track to do $850,000.
They explained that each pouch of the charcoal lighter was $0.185 to make and sold for $1.49. The sharks thought this was really tough to sell because they sold for so little. Robert Herjavec said they needed to have massive volume, which made their asking investment of $300,000 for 10% equity too high for him.
Kevin O’Leary agreed that the business wasn’t worth $1 million. However, he offered $300,000 for 33.3%. Daymond John also had an offer: $300,000 for 20% of retail sales and 33.3% of online sales.
Mark Cuban is interested, too. He asked Lori Greiner to partner with him at $300,000 for 33.3% and she agreed. Lori said she could take over retail, and Mark could do online sales.
Daymond is still waiting for an answer to his offer. After some discussion, he dropped his offer to $300,000 for 17.5% retail equity and 25% online equity. This caused Kevin to reduce his equity ask to 25%. Lori also reduced her equity in her deal with Mark to 30% and tried to convince Konel and Frank that two sharks were better than one.
In a last attempt to get the deal, Kevin again dropped his equity to 20%. Konel and Frank took Lori and Mark’s deal instead, and they are very happy with it. What happened to the company after the show? We’ll talk about it in the rest of our Insta-Fire update.
We’ve got great news to share! A segment in Season 8, revealed that the deal with Mark and Lori went well, and they’ve been able to purchase the new packing machines they needed. Our Insta-Fire update research revealed that in 2022, they were making over $4 million in annual revenue.
You can find Insta-Fire on Amazon or on the official website.
Make sure to check out our company updates for the other products featured in Season 7 Episode 19. You can find them here:
For even more on companies and products, be sure to check out our Season 7 Products Page.
Andrew Smith is the founder and owner of Shark Tank Recap. He is a longtime Shark Tank fan that has been watching it for years and has seen every episode multiple times. His friends know him as the Shark Tank expert, because he can answer any question about the show! His favorite Shark Tank products are Bertello's pizza oven and Bug Bite Thing!