Photos courtesy of Disney
Even as NineteenTwenty founder/CEO Ashley Sankar and husband/COO Zach faced concerns from "Shark Tank" judges, panelist Robert Herjavec recognized something special in the Phoenix-based clothing startup.
“There’s magic. You strike me as the kind of people that you’re going to figure it out,” Herjavec said Friday night during a taped airing of the entrepreneurial competition show.
Herjavec’s faith was backed by his offer of $250,000 in exchange for 25% equity, which Sankar accepted, making NineteenTwenty the second business from GCU’s Canyon Ventures Innovation Center to strike a deal with one of the famed sharks. The first to do so was oversized promotional hat company Noggin Boss.
“It’s pretty surreal,” Sankar said Sunday night, slightly more than five months after the show was taped. “It’s been a secret we’ve been holding for a long time from a lot of our customers. We’re happy that they’ve been able to see what we’ve been working on for over the past year.”
This could be the springboard to more success for NineteenTwenty, a convertible jacket company that won the “Most Innovative Award” at the first Demo Day event at GCU last December.
“We’ve seen an influx of sales, two times the amount of (website) sessions,” Sankar said. “We’ll see that 110% of our customers are brand new. That’s always good to see because we have a very viral footprint, but it’s nice to get in front of new customers that don’t know about our product.”
NineteenTwenty features jackets that “revolutionize the way you wear your clothing,” Sankar told the panel of sharks.
That includes taking the bottom portion of a jacket and turning it into a tote bag, laundry bag or pillow without losing warmth, or folding a windbreaker into a pillow.
Herjavec’s investment “is going to be huge for us,” Sankar said. “Our biggest thing is trying to get our product in on time. This year we were closer than we’ve ever been, so next year we believe we’ll be right on time with this new opportunity we have. We’re looking forward to leveling the playing field with our competition, being able to get inventory in sooner.”
Because of limited resources, the Sankars could produce only a limited number of jackets. They often sold out, but sales were capped. They worked other full-time jobs to support the business and themselves with no other employment overhead.
With the infusion of money, NineteenTwenty plans to hire more workers with GCU ties. In February, NineteenTwenty brought marketing and advertising major Brooke Swanson to New York for a two-day pop-up event that provided her with experience, from moving and unpacking merchandise to talking to customers.
“We would love to partner with students who are right there and are passionate and very familiar with the work that we’re doing,” Sankar said. “We like to keep things local for sure, as much as we can. We’ve been constrained. With this (investment), we’re looking forward to hiring some help, and some students have expressed a lot of interest.”
Many students showed their appreciation at GCU’s Demo Day as they acknowledged the creativity of NineteenTwenty’s products, recognized less than a year later by the producers of "Shark Tank."
“Any time you’re able to pitch your business and get amazing feedback, not only is it good – a gut check for your business – but it also gives you that motivation to go to the next level,” Sankar said. “I’d say that (the Demo Day award) put us on the right track, for sure.”
Sankar also paid tribute to Canyon Ventures Founding Director Robert Vera for his direction.
“Robert has played an instrumental role in the business and us bouncing ideas off him,” Sankar said. “We don’t have anyone in our family that’s done anything like this. He’s been a great mentor to me, especially how hard entrepreneurship is. Honestly, if you don’t want to quit several times over, are you doing something right?”
Any nerves evaporated once Ashley and Zach walked onto the stage to face the like of sharks Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, Daniel Lubetzky and Herjavec.
“Zach and I do very well under pressure,” Sankar said.
The Sankars rehearsed their pitch virtually to the production staff at least five times, Sankar said, in addition to practicing more than 60 times while driving or at home, Ashley said.
Sankar has watched "Shark Tank" for several years and has participated in several pitch competitions. But she had no inkling what questions would be asked after the pitch session, and the Sankars survived a grilling in which Cuban questioned NineteenTwenty’s profits.
“I was formerly in the military (as a U.S. Army logistics officer), so Mark Cuban is a walk in the park compared to my background,” Sankar said. “No issue there, although I’m sure some entrepreneurs who have never been put on the spot, which we were able to experience with Robert and Founders Forum (a propriety entrepreneur program) that put you on the spot. I can see how someone like Mark Cuban can be intimidating.”
But not intimidating enough to stop the company's entrepreneurial magic.
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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