MANDEVILLE, La. – When Mandeville inventors Nita Gassen and Judy Schott pitched their bed sheet fastener, the Better Bedder, to the panel of investors on ABC’s business reality show Shark Tank last week, three of the “sharks” attempted to outbid each other for a stake in Gassen and Schott’s sheet fastener company.
In the end, Lori Greiner, better known as the “Queen of QVC,” came in for the final “bite” at $150,000 for an 18% interest in the company. The budding entrepreneurs, who founded the company to make everyone’s bed-making chore “fast, easy and neat,” said they will use their company’s new celebrity-backed cash infusion for marketing to spread the word about the Better Bedder nationwide.
“Just making it onto the show was surreal, but to end up having the Sharks fighting over us and coming away with a very hefty business investment by Lori is the biggest imaginable dream come true,” said Gassen.
“It’s all been unbelievable,” Schott said. “We couldn’t believe we kept getting call backs from the TV producers at Shark Tank, and then last summer we were stunned to get the call to go to Las Vegas and do the real show in front of the Sharks. And now I can’t believe we just watched ourselves on TV.”
To date, the entrepreneurs have sold more than 15,000 Better Bedders with revenues nearing one million dollars. Now with the Shark Tank success, Gassen and Schott are planning for a major expansion of the Better Bedder’s production, marketing, and distribution.
To learn more about the Better Bedder, visit the website at www.thebetterbedder.com.
