Shark Tank fight over Pavlok and What Happened After the Founder Rejected Kevin O’Leary’s Offer
Pavlok works by shocking you through a push of a button every time you succumb to a bad habit. This is a form of aversion therapy. PAVLOK NOW AVAILABLE ON LOCODOR. [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4mAqHn_d4[/embedyt] In late 2014, a "Shark Tank" producer reached out to Sethi to ask him if he wanted to apply to the show. The producer had noticed Sethi's successful IndieGoGo campaign for the Pavlok wristband, which through either a manual or automatic prompt shocked its wearer when performing a bad habit. Using conclusions from existing research on Pavlovian conditioning, Sethi created it with the intention of linking bad habits with an uncomfortable reaction so that the habit could cease being enjoyable. When he eventually made it to the "Shark Tank" set last September, Sethi was looking for 3.14% equity in his company in exchange for $500,000, giving Pavlok a valuation of $15.9 million. He told the Sharks that through the sale of some prototypes and then pre-orders of the $200 final product, he had sold $800,000 worth of his wristbands, which were going to ship the next week. After some more back and forth, Lori Greiner and Cuban pulled out for lack of what they deemed sufficient evidence. Barbara Corcoran went out because she didn't like the product, and Robert Herjavec didn't make an offer because even though he actually found the product interesting, he couldn't justify the $15.9 million valuation. O'Leary started his reply by telling Sethi, "You're a combination of spontaneous combustion and ADD. I'm not kidding. It's very difficult to listen to you." But then he told him that he had studied aversion therapy as an undergraduate and found Pavlok to be interesting. To avoid meeting Sethi's valuation, O'Leary offered the $500,000 as a loan at 7.5% interest for 24 months in exchange for 3.14% equity. Sethi looked wary. "This is the problem," he said. "Damn. The problem, Mr. Wonderful, is that we're not focused on the money. We're focused more on the habits ... Our biggest goal is to break bad habits around the world. Mr. Wonderful, I just can't work with you." [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyHRYh3DwzY[/embedyt] Maneesh Sethi, the founder of consumer-electronics company Pavlok, prompted this response when he explained that he had to turn down O'Leary's offer, even after the other Sharks pulled out, not because of its terms but because of O'Leary's personality. "I would take an offer from anybody besides Mr. Wonderful," Sethi said, using O'Leary's nickname. [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiaosqL0x4w[/embedyt]
SHARK TANK FILMED IN SEPTEMBER, 2015.
HERE'S WHAT'S NEW.
- Over 10,000 people have used Pavlok (See Stories of Pavlok Users)
- Pavlok has helped thousands break and change bad habits
- We've created courses to train different bad habits
- We've integrated with IFTTT (this includes Fitbit, SMS, GPS, Amazon Echo, etc)
- We've created the Productivity Chrome Extension to cut down on tabs, blacklist website