Zorpads are the shoe odor elimination pads made with “NASA-tested technology.” The two founders, Harvard Business School graduates (class of 2017) Taylor Wiegele (a chemical engineer who worked at SpaceX) and Sierra Smith pitched their “interstellar” product on Shark Tank in January 2019. And in a matching space-pattern suit and dress!
[Related: 27 Favorite ‘Shark Tank’ Products at Amazon]
They went into the Tank seeking an investment of $150,000 in exchange for 8 percent equity. They left the Tank with a $150k investment for 22.5% from Lori Greiner and guest Shark, NBA legend Charles Barkley.
When the Shark Tank episode aired in January 2019, according to LinkedIn, Taylor was working with the global product marketing arm of Mattel‘s brand Hot Wheels, and Sierra kept her high-level exec job at Leavitt Equity Partners.
Currently Zorpads is spending money on marketing, buying ads on Google search. They product is also available on Amazon and also on Walmart.com.
The entrepreneurs told Harvard Business School in 2019: ” A side hustle is super motivating and fun, and it forces you to focus your time on something else rather than absorbing all of your time at work,” she muses. “Maybe it will grow and become your full-time role, but I think the biggest barrier is people believing they don’t have the time or can’t quit their day job, but it’s not an either/or.”
