Mike O'Dell didn't feel fulfilled spending his entire workweek as a nurse anesthetist.
He was a creative and a risk-taker — not exactly qualities that mesh well with anesthesiology, he said on last week's episode of ABC's "Shark Tank."
Instead, the Oklahoma City native wanted to see if those traits could help him fund his side hustle. O'Dell is the founder of Legit Kits, a do-it-yourself quilting company that sells more than 60 different quilt kits — straying away from "tedious" and "dull" designs, he said on the show — at price points ranging from $89 to $599, according to its website.
O'Dell works four days per week at a hospital, and one day per week on his quilting company — though he has employees who work on Legit Kits while he's working as a nurse, he tells CNBC Make It. Keeping Legit Kits a side hustle "forced me to build a company that can run without me there," he says. "It's forced me to hire people I can trust."
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Legit Kits launched in 2020, and brought in $1.4 million in revenue last year, O'Dell says. The company was profitable in 2023, with margins of roughly 8.7% — but at the time of filming, it wasn't on track to net a profit last year, due to expenses from moving into a larger facility, he said on the show.
Still, each sale generates cash flow, with $399 kits only costing $125 to produce, said O'Dell.
Money Report
O'Dell asked the show's investor judges for $150,000, in exchange for 5% of his company. Kevin O'Leary quickly offered O'Dell those terms, plus a $10 royalty on each sale, citing his ability to help Legit Kits advertise more effectively on social media.
"It is a heck of an offer, because you have a huge margin [per sale]," Lori Greiner commented. "Really the biggest that I can recall hearing [on] 'Shark Tank.'"
'The experience of a lifetime'
Some of the other Sharks were more skeptical.
As O'Dell discussed losing profitability last year, he mentioned that his inventory held more than $350,000 worth of kits ready to ship, and enough fabric to create nearly double that number.
For Jamie Kern Lima — the co-founder of IT Cosmetics, and a guest Shark on the episode — and Greiner, this signified an inventory management problem. By keeping track of so many different products, O'Dell would struggle to predict what customers would buy, they said.
Both investors declined to offer O'Dell a deal, though Greiner suggested that he lower his company's number of quilt kits to its top 20 performers, plus an occasional specialty quilt. Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran withdrew themselves from consideration, saying they weren't the right fit for Legit Kits.
With only O'Leary's offer on the table, O'Dell chose to accept it, rather than negotiating or walking away empty-handed.
After the show's filming, the investment deal fell apart, O'Dell says. He declined to comment on why, but says his conversations with O'Leary were "congenial." Being on "Shark Tank" was "the experience of a lifetime," he adds. "I loved it. I wouldn't trade that for anything."
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."
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