Whatever Happened To Naturally Perfect Dolls After Shark Tank?
Like any other reality competition series, the appeal of business investing reality show "Shark Tank" lies largely in whether its competitors win or lose — winning, in this case, taking the form of securing a substantial financial investment. Unlike most reality competition series, however, winners on "Shark Tank" are not always winners in the long run, given that the funds they receive are for their perhaps volatile businesses rather than their own personal use.
Potato Parcel and Spikeball are two examples of companies that expanded significantly after leveraging both the visibility granted to them by their "Shark Tank" appearances and the funds they received on-air. Both remain in business to this day. Exercise gear company Titin, meanwhile, walked away from "Shark Tank" a winner, but went out of business a few years later.
Jason and Angelica Sweeting pitched their company, called Naturally Perfect Dolls, to the Sharks on Season 8, Episode 12. In short, Naturally Perfect Dolls sold dolls designed to reflect a range of non-white children in order to cater to a more diverse customer base than competing doll companies. While the Sweetings walked away with a promise of $200,000 from John Daymond, their business' future was far from straightforward in the immediate aftermath of their "Shark Tank" appearance.
Naturally Perfect Dolls failed to fulfill customer orders and is no longer in business
"Shark Tank" featured Naturally Perfect Dolls on an episode that aired in January 2017. Both before and after its televised appearance, sites like The Huffington Post and Refinery29 published articles profiling the company and extolling the virtues of a line of dolls designed with a diverse customer base in mind.
A report by the New York Post published in December of 2018, however, reveals that Naturally Perfect Dolls not only went out of business, but became wholly unable to fulfill customers' orders not long after appearing on TV. In fact, while Season 8, Episode 12 of "Shark Tank" would have viewers believe that Jason and Angelica Sweeting secured substantial funding from John Daymond, the New York Post noted that Daymond ultimately rescinded his offer in the wake of the episode's filming. "After review, we never closed our deal with the company, and because of that no money or equity was ever exchanged from either party," a spokesperson for Daymond said.
Angelica Sweeting, meanwhile, characterized their "Shark Tank" boom, in conjunction with their lack of funding, as bad for business. "Initially, being on 'Shark Tank' was good for us," she said. "But not being able to secure the business funding was hurtful to our business."
So, in spite of plenty of apparent interest in Naturally Perfect Dolls, a confluence of unfortunate events ultimately led to the company's downfall.