Nine years ago, our founder Rick Pescovitz, stood in front of five of the most famous investors in America and explained why the world needed a pod that could zip you into your own personal microclimate.

He wasn’t there to sell pods, exactly. He was there because he spent one too many soccer games freezing his butt off on the sidelines, watching his kids play a sport that somehow only got scheduled in sleet, wind or rain. So he built a warm, dry, zip-yourself-in pod, and he went on national television to ask the Sharks for $600,000 and 10% of the company. Here's the part that surprises people: he got not one offer, but three. Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary both came in at $600,000 for 20%. Then Mark Cuban leaned in with $600,000 for 15%, plus the option to buy another 10% down the line.

Rick shook on Cuban's deal, on camera, in front of America, but in actuality…The deal never closed.

If that sounds like a plot twist, turns out it’s just how the sausage gets made. In 2016, Forbes tracked down the people behind 319 deals from the show's first seven seasons and found that only 27% closed exactly as seen on TV. Another 30% closed with completely different terms. The rest, roughly 43%, just evaporated. One podcaster who talked to 70 past contestants put the collapse rate at two-thirds. Even Robert Herjavec, who's been on Shark Tank since day one, has said publicly he thinks only about half of deals actually close.

Mark Cuban specifically is the outlier of the bunch. His deals close less often than his fellow Sharks. Barbara Corcora, for example, closes about 60% of hers. All things considered, our experience on the show was not an anomaly. Statistically, we were right on schedule. 

And that’s what nobody tells you when you're watching from your couch, yelling at the TV that someone should JUST TAKE THE MONEY. The handshake isn't the deal, t's the opening scene. What happens next is due diligence, lawyers, term sheets, and a hundred unglamorous conversations that never make it to broadcast. Sometimes that process reveals a great fit. Sometimes it reveals that the number everyone agreed to at 9pm on the studio soundstage doesn't actually work when the spreadsheets come out.

For us, it revealed that we didn't need it. We kept building. The pods got bigger, warmer and weirder in the best way: MegaPods, DomePods, WalkingPods. We grew into a $5 million business without the help of the sharks, which is either a great redemption story or proof that sideline parents will spend almost anything to feel their toes again. Probably both.

So Rick didn't walk away with Mark Cuban's money and nine years later we’re still building pods and keeping people warm, deal or no deal, weather, or not! 

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Explore the products mentioned in this post:

• MegaPod® – Spacious, simple, and ready for every adventure.
• DomePod® – Group-size comfort, pop-up simple. 
• WalkingPod® – Weatherproof comfort that walks with you.