Slumberkins Plush Toy Update | Shark Tank Season 9
Most children have their favorite stuffed animal or blanket that helps them feel safe. Taking this into account and pairing it with a book to teach children lessons, entrepreneurs Kelly Oriard and Callie Christensen brought their product, Slumberkins, to the tank. Read on to find out more in this
Shark Tank Slumberkins Update
- Entrepreneur: Kelly Oriard and Callie Christensen
- Business: Plush lovies with educational books
- Ask: $175,000 for 5% equity
- Result: No Deal
- Shark: None
Moms and entrepreneurs, Kelly, and Callie, are educators that noticed something missing from the children’s marketplace. They knew there needed to be some kind of cuddly creature that did more than just the traditional stuffed animal.
Honey Bear's story is the perfect introduction to help teach children gratitude, appreciation, and build mindfulness to all the things in the world around them. The story is crafted in such a way that parents model gratitude by speaking words of appreciation to their child—thereby deepening the parent-child bond and creating a safe and loving space from which all learning and love can thrive.
Cuddly creatures with a mission, Slumberkins is intentional in teaching children how to handle problems that come up in their daily life. The books are designed to be positive and uplifting, as well as to help children through difficult times.
Sales in the first year of Slumberkins were around $200,000, mostly derived from word-of-mouth through social media. When appearing on the show, the women predicted selling $500,000 that year. Had they been able to meet the demand for the year, the product would’ve had even higher sales. The owners want to go into retail and this is why they are in the tank.
Going into retail is the pair’s goal because they want to reach more people even if their overall profit goes down. The first shark to drop, Daymond John, went out as he had a bad experience with plush toys in the past.
Kevin O’Leary thought the valuation was too high and dropped out as well. Mark Cuban has similar concerns and also went out. Lori Greiner didn’t feel it was a unique enough product, so she dropped out.
Robert Herjavec didn’t think scaling the business was a good idea because they will make more money doing what they are doing now. This made him drop out leaving Slumberkins without an offer.
At the time of this
It also has a curriculum available for educators that goes along with the plush toys. Additionally, they have a monthly subscription option.
While Slumberkins is also available on Amazon, they are not currently in any large retail stores and still have the high price point they had at the time of appearing on the tank. The company is still doing very well with annual sales sitting around $3 million.
Despite not getting a deal on
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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!