Whatever Happened To PullyPalz After Shark Tank?
While plenty of entrepreneurs who pitch their businesses on "Shark Tank" have products that are geared toward adults, there are quite a few whose primary market is children. With so many busy parents struggling to balance raising their kids with working, these businesses are sometimes snatched up quickly by the sharks. Oogiebear, which is essentially a nose picker for babies, became one of the most expensive deals made on "Shark Tank" after the business appeared in the Season 14 premiere.
Julie Thompson pitched her business, a solution to the problem of babies dropping their pacifiers called PullyPalz, in Season 6, Episode 24. Essentially, PullyPalz takes two pacifiers and affixes them to the baby's carrier, bouncer, or a stuffed animal, and when one is dropped and out of sight, the other is still in view and in reach. According to Thompson, "The interaction enables independence, which is great for those times when parents need an extra hand."
After going to a trade show and meeting Mark and Hannah Lim from Lollacup, she decided to apply for Shark Tank, where Lori Greiner struck a deal. After initially offering $100,000 for 30% and Thompson countering with 25%, they settled in the middle at 28% equity with the hope of getting into big box stores.
PullyPalz went quiet in 2016
Julie Thompson was ready for the "Shark Tank Effect," and made sure she had enough product on hand for viewers watching. She told Rob Merlino of the SharkTankBlog that she had "8000 PullyPalz in stock for the show and the whole family is on call to help fulfill orders. I've lined up my husband and kids, plus my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law." She also told Heavy that after the show aired, things were going well, and they "added around 100 new retailers," as well as had interest from other countries. Despite what looked like success, by May 2016, the PullyPalz website was gone, and their Facebook and Instagram accounts had gone quiet.
Thompson's LinkedIn page says that PullyPalz ended in 2017, and since March 2021, she's been working as a business consultant and B2B Cloud software sales. It's unclear why PullyPalz abruptly closed, and there are likely plenty of confused fans wondering what happened. A search will bring up PullyPalz items on Walmart and Mommy Paradise, but the products are listed as out of stock. At this point, it seems very unlikely we'll see any PullyPalz items restocked.