Swimply Pool Rental Update | Shark Tank Season 11
Swimming pools are expensive, and sometimes we don’t use them enough to justify the cost. Entrepreneur Bunim Laskin saw the success of Airbnb and wondered why there was no market for private swimming pool rental. Thus, Swimply was born. Will the sharks be able to swim up on a deal during the Season 11 pitch? Find out in our
Shark Tank Swimply Update
- Entrepreneur: Bunim Laskin
- Business: Private pool rental a la Airbnb
- Ask: $300,000 for 5% equity
- Result: No deal
- Shark: None
Bunim Laskin is a fast-talking entrepreneur from New Jersey. When he saw his neighbor build a pool that she never used, he was inspired to ask her to use it. In exchange, he’d pay for some of her upkeep costs. Soon, the whole neighborhood was using her pool, prompting Bunim to start Swimply.
Essentially, this private pool rental service functions like Airbnb. Pool owners select times and dates to rent out their pools and decide on hourly rates. People looking to swim in a private pool pay per hour to use them. It’s simple, and the company has earned $990,000 so far. They started with four pools, but they have quickly grown.
This growth has resulted in $215,000 in gross sales and $42,000 in profit for the year of recording. That’s not bad, considering the entrepreneur only has to keep the app and website running. Pool owners do most of the work, and Swimply takes 15% from hosts and 10% from swimmers for all transactions.
Robert Herjavec speaks up first. He is impressed that the company already has investments, considering that they don’t have a lot of revenue.
Lori Greiner thinks it’s a great idea, she just doesn’t want to invest in it. Barbara Corcoran is in the same boat, but she doesn’t like the entrepreneur. He talks so fast that she has a hard time keeping up. All three of them are out, leaving Kevin O’Leary and Mark Cuban.
Mark sees value in the idea but doesn’t know if other people would use it. This is another product that falls prey to the ‘two market problem’, where they have to attract people who own private pools AND people who want to swim in them. He eventually drops out because the company’s valuation and projections (which Bunim claims is $289 million by 2022) are too unrealistic.
Likewise, Kevin takes issue with the valuation. To his credit, it does sound a little farfetched. Unfortunately, with this ruling by Kevin, all five sharks are out. Swimply doesn’t get a deal. But how is the company doing now? Read on in our
Swimply has actually done well for itself since appearing on
Swimply now has 125 active markets in the US alone. They managed to book between 15,000 and 20,000 reservations monthly. Bunim hasn’t reported on his hard revenue numbers, but he does boast that it’s ‘seven digits per month’ in a recent TechCrunch article. Perhaps Swimply didn’t need a shark after all!
You can find the other company updates from Season 11 Episode 15 here:
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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!