Spotlight Radio
The worst product ever pitched on Shark Tank put traditional home security out of business and sold to Amazon for over a billion dollars.
Jamie Siminoff had a problem.
He was working in his garage. Building stuff. Inventing things.
But he kept missing package deliveries.
Simple problem. Should have been a simple solution.
But there wasn’t one.
So he built a doorbell with a camera. Let you see who was at your door from your phone.
Called it DoorBot.
Started selling them. A few hundred units. Then a few thousand.
But he needed money to scale. To manufacture. To grow.
So he did what everyone does when they need exposure.
Applied to Shark Tank.
1. He walked into that studio thinking this was his shot.
The sharks watched his pitch. Tried the product. Asked their questions.
Then one by one, they all said no.
Kevin O’Leary was brutal. Said it was one of the worst products he’d ever seen on the show.
Mark Cuban passed. Said the market wasn’t big enough.
All five sharks out.
Siminoff walked out of there with nothing. Zero dollars. Zero deals.
The episode aired a few months later. Millions of people watched him get rejected on national television.
Most people would have quit. Packed it in. Said the sharks were right.
Siminoff didn’t quit.
Here’s what he understood that the sharks missed:
The product wasn’t the problem. The timing was just early. People weren’t ready yet.
So he kept working.
Renamed DoorBot to Ring. Better name. Clearer message.
Kept improving the product. Made it better. Made it cheaper. Made it easier to use.
Kept selling. Direct to consumers. Built a following. Grew slowly.
And then something happened.
Crime started rising in neighborhoods. Package theft became a real problem.
People wanted security. Wanted to see who was at their door. Wanted proof when things got stolen.
Suddenly Ring wasn’t just a convenience. It was a necessity.
Sales exploded.
Siminoff raised money. Real money. Built out the product line. Added new features.
By 2018, Ring was doing hundreds of millions in revenue.
That’s when Amazon came calling.
Bought the company for over 1 billion dollars.
The same product Kevin O’Leary called one of the worst ever was now worth a billion dollars.
The same idea every shark passed on was now changing home security forever.
Today, Ring is in millions of homes. The name became synonymous with video doorbells.
And Kevin O’Leary admits it on TV every time someone brings it up. His biggest miss. The one that got away.
All because a guy in a garage refused to believe that five rejections meant he was wrong.
He proved that being too early looks exactly like being wrong.
He showed that expert opinion is just opinion. Not fact.
He demonstrated that the market tells you if you’re right. Not investors. Not sharks. Not critics.
What product are you sitting on because someone told you it wouldn’t work?
What idea did you kill because an expert said no?
Siminoff got rejected on national television by five successful investors.
He went back to his garage and kept building.
He waited for the market to catch up to his idea.
He turned the biggest public rejection into the biggest public win.
Because he understood something most people don’t.
No doesn’t mean never. It just means not yet.
Rejection doesn’t define your product. The market does.
Stop letting experts tell you what will or won’t work. Experts are wrong all the time.
Start thinking like Jamie Siminoff.
Build your product. Test your market. Prove them wrong.
Work through the rejections. Work through the doubts. Work until the world catches up.
And never let anyone tell you that their no is your final answer.
Sometimes the worst pitch on Shark Tank becomes the billion-dollar exit.
Because when the sharks say no, the market might say yes.
Think Big.
#SharedAsReceived
Jamie Siminoff had a problem.
He was working in his garage. Building stuff. Inventing things.
But he kept missing package deliveries.
Simple problem. Should have been a simple solution.
But there wasn’t one.
So he built a doorbell with a camera. Let you see who was at your door from your phone.
Called it DoorBot.
Started selling them. A few hundred units. Then a few thousand.
But he needed money to scale. To manufacture. To grow.
So he did what everyone does when they need exposure.
Applied to Shark Tank.
1. He walked into that studio thinking this was his shot.
The sharks watched his pitch. Tried the product. Asked their questions.
Then one by one, they all said no.
Kevin O’Leary was brutal. Said it was one of the worst products he’d ever seen on the show.
Mark Cuban passed. Said the market wasn’t big enough.
All five sharks out.
Siminoff walked out of there with nothing. Zero dollars. Zero deals.
The episode aired a few months later. Millions of people watched him get rejected on national television.
Most people would have quit. Packed it in. Said the sharks were right.
Siminoff didn’t quit.
Here’s what he understood that the sharks missed:
The product wasn’t the problem. The timing was just early. People weren’t ready yet.
So he kept working.
Renamed DoorBot to Ring. Better name. Clearer message.
Kept improving the product. Made it better. Made it cheaper. Made it easier to use.
Kept selling. Direct to consumers. Built a following. Grew slowly.
And then something happened.
Crime started rising in neighborhoods. Package theft became a real problem.
People wanted security. Wanted to see who was at their door. Wanted proof when things got stolen.
Suddenly Ring wasn’t just a convenience. It was a necessity.
Sales exploded.
Siminoff raised money. Real money. Built out the product line. Added new features.
By 2018, Ring was doing hundreds of millions in revenue.
That’s when Amazon came calling.
Bought the company for over 1 billion dollars.
The same product Kevin O’Leary called one of the worst ever was now worth a billion dollars.
The same idea every shark passed on was now changing home security forever.
Today, Ring is in millions of homes. The name became synonymous with video doorbells.
And Kevin O’Leary admits it on TV every time someone brings it up. His biggest miss. The one that got away.
All because a guy in a garage refused to believe that five rejections meant he was wrong.
He proved that being too early looks exactly like being wrong.
He showed that expert opinion is just opinion. Not fact.
He demonstrated that the market tells you if you’re right. Not investors. Not sharks. Not critics.
What product are you sitting on because someone told you it wouldn’t work?
What idea did you kill because an expert said no?
Siminoff got rejected on national television by five successful investors.
He went back to his garage and kept building.
He waited for the market to catch up to his idea.
He turned the biggest public rejection into the biggest public win.
Because he understood something most people don’t.
No doesn’t mean never. It just means not yet.
Rejection doesn’t define your product. The market does.
Stop letting experts tell you what will or won’t work. Experts are wrong all the time.
Start thinking like Jamie Siminoff.
Build your product. Test your market. Prove them wrong.
Work through the rejections. Work through the doubts. Work until the world catches up.
And never let anyone tell you that their no is your final answer.
Sometimes the worst pitch on Shark Tank becomes the billion-dollar exit.
Because when the sharks say no, the market might say yes.
Think Big.
#SharedAsReceived
The worst product ever pitched on Shark Tank put traditional home security out of business and sold to Amazon for over a billion dollars.
Jamie Siminoff had a problem.
He was working in his garage. Building stuff. Inventing things.
But he kept missing package deliveries.
Simple problem. Should have been a simple solution.
But there wasn’t one.
So he built a doorbell with a camera. Let you see who was at your door from your phone.
Called it DoorBot.
Started selling them. A few hundred units. Then a few thousand.
But he needed money to scale. To manufacture. To grow.
So he did what everyone does when they need exposure.
Applied to Shark Tank.
1. He walked into that studio thinking this was his shot.
The sharks watched his pitch. Tried the product. Asked their questions.
Then one by one, they all said no.
Kevin O’Leary was brutal. Said it was one of the worst products he’d ever seen on the show.
Mark Cuban passed. Said the market wasn’t big enough.
All five sharks out.
Siminoff walked out of there with nothing. Zero dollars. Zero deals.
The episode aired a few months later. Millions of people watched him get rejected on national television.
Most people would have quit. Packed it in. Said the sharks were right.
Siminoff didn’t quit.
Here’s what he understood that the sharks missed:
The product wasn’t the problem. The timing was just early. People weren’t ready yet.
So he kept working.
Renamed DoorBot to Ring. Better name. Clearer message.
Kept improving the product. Made it better. Made it cheaper. Made it easier to use.
Kept selling. Direct to consumers. Built a following. Grew slowly.
And then something happened.
Crime started rising in neighborhoods. Package theft became a real problem.
People wanted security. Wanted to see who was at their door. Wanted proof when things got stolen.
Suddenly Ring wasn’t just a convenience. It was a necessity.
Sales exploded.
Siminoff raised money. Real money. Built out the product line. Added new features.
By 2018, Ring was doing hundreds of millions in revenue.
That’s when Amazon came calling.
Bought the company for over 1 billion dollars.
The same product Kevin O’Leary called one of the worst ever was now worth a billion dollars.
The same idea every shark passed on was now changing home security forever.
Today, Ring is in millions of homes. The name became synonymous with video doorbells.
And Kevin O’Leary admits it on TV every time someone brings it up. His biggest miss. The one that got away.
All because a guy in a garage refused to believe that five rejections meant he was wrong.
He proved that being too early looks exactly like being wrong.
He showed that expert opinion is just opinion. Not fact.
He demonstrated that the market tells you if you’re right. Not investors. Not sharks. Not critics.
What product are you sitting on because someone told you it wouldn’t work?
What idea did you kill because an expert said no?
Siminoff got rejected on national television by five successful investors.
He went back to his garage and kept building.
He waited for the market to catch up to his idea.
He turned the biggest public rejection into the biggest public win.
Because he understood something most people don’t.
No doesn’t mean never. It just means not yet.
Rejection doesn’t define your product. The market does.
Stop letting experts tell you what will or won’t work. Experts are wrong all the time.
Start thinking like Jamie Siminoff.
Build your product. Test your market. Prove them wrong.
Work through the rejections. Work through the doubts. Work until the world catches up.
And never let anyone tell you that their no is your final answer.
Sometimes the worst pitch on Shark Tank becomes the billion-dollar exit.
Because when the sharks say no, the market might say yes.
Think Big.
#SharedAsReceived
