'Shark Tank’s' Most Successful Inventor Shares His Secrets on Real Biz with Rebecca Jarvis
Here's what Scrub Daddy's inventor has up his sleeve and belt.
— -- Some 35,000 entrepreneurs apply every year to appear on "Shark Tank."
Just a fraction of that -- 100 -- will make it to the show and, of course, some get fed to the sharks and leave without an investment.
But some go on to entrepreneurial fame.
One inventor struck gold when he first pitched his smiling super-sponge, the Scrub Daddy, on Season 4 of the show. Investor Lori Greiner promised to make a millionaire of Aaron Krause if he accepted her offer of $200,000 for 20 percent equity of Scrub Daddy. Now, three years later, Scrub Daddy has made over $75 million in retail sales -- and Krause has his sights set on his next big invention.
“The biggest problem, for me, lately, is my cellphone battery is constantly losing charge.” Krause told ABC News’ Chief Business and Economics correspondent, Rebecca Jarvis. “Now, guys, we have our wallet, our phone, our keys, we don’t carry a bag.
"And I needed a place to put a big, bulky phone charger somewhere on my body—and then it hit me. On my belt would be the greatest place to put it, if we could get the technology to get batteries into a belt.”
And so, the Ion Tech Belt was born, a product Krause developed with British tech inventor Piers Ridyard.
Fully charged, it would power an iPhone 6 for two days, and is compatible with any other USB-powered product. The belt would retail for $130, but you can’t order yours yet -- their Kickstarter campaign launches today in an attempt to raise $50,000 starts for the product.
“Why not Shark Tank this time around?” Jarvis had to wonder.
“Well, what we decided for this was we really needed to get the public’s opinion for the product,” Krause explained. “It wasn’t necessarily an investment that we need, but there are so many different iterations or permutations of batteries and belts. So, we could have brown, we could have black, we could have different stitching, we could have different amounts of capacity in them. So we really need to find out: A) are we crazy? Is this something the public wants? And B) what is the market share? What is the demand for the different iterations of the belt?”
And any chance Krause would ever return to take a dip in the infamous Tank?
“I would like to go back on Shark Tank, but when I go back on ... I’m gonna be on the other side.”
"Shark Tank" airs on ABC.