‘NoPhone’ Creators Believe Their Plastic Phone Replica Will Help Beat ‘Phone Addiction’
The founders of "NoPhone" describe it as the "first fake phone company."
— -- Less than 0.2 percent of businesses that apply to compete on "Shark Tank" make it on air.
Chris Sheldon and Van Gould, are scheduled to appear on tomorrow's episode to tout their self-described "fake phone company." It may be the wackiest business proposal ever.
The $10 "NoPhone" helps Americans with their phone addiction by giving them a thin piece of plastic that replaces their real phone.
"People spend too much time with their phones,” Sheldon explained. “The NoPhone can help you have no phone.”
Instead of being distracted by your phone during dinner or meetings, you can feel the cool, reassuring plastic in your hands, according to the founders.
The two founders met as grad students at Virginia Commonwealth University and they created the product with their friends Ingmar Larsen and Ben Langeveld.
Sheldon and Gould say they've shipped more than 4,500 NoPhones across the world, including territories they had never heard of, like Réunion, an island off the coast of Madagascar.
NoPhone is just a side business for the founders who work full time at advertising firm Barton F. Graf in New York.
"It was amazing being the first fake phone company on 'Shark Tank,'" Sheldon told ABC News. "We have created something that is so technologically advanced, it transcends technology itself. Giving up your phone isn’t easy. The NoPhone helps you have no phone."