Ryan Carpenter is from Portland, Oregon, and is the founder of Moberi. Carpenter lives an active lifestyle, and originally looked to found Moberi with just a $500 investment. Since then, he has come to be fully invested in it and has dedicated many more resources towards it. Moberi is the first bicycle-powered smoothie and juice cart. Moberi seeks to follow up on the wave of healthy trends, combining both exercise and a product – the customer peddles on a bicycle that is attached to a rig which blends the smoothie directly before your eyes.
Ryan is asking for $50,000 for a 15% stake in Moberi.
Ryan entered the room super-ecstatic, offering free smoothies right off the bat. Damon and Matt both
accepted, blending their own smoothies using the rig. Ryan then brought out a fresh batch of smoothies for all the other sharks to enjoy, all of which received positive comments from the sharks.
The sharks then enjoy their smoothies, and move on towards the more logical matters of things. They immediately approach Ryan about his capacity, indicating that five customers could cause a jam – there is only two bikes he uses, and one at each stand. The sharks then ask where Ryan received the idea, and he mentioned that a similar trend is popular in Guatemala, and that it is actually somewhat for-profit in donating some proceeds towards Guatemala.
The sharks ask Ryan then about returning customers and if the customers “would care,” which Ryan insists that people find it memorable. They ask Ryan about the rigs, and he mentions that the two rigs he bought are $2000 each but are intended to last him long-term for a nice return on investment. He also has several other rigs which use old Schwinn exercise bikes, but the newer models are safer and reliable.
A very predictable question is asked, one I wonder why was not immediately thrown at him; does Ryan’s business Moberi have an actual blender for people who don’t want to work on the bike? No. The sharks elicit a very negative reaction – “what are you, NUTS?” Ryan insists that it is efficient and that he can actually make smoothies as fast as a blender and that the beauty of the business model is in the simplicity of it.
Ryan then mentions that with the money he is asking for, he will open two more carts. However, the sharks do not fully understand the concept of it as being long-term, and do not find it worthy of investment. They pick apart the business and are concerned about the longevity of the model. Each shark then begins to fold one-by-one, finding faults in the basic concepts of the business – the fact that it has a blender-bike as its main method of earning income, the lack of scaling, and just the general acceptance that it is a trend that could be killed by one bad year. All the sharks eventually fold out, and Ryan
Carpenter’s Moberi business is left without an investment from the sharks.
How is Moberi Doing Now in 2018 – After Shark Tank Update
Moberi still has only the storefronts open that it approached Shark Tank with, unfortunately – both of these are still little shacks. However, Moberi has gone on to also now sell acai bowls and juices, advertising itself as “the original bike-powered superfood bar.” Moberi has released an E-book, which contains numerous recipes, and even the two recipes that appeared on Shark Tank. The Acai bowls offered are blended thick to the consistency of ice cream, and then topped with fresh fruits and accented foods – the Dragonbowl Z, for example, has a dragonfruit, strawberry, pineapple, banana and apple juice base, and is topped with granola, fresh berries, banana, honey, coconut and goji berries. Moberi has had to close down one location in favor of moving to a better location with higher foot traffic; it is assumed that the business model is still profitable, as Moberi has expanded its menu after their appearance on Shark Tank.