Patent Attorney and Founder
first in the tank is a Cosmetic Company for an underserved [Music]
Market hey sharks I’m John and I’m devier we’re from New York and we’re seeking $600,000 in exchange for 5% of our company God do you know what everybody in this room has in common right now besides being on television we’re all wearing makeup the chances are the women are fine applying and wearing makeup but most men aren’t nearly comfortable enough to admit or use it sharks this happened to me on the day of my wedding the greatest day of my life and I woke up with is it and not just anyit as you can see I mean this thing was the mother of all zits okay it was a volcano it was just waiting to her upt yuck and while there were makeup artist there at the wedding I was too embarrassed to do anything about it and so my blemishes were there to stay for the thousands of photos that were taken that day every guy has an experience like this whether it’s a first date an important pitch like here on Shark Tank or just coffee with a friend when you look your best you feel your best which is why stricks is changing the way that men can instantly fix their appearance with you guessed it it’s makeup for men strix is the first company ever to engineer cosmetic and skincare products with completely custom formulations and packaging geared towards Men We launch with a Sleek discreet and very sexy concealer tool and a tinted moisturizer and since then we’ve launched seven products at the intersection of cosmetics and skincare so that you can instantly fix your appearance including our energizing eye tool and our beard and brow gel cone so sharks who’s ready to join us and show the world there’s nothing wrong with handsome so we don’t have pens in front of you it’s actually our concealer tool so if you take a look there so we have it designed as a pen so that it’s sleek and discreet get the concealer a concealer correct so let me start at the beginning what does concealer do and what are you supposed to do with it so the formulation is made so if you want to cover up a pimple if you want to cover up dark under eye circles you just dab it on and you’re done so you don’t need a primer a foundation a sponge a brush a setting powder it’s made to be as easy as possible for guys to cover up any problems and with the concealer tool we found out one of the best uses for it the guys were using it for is for dark under eye circles like under eye bags and so that’s what led us to launch the energizing eye tool which is also in front of you it tightens the skin underneath ey so it’s meant to reduce Fine Lines wrinkles and it’s it’s really an anti-aging type of how are you supposed to even know how to do it like to me it’s like war paint you know you just like see a streak I mean now what that looks good really so that’s a huge that’s a huge thing that we need to work on as part of this brand is education around these products good job Mark I actually use a product like this all the time course I don’t sleep enough so I get really bag guys there’s lots of products eye creams everything that are made for men correct you’re saying you’re a brand new category what’s the brand new category nobody’s approached the Cosmetic category from this angle like for me when I was younger I was bullied out of my middle school because I put gel in my hair and that hit my confidence for years people bullied you because you put gel in your hair yeah oh yeah this was also seriously I would love to hear though why this I mean were you guys chemists were you guys in this industry at all no so when we first started I partnered with two professional makeup artists they helped us really be able to formulate the first ever really cosmetic products for men’s skin as opposed to women’s so what what had happened was is I raised half a million dollars to start that before I raised half a million dollars to launch the company who did you raise it from friends family and then connections I you guys are really good friends the company did you give away for the 500,000 so at the time uh we raised at about uh you know a 1.5 million valuation how long ago was that that was back in 2018 okay and now you’re at a 12 million valuation because you have amazing sales what are they so this year we’re at about $130,000 in sales per month that’s it per month per month per month per month I knew it hey okay okay men’s you know makeup I mean JD let’s you know let’s get real here I mean tell tell me about your uh your routine I mean you got some man thank you my wife isn’t pushing the uh the moisturizers on me are you doing like the moisturizer you know um retinol kind of routine I mean you look really really really hydrated really thank you well I do drink a lot of water and these are really good lights U but no I I just I just do moisturizer just do moisturizer and and that’s it that’s it SPF in there started doing SPF around 25 I don’t do any makeup um I think as I get older maybe I would consider it maybe I don’t know do it all my wife has like I don’t know about your wife my wife has like a very elaborate skincare routine a meditation she do layers and stuff yeah oh she’s like the cleansers and the essential oils and the you know it’s it’s a real thing um you know meanwhile like you know I’m washing my face with you know like a you know washcloth shampoo right I’m getting out right and that’s good right good enough um but yeah no I just do the uh I just do the facial moisturizer with retinol you know keep it tight good re all okay well so um I did pull up their uh their their their product name so stricks U let me share screen here um yeah a little bit because we’re talking about design patents so this is their their website um and there you know they’ve got this going on you know treat your skin like it’s for life um you know but they do have I was able to find that you know the founder concealer pen uh this is the applicant was The Company stricks Men and I’ll zoom in a little bit here um and then I was Joe liberman was one of the presenters they have it’s a design patent 95542 just 052 um last year came out they’ve got the ornamental design for a concealer pen and so I like this concept where where they’re really not trying to go too deep they’re they’re going for something that is you touch and feel that’s unique um they’re claiming this is like a unique way to go to market I think that’s kind of debatable Robert was touching on that like hey lots of men’s skincare products out there I think they’re just kind of being a bit more bold if you will and claiming uh makeup just saying the word makeup um I like how they put the dash lines here so they can actually have you know a different ends to this so what’s in dash lines is not claimed what’s in solid line is claimed so it’s kind of this exact you know sort of parabolic end look um they they they don’t claim one you know the top side of it but they do claim this bottom side so this is View From The Top View From The Bottom um there’s lots of different views I think it’s well done they do claim this the actual applicator the actual product as it comes out but the cap can take on many different looks and feels almost reminds me of like a cigar like a swisser sweet yeah right not that I smoke but I mean it looks like a flute end if you it does yeah it really does and there’s they have a second design I’ll just show this quickly um you know they got two different design patents for the for different cons different pens so this one has the cap on it the other one I think was an extension I think that’s what it is it was a continuation in part I think you’re right JD I mean like it’s it’s the the brand or the idea behind it the offerings are unique in the sense that there are a lot of companies out there that do Market primarily to women but have also added you know men’s lines of products right nut is a big one that comes to mind right they’re kind of in the ma the male category now where they used to be um but it’s rare to see a I can’t think of one that does this kind of stuff just for men and not women right yeah certainly there are a lot of like you know um personal care you know hygiene products geared towards men you know um was it Squatch or do Dr Squatch you know there’s a bunch of you know there’s a bunch of stuff like that yeah um but you know it’s Unique in the sense that they don’t offer women’s products so it’s kind of cool from a trademark perspective you know they they do have two registrations they have registrations uh in the Cosmetic class class three at the US PTO for both the word Mark stricks and a design um but um the the way that they’ve applied for the design Mark is kind of kind of wrong that’s because they didn’t have a trademark attorney assigned to the application so ah when they filed the trademark they they did it incorrectly and now they’re stuck with the trademark registration that’s not what it should be also one thing pretty glaring to me is that they don’t have a registration for class 35 at the USPTO which is online retail store sales right so they’re a d Toc company and so big part of being D Toc is you know having that sales platform and those that customer service and they do not have that protected so theoretically somebody could come and register stricks you know for online retail store services at the US PTO oh maybe not mentioned Cosmetics but you know other kind of associated categories like apparel and things like that or you know um towels or whatever and and it would get through the process it reg they were pretty limited they really they maybe we without knowing uh had a very narrow application right right got it and so that would be you know if I was counseling them I’d say hey like you know we’re this you’re a big company at this point right you you need to act like it from a registration perspective yep love it just to wrap up on the shark te show Robert herc did uh say he was in for 10% for 600 grand um that was the handshake deal on the show but as it turns out didn’t actually fund it after doing more diligence the company’s still around I assume they’re their revenue positive can’t speak of course to profitability but they’re they’re doing they’re selling products so they’re out and about