Woodmore graduate, entrepreneur lands deal on Shark Tank

May 26—An entrepreneur and filmmaker from Elmore, Ohio, and his partner from Cleveland ventured into ABC-TV's Shark Tank and emerged not only intact but with two sharks on their hooks.

Since then, said Chris Pavlica, a Woodmore High School graduate who now lives in Los Angeles, demand for the pair's SneakErasers shoe cleaning product by consumers and retailers is "through the roof" and the two men have not even finalized their deal.

On the May 7 episode, Mr. Pavlica and partner Kevin Consolo, who lives in North Carolina, made their plea to the show's collection of wealthy investor-businessmen for money to grow their fledgling company, Columbus-based FTI Brands.

After getting financial offers from sharks Kevin O'Leary and Mark Cuban, the two entrepreneurs finally accepted a deal from baseball star Alex Rodriguez and Lori Greiner, known as the "Queen of QVC" for her retail expertise and connections.

Mr. Pavlica and Mr. Consolo will get $200,000 in exchange for 20 percent equity in SneakErasers. But already big things are happening for the entrepreneurs.

"After the episode you go ahead and meet with the shark and the shark's teams and you talk about plans, what happens next and what the deal was," Mr. Pavlica said. "...The sharks have the right to dig in and do their due diligence and make sure people were being truthful," he said. "We're still going through that process."

But what Mr. Pavlica didn't anticipate was the buzz generated just by being on Shark Tank.

"Already, the communication we've seen has been incredible. We've had a good amount of orders through our website, and we've had tons of meetings with [corporate] retail buyers across the board from grocery chains to convenience stores to auto parts stores," he said.

SneakErasers' legitimacy "has gone through the roof," he added.

Ironically, the closest the pair physically got to the sharks was 10 feet during their presentation, which was 45 minutes in filming but edited to a 10-minute segment. Since filming, both have met with Ms. Greiner and Mr. Rodriguez — but only virtually using Zoom.

Still, Mr. Pavlica said the experience played out exactly as they hoped.

"When Kevin and I were preparing, we were talking about which sharks we'd love to partner with if we got the opportunity, and we both said Alex and Lori. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened," he said.

They strategized beforehand on what to do if Mr. Cuban made an offer. The Dallas Mavericks owner did make a strong bid — $200,000 for 12.5 percent equity.

"We decided to counter Mark first because we felt that Lori and A-Rod had a bit of an edge over him. We tried to counter our valuation and he was out first. But Mark certainly would be a fantastic partner as well," Mr. Pavlica said.

"We actually had a game between me and Kevin before we shot the show because we were quarantined in our hotel room. I'd say, 'Okay, Barbara offers this, what do you do?' It kept us on our toes," he said.

As a filmmaker, Mr. Pavlica had two great fears: that editing would make the pair look bad and that their product would fail at the worst possible time.

"We were just on edge the whole time. When we watched the show later and saw us, I noticed the music was different — circus music. I thought, 'This is good,'" Mr. Pavlica said. Then when scuffing a shoe he intended to clean on TV, Mr. Pavlica said he had to do it gently.

"Our product cleans off scuff marks really well but one thing you can't do is damage the shoe. Kevin had some concern. He told me 'Don't hit the shoe too hard, don't damage the shoe,'" Mr. Pavlica said. But the shoe cleaned up nicely.

Since the television appearance, Mr. Pavlica has been getting well-wishes from Elmore natives and residents.

"When I was on the show I felt it was important to say I was from Elmore. I'm glad I did because I've gotten so many messages from people from Elmore," he said.

First Published May 26, 2021, 7:30am