SlumberPod

For those who travel with babies, the challenge of sharing a room - whether at a family home or hotel - is real. Multiple sleepless nights can lead to stressful days. That’s what led Katy Mallory and her mother Lou Childs to invent the SlumberPod®, a product featured on Shark Tank Season 11.

Katy Mallory is co-founder and President of Dovetail Essentials, LLC, makers of SlumberPod®. Katy and
her mom have a mutual love for problem solving, are business savvy, determined and resourceful, and with
that — they decided to launch a company together. The idea that eventually became SlumberPod® was
born in May 2016 while Katy was on maternity leave with her twins. SVM spoke to Lou Childs to learn
more about this innovative product and their experience with Shark Tank.

Tell us a little bit about SlumberPod, and how you got started. SlumberPod was born out of necessity. My daughter and now business partner, Katy Mallory, came home for the winter holidays five years ago with her
husband and toddler, and they had to share a room because the house was full of family. Their little one was used to sleeping in her own dark room at home and was confused when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw her parents in the same room. Once she saw them, she did not want to go back to sleep, keeping her parents and others in the house awake. After two nights of this, Katy and her family left early — sleep deprived and miserable.

Thinking there must be a solution on the market, we researched and found nothing but DIY solutions, many of which were unsafe and cumbersome to set up. Fast forward another year and a half and Katy was due with twins and I was in between jobs unexpectedly. I stayed with Katy during her maternity leave and we got serious about inventing a solution … and Slumber- Pod was born. Two years later in July 2018, we had our first 500 units en route to us from the factory and launched via a Kickstarter campaign.

How did you come up with the name “SlumberPod?” Katy and I both have journalism, marketing and communications backgrounds and enjoyed brainstorming various names that depicted what our product does. Slumber was one of the words on the whiteboard and Pod was another … the combination was perfect and it was available for trademark. It was our first choice for our product name!

You and your daughter designed SlumberPod together, but can you tell us what it’s like being in a business partnership with her? Katy and I have always been close, but this business partnership has brought us to a whole new level of closeness that is likely quite unique for mothers and daughters. We work extremely well together, have common interests and strengths yet other attributes that complement one another. We also laugh a lot and have a lot of fun. Believe it or not, I’m the techier one, and she is more creative. Going into business with someone that you have unconditional love and respect for — and you also know them deeply — was an easy decision for both of us. We consider ourselves very fortunate!

What was it like to be on Shark Tank? Any tips you can share for entrepreneurs looking to make it on the show? It was an absolute dream come true to be on Shark Tank. Each year, more than 35,000-45,000 entrepreneurs apply to the show either by submitting an application online or by pitching to Shark Tank producers at a casting call. We went the casting call path, and flew to Dallas in early February 2019. To be chosen to walk down the hallway and stand on the rug in front of Sharks that we’ve been watching for 10 years was surreal. There was much more to our “question and answer” session with them than what is shown during our segment on TV, and they asked us questions about financials, marketing, retail options, product development, and our backgrounds. Robert and Lori also got inside SlumberPod and commented about how pitch black it is … saying “I can’t see my hand in front of my face!" We were so humbled by three Sharks telling their stories about selling too early — prefacing their stories with their opinions that “you don’t need us” — but we were thrilled that Barbara gave us an offer of exactly what we were asking for!

We encourage other entrepreneurs to apply via casting call and make your one-minute pitch memorable. Have a viable product for sale with some sales history before you make the trek. Be ready to speak to what makes your product and you as an entrepreneur different and better.

How did you come to the valuation of your company when pitching to the Sharks? At the time of the taping, we had more than $500,000 in sales and worked with experts to value our company at $2M. During the Q&A with the Sharks, they commented that it was a fair valuation. We actually far exceeded our 2019 year-end projections and ended the year with more than $2M in sales.

We know Shark Tank likes to keep their contestants a secret until the show airs. How difficult was it keeping the deal a secret? It was not as difficult to keep the process and the outcome from friends as we knew the risks of disqualification should the news leak … but it was difficult keeping it from family. Even my husband had no idea that Katy and I had progressed past the casting call until he saw us on TV during a Shark Tank promo the night that Season 11 Episode 1 aired in September. I had no idea we would be on the promo. The look on his face was shock and awe!

Starting a new business is hard. What has been your biggest business struggle? There is SO much to learn! One of our biggest struggles is supply chain and inventory. We have a valuable partner with Jeff Vinson of Muscogee Mills and Ridgeway Outdoors. He helps us to make inventory projections based on past sales and growth momentum. We have only run out of inventory a couple of times in the past 18 months— even
when our growth spiked at the end of 2019 and post-Shark Tank. It definitely takes a village to make a business run smoothly. SVM