Whatever Happened To Monkey Mat After Shark Tank?
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Some "Shark Tank" inventions capture the public's imagination and manage to hold on to it forever. But there are some products that start out in a promising fashion — even winning attention from the sharks — and still manage to run into issues in the end.
The Monkey Mat — invented by moms Courtney Turich and Christie Barany — started off strong. Barany gave up a 15-year career in the medical device field to run Monkey Mat full-time. The Monkey Mat was Inspired by Barany's trip to an airport with her children. Struggling to keep her kids in line and find a place for them to play during a 6-hour layover made her realize a portable play surface for her children would be both incredibly convenient and much easier to carry, clean, or dispose of than a simple baby blanket. Thus was born the Monkey Mat, and thus did the two friends become business partners. They managed to create a workable concept and produce a lightweight product that could fold into a diaper bag. The product was already doing numbers on Amazon before they approached the sharks for monetary help.
The Monkey Mat made two different sharks go ape. But was it too bananas to stay successful in the mainstream market? This is what happened to The Monkey Mat when the company appeared on "Shark Tank" — and beyond.
Monkey Mat on Shark Tank
Courtney Turich and Christie Barany pitch Monkey Mat on Season 5, Episode 22 of "Shark Tank." They're looking for $100,00 in trade for 30% of the company, and are in the market for a shark who can help them get into more retail markets. They explain that they have made $61,000 through sales on their website and 51 brick-and-mortar shops, such as Lullabye Baby. They say the mat retails for $39.95 because of the cost of materials, and that their manufacturer is in China. They put them together for $13.14 per unit.
The retail price raises the shark's eyebrows. Impressed by the ease of use of the product as well as its possible uses, they all want to lower the price range to make the Monkey Mat more palatable to mainstream audiences. Most of them want it down to $9.95 per unit. Kevin O'Leary doesn't want to noodle down the product's cost properly and is out. Robert Herjavec is also intrigued by the Monkey Mat, but doesn't know how to get the price down, and withdraws from consideration. Mark Cuban loves the product wholeheartedly, but is concerned about the price. Barbara Corcoran doesn't think the product is hip enough and also thinks it's too expensive — she, too, is out.
It's Lori Greiner who rides to the rescue of the Monkey Mat team. She thinks they have a market, but is unsure about the price. She and Mark Cuban put their heads together and agree to go in on a deal together — $100,000 for 35% of the business. Barany and Tuich agree to the deal, and they leave with two sharks at their disposal.
Monkey Mat after Shark Tank
For the first few years after their "Shark Tank" appearance, things seemed to go swimmingly for the "Monkey Mat" team. Gazette Review reports that the deal between the company and Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner was finalized, infusing the company with cash and further attention. This is a good thing because the Shark Tank Effect definitely seemed to bolster the company's fortunes. And Greiner and Cuban did manage to bust the product's price down to a more affordable $19.99.
They seemed to take Barbara Corcoran's advice about diversifying the colors and designs they had for sale; limited edition colors such as orange were offered, and the company established a Kickstarter in 2015 to make a quilted Monkey Mat. They pulled in $29,786 through the fundraising campaign, well over the $10,000 original goal. The company subsequently diversified into a pet care line called Fur-EEZ.
The Monkey Mat team also experienced plenty of mainstream media coverage. They appeared on their local news in Austin, in the American Air in-flight magazine, and Life and Style Weekly. When Lori Greiner last checked in with the company via her official website, they had made $5.7 million in sales 5 years after their "Shark Tank" appearance. That's a heck of a pretty penny.
The company even appeared on a "Good Morning America" Steals and Deals segment and three times on "The View" as a part of View Your Deals segments in 2017, 2018, and 2019. With so much success behind it, Monkey Mat looked like a company that would never fade to black. However, it turned out that their appearance on The View would be the last time national audiences would ever see the Monkey Mat in action.
Why did Monkey Mat go out of Business?
There were rumbles of disquiet within the Monkey Mat business during the Kickstarter campaign. Several customers reported poor-quality buckles and zippers on their Monkey Mats, and some had difficulty attaining replacements. Ultimately, there's no telling what ended up ruining the company's prospects. Monkey Mat never posted a statement when it went out of business, but it is not producing fresh stock for all intents and purposes.
The company's disappearance happened in stages. In 2018, Monkey Mat's X account went dark. Meanwhile, in 2019, their Instagram and Facebook turned dormant on the same date. Shark Tank Blog reports that the Monkey Mat website also went offline in 2022. While the product exists as an item on Amazon, Walmart, The Container Store, and other retail sites, it hasn't been restocked anywhere in a good five years. So it looks like the Monkey Mat is officially toast.
Consumers might be interested to know that while Monkey Mat is down for the count, at least one of its founders has already moved on to other projects.
What's next for Courtney Turich and Christie Barany?
Monkey Mat's founders have managed to move on with their lives, though only one of the ex-entrepreneurs is living a forward-facing life. Christie Barany has quietly disappeared back into the private sector. None of her social media accounts have been updated in years, nor has her LinkdIn.
Courtney Turich, meanwhile, has become the Global VP of Marketing and Sales at Cooler Heads Care, a company that creates cold caps for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, as announced on her LinkedIn account. On her Instagram, where she offers life advice and daily tips that seek to empower women, she describes herself as an "ex-Shark Tank entrepreneur," which officially puts the fork in Monkey Mat's prospects. She also hosts The Turich Talk on her website.
While the Monkey Mat seems to be a distant memory for the two women who created it, it definitely managed to create a lot of happy memories for the families who invested their money and time in it. And those aren't monkeyshines.