The star investor on "Shark Tank," Kevin O'Leary a.k.a Mr. Wonderful is known for sniffing out the most lucrative deals on the show. However, what fans may not know is that the ruthless businessman O'Leary also loves cats. So much so, that he declared himself "The King of Litter" after investing in a dating app made for cat lovers.
In season 13 of Shark Tank, Leigh Isaacson pitched a special dating app called "Tabby" alongside her brand managers, Nathan "The Cat Lady" Kehn and Sterling "The Trap King" Davis. Their ask was $300,000 in exchange for 20% of the business.
The team shared that both Kehn and Davis had been dumped by women because they had cats. They further shared data that proved how men get fewer matches on dating apps if they have cats in their profile photos.
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“I don’t get this cat shame,” said Shark Lori Greiner, who is also a self-professed cat person.
Hence they made Tabby exclusively for cat lovers who are looking for similar people to date. Issacson shared that she also founded Dig, the dog person's dating app which was about to be acquired by a dog food company.
Issacson added that in 2018, she founded Dig along with her sister, whose relationship failed because her partner wasn't a dog person. Thus, exactly like Dig, Tabby aimed to do away with such mismatches by bringing all cat lovers to one place. Leigh walked the Sharks through the app, showing them the profiles, cat section, and community space.
Coming to the numbers, Leigh shared that they started the app with a $50,000 grant from The Million Dollar Dating Project. Initially, they launched the app on the project’s platform, but since it was not made for mobile, they faced a lot of problems.
However, they managed to get 31,000 users and $43,000 in revenue. Tragically, days before their appearance on Shark Tank, the platform terminated their contract. Fortunately, they had another app rebuilt from scratch, and ready for launch in a few days.
Mark Cuban was the first to share his opinion. According to him, growing Tabby had a long way to go and a mammoth task in front of them. However, he felt that it was too hard to grow the app, and chose to drop out. "You're out of gas," Cuban said. Robert Herjavec said that he likes that they’re connecting people, and spreading love but it wasn't for him. Guest judge Nirav too agreed with Cuban citing similar problems with growing the app.
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O’Leary jumped in citing his previous experience with cat focused businesses. He shared that he owns a stake in Basepaws, a company that sells at-home cat DNA tests. He shared that he helped scale Basepaws to a $40 million valuation, up from just $2 million when he first invested. “I have become a cat-lover because it has a lot of cash flow,” O’Leary said.
He finally made an offer of $300,000 but for 30%, adding that having the database of Basepaws will help them go a long way. Leigh countered by offering 25% equity which O'Leary promptly rejected. Greiner then chimed in saying she isn’t a “techie” and although she hates to say it, she liked Kevin’s deal more. Leigh then turned to O'Leary and said, “Kevin, I think we have a purrrfect deal.”
After the team walked out, Herjavec commented that O'Leary would help the business a lot and he can even promote the business with a picture holding a hairless cat.
O'Leary said he was building a cat empire. “I’m the king of the litter," her proclaimed.
