On The Profit, investor Marcus Lemonis travels to Troy, Ohio to check out SmithFly, a company that designs and sells innovative tents, rafts, packs, and apparel for fly fishing and the great outdoors. When Lemonis meets the founder and head designer of SmithFly, Ethan Smith, he compliments Smith on the products but Smith gets defensive when Lemonis suggests improvements.
Smith is particularly proud of The Shoal Tent, the world’s first floating tent. The inflatable floating raft with a tent topper allows users to sleep out on the water. “Camp on your favorite farm pond, saltwater flat, spring creek or eddy on your favorite river.” (Shoal means shallow water.) When Lemonis takes The Shoal Tent into the wilderness to test it out, he’s disappointed with the manual foot pump. While pumping his leg, Lemonis looks at Smith and says, “Big problem to solve, huge.”
When fully inflated, The Shoat Tent, which retails for $1999, has a 8’x 8′ footprint. A 6’3″ tall person can stand in the middle and it can hold 1200 lbs. It comes with a storage bag (it packs down into a burrito roll style carry and storage bag), a patch kit, and the foot pump. It weighs about 130 lbs. New episodes of The Profit air Tuesdays at 10 pm no CNBC. [Download the free CNBC app and never miss a program.]
