Blankets have kept people warm for centuries, but they haven’t been upgraded in decades. Traditional blankets aren’t meant for every situation, but that’s not the case with Rumpl. Founder Wylie Robinson pitched his product on Shark Tank but failed to land a deal. As of 2024, Rumpl’s market cap is $15 million.
Background of Wylie Robinson
Wylie Robinson is an entrepreneur in Portland, Oregon, with a degree in Environmental Design from the University of Colorado. He has also taken online courses in Graphic Design from the University of California, Berkeley.
During college, he worked as a builder for Bergen Homes. After that, he interned as a designer at the architectural firm Gensler. After graduation, Wylie worked as a certified designer for Stantec for a year.
In 2009, he was hired as a senior designer at MKTG and held that position until he was transferred to Landor a year later. Wylie has a business partner named Nick Polinko, but not much is known about him.
Rumpl Blankets
Wylie and Nick are outdoor enthusiasts. When they went on a ski trip, the temperatures were freezing when they slept. This made them wonder why there weren’t blankets made from sleeping bag fabric that would be both windproof and debris-resistant.
Once they got home, the two sewed the first Rumpl prototypes. They used it for a few months and knew it had commercial potential. In 2013, they began selling the product to the public.
They launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000 and eventually raised over $216,000. The funds helped them create different versions of the product and use recycled materials. In 2019, cumulative sales reached over $24 million.
Shark Tank Appearance
In 2020, Rumpl was already a successful business expanding through wholesale. Wylie appeared on Season 12 of Shark Tank, seeking $600,000 for a 4% stake. For an industry with low barriers to entry, a $15 million valuation was ambitious.
Robinson’s pitch was brilliant, but the mood suddenly changed when he revealed he had $3.5 million in his bank account. Cuban became skeptical, not buying his excuse that he needed a shark to get his sports license. Wylie didn’t do a good job convincing him that he wasn’t on the show just for the exposure.
The founders offered Kevin a franchise deal in which Kevin would receive a percentage of sports licensing sales, but he was not interested. Blake McCosky and Daymond John also made a joint offer, but Wylie rejected it. Unfortunately, the deal was not reached.
After Shark Tank
After the show aired, Trump received a lot of negative comments on social media because he was on the show for the wrong reasons. Still, the company earned $1 million in sales with the exposure they were craving.
These innovative blankets are available on Amazon, Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Rumpl.com. The original version of this product has 677 user reviews on Amazon and a 4.8-star rating. They sell the NFL blankets on their own website, so they obviously know how to get a licensing deal.
According to an October 2020 interview with BizJournals.com, the company was on track to generate $8 million to $10 million in revenue per year. Despite strong growth in 2021 and 2022, they had to learn some hard lessons. In June 2023, Wylie predicted that revenue would be down 15% from 2022 because the licensing deal with the NFL was not as lucrative as expected. The problem was that the brand had difficulty selling certain teams’ inventory.
Wirecutter named Rumpl the Best Fluffy Blanket of 2024. To help fuel growth, they recently hired a new Director of Sales and a Wholesale Marketing Manager. Rumpl is currently valued at $15 million.
Categories: Shark Tank
Source: dut.edu.vn
