{"id":45481,"date":"2023-10-20T15:43:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/south-australian-entrepreneur-scores-a-60000-deal-on-shark-tank-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:43:51","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:51","slug":"south-australian-entrepreneur-scores-a-60000-deal-on-shark-tank-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/south-australian-entrepreneur-scores-a-60000-deal-on-shark-tank-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"South Australian entrepreneur scores a $60,000 deal on Shark Tank – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Bernie Sharrad is hoping to reduce the incidence of skin cancer worldwide with CapHat, a detachable cover for a cap or hat that provides full sun protection.<\/p>\n

Appearing on Channel Ten\u2019s Shark Tank last night, Sharrad negotiated his way to two $60,000 loans from sharks Steve Baxter and Andrew Banks, with Banks having a future option to take a 15% equity stake in the business.<\/p>\n

This money will only be available when a large purchase order of CapHats is organised, something that Sharrad is working very hard towards.<\/p>\n

Upon entering the tank, Sharrad had initially asked for an investment of $120,000 in return for a 25% stake in his business, which valued CapHat at $480,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been slowly building as a business,\u201d Sharrad tells SmartCompany<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do find it difficult being a dad at home and having to ring people to seek orders all by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting it all on the line for his business, Sharrad told the sharks he has mortgaged his house and has not yet taken an income from CapHat\u2019s sales.<\/p>\n

At the time of his pitch to the sharks, 1,800 CapHats had been sold, with a further 1,200 being sold since then.<\/p>\n

Sharrad has also developed a hoodie with a built in CapHat, hoping to appeal to younger markets.<\/p>\n

Working on the business for over 18 months full-time, Sharrad says he went on Shark Tank because he\u2019d gone \u201cas far as I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only so far you can go on your own, we needed that funding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Three of the sharks dropped out after hearing about CapHats relatively high manufacturing costs, which are the result of Sharrad wanting to keep production local.<\/p>\n

Since the pitch, he says the costs have been lowered to a figure closer to the sharks\u2019 desired $3, but it\u2019s not quite there yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at manufacturing in China, but we want to keep [CapHat] at a UPF 45 rating, and their material quality wouldn\u2019t allow that,\u201d Sharrad says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew linked me to a winner from last year, Tracy from Rescue Swag, and she connected me to a Fiji based manufacturer who\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharrad has also found customers have been much more responsive to Fijian-made goods, escaping some of the stigma associated with Chinese products.<\/p>\n

As CapHat is yet to fulfil a large retail order, Sharrad found the Chinese bulk ordering method did not work for his company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to order 10,000 CapHats, but we don\u2019t need those massive numbers right now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Although Sharrad says he was happy to secure the $120,000 joint loan from Banks and Baxter, he believes the business could have expanded more with an equity investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t show this on the pitch, but I had plans for exhibitions so we could get more exposure,\u201d Sharrad says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know we could sell more, it\u2019s just the funding is lacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since pitching to the sharks, Sharrad has been exploring overseas expansion, and received a prestigious Edison Award in April this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe received an Edison Award for innovation in New York a few months ago, and that\u2019s really given us the confidence to keep going,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t really believe it, Andrew came along and there were people like NASA and Cisco there, I felt so humbled in their company.\u201d<\/p>\n

CapHats target market of fishing and outdoors is made up of about 7 million customers in Australia, but he estimates there are over 40 million in the US alone.<\/p>\n

The product is stocked in over 20 fishing and outdoors stores across Australia, the largest of which being Aussie Disposals.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Sharrad says the target market is \u201crealistically much bigger\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had interest from areas like lawn bowls and tradespeople,\u201d Sharrad says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used mine the other day to mow the lawn, so there\u2019s definitely potential for the product.\u201d<\/p>\n

For hopeful entrepreneurs trying to start up like Sharrad did, he says to keep in mind you \u201cdon\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUse your network to talk to people, never be afraid to ask,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, know how to manage your finances, always think about your finances no matter what.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an absolutely incredible ride, who knows where it\u2019s going now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was first published on SmartCompany.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernie Sharrad is hoping to reduce the incidence of skin cancer worldwide with CapHat, a detachable cover for a cap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,22,23,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}