Before Shark Tank
Tim
Because ice cream was practically in his blood, Tim decided to begin his own traveling ice cream business. After settling on the name Captain Ice Cream, he purchased a van and moped to start off his business. So far it has been doing decently, but he knows that in order to really get the business off the ground, he is going to need some help. So Tim took his sales pitch to The Shark Tank. There he hoped to appeal to at least one of the Sharks so that he could gather enough money to not only improve his business, but to begin franchising it as well.
During Shark Tank
Kevin O’Leary asks Tim what the average cost is to manufacture one of the Captain Ice Cream mopeds, which turns out to be around $7k. He then asks what the general sales look like and the answer he gets ends up being a real disappointment. On average, Tim makes about $200 dollars every 4 hours or so. Then Robert Herjavec asks him what kind of profit he makes. According to Tim, making $25 dollars in profit per hour is his usual rate. What he wants the $48k for is so that he would be able to make a few more mopeds and to invest in making a few electrically charged ones as well. For now though, he just has the one he brought in to present to the Sharks.
It is then revealed to the Sharks that Tim is just barely making a living off of his business, which brings Herjavec to ask if he sees a problem in trying to franchise his business when he can hardly support himself. He doesn’t seem to see the issue in it because he is still “learning the business”. However, then Kevin Harrington speaks up to inquire on whether or not he has taken the necessary steps towards actually franchising the business; like hiring a franchising lawyer or preparing the needed documents. Clearly he hasn’t considering he is only making $25 dollars an hour.
Barbara Corcoran comments on how she believes that all he is selling right now is simply a concept. She then brings into question how much she could expect to make when working 4 hours a day, 5 days a week as a Captain Ice Cream vendor. Tim argues that anyone could easily make between $25k to $50k as an ice cream salesman, but none of the Sharks appear to be too convinced by those numbers. O’Leary fails to really see where the investment opportunity is because he doesn’t think it would be that difficult for someone else to recreate a similar form of traveling ice cream that Tim has made. Daymond John comments, saying that he can appreciate the goal that Tim is trying to reach, but unfortunately he doesn’t see enough promise in it to invest.
T
Next to make his decision is Herjavec. He starts off by listing the facts that Tim has presented the Sharks with; that he doesn’t make any money, he buys the ice cream from a manufacturer, and has yet to sell even one franchise. All Tim can offer him is that he is just starting up the business, but that doesn’t do much to help him out. Herjavec still decides to keep from investing. That leaves Harrington and Corcoran, who both agree that even though he has the perfect personality to be an ice cream salesman, he came to the Shark Tank far too soon and didn’t have enough of a business to strike a partnership with them. So they also decide not to give him any money which leaves Tim with no extra money to invest into Captain Ice Cream.
After Shark Tank
After appearing on Shark Tank, the Captain Ice Cream business did not completely crumble as most would have expected. They began to offer franchising kits online for anyone who might potentially be interested in joining the Captain Ice Cream team. The first kit offered including one of the custom mopeds, a new uniform, 500 business cards, an umbrella, and a royalty fee of $2495 dollars. In total, this costed $12,495 dollars to purchase. In addition to this offer, there was also another kit that included an ice cream van as well, but priced at around $44,495 dollars. These franchising options were offered online through the Captain Ice Cream website in 2014. However, since June of 2014, the website was closed down and no longer offered any other sort of information regarding the company. One can only assume that it finally reached its downfall and collapsed.