When Megan Cummins went on “Shark Tank” to grab an investment for her luxury soap company, her perception of the judges as a fan swayed her to move her deal away from Mark Cuban. “… I always felt like Robert [Herjavec] was the nice one of the group, since that’s how they portray him on the show,” she explained. “It was naïve of me.” Cummins, like many other seemingly victorious entrepreneurs that stand on the “Shark Tank” stage, found out that not every deal continues past their episode. But, the way Herjavec supposedly handled the situation made it worse.
Cummins told CNET that for six months after her episode, she tried to contact Herjavec but was essentially ghosted. Eventually, the Shark contacted her but with a new offer of 50% of the business, a deal Cummins had to turn down. But that didn’t stop her from continuing with her hopes for You Smell Soap. Eventually, in 2014, an undisclosed investor ponied up some extra dough to help the company grow. However, the company would later officially go out of business in 2016.
Although You Smell Soap products are no longer available, Cummins has not stopped trying to find other ways to succeed in business. She has started a fashion jewelry company called Sparklepop and began running Megan Cummins Designs, which is a contract design firm. As for her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, Cummins says, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and don’t ever let your guard down. You always have to have a back-up plan and ‘rolling with the punches’ has taken on an entirely new meaning for me.”
