GoGo Gear Shark Tank Update

GoGo Gear Shark Tank Pitch

Arlene Battishill and Desirée Estrada found most motorcycle and scooter protective gear was not fashionable to wear to their corporate jobs. After losing their jobs in 2008, they decided to start a stylish, protective clothing line called GoGo Gear.

Arlene and Desirée put $400k of their money into GoGo Gear and did $172k of revenue last year with no profit. They are in 25 motorcycle or scooter stores.

Arlene and Desirée hope to expand to Europe where there is a large rider demographic. Simultaneously they said they lost money attempting to go to Europe and Mark warns against spreading too fast.

The product is appealing, but the sharks worry about Arlene and Desirée's focus. In desperation, Arlene and Desirée keep bumping their equity offer to get a deal. Daymond entices Robert to join back in, but Robert sees a sure loss of his money. Daymond accepts the 65% equity himself.

GoGo Gear After Shark Tank

Arlene was on the Success Unfiltered

In 2008 Arlene's household income was $500k a year. She had three luxury homes in LA and Palm Springs, two luxury cars, and a million dollars in the bank.

Arlene didn't like the corporate environment because she felt unintelligent guys told her what to do while they sat back and collected money. When Arlene complained, she was only offered secretary jobs as alternative options. She decided to leave and start her own business, which eventually morphed into GoGo Gear.

GoGo Gear had a tremendous first year. Then the recession hit, and they lost 10k of the nearly 18k stores they were in. Arlene transitioned focus to the internet, which frustrated their existing retailers.

Arlene was a trailblazer in the social media space in acquiring customers. Facebook was still an infant, and Google ads were new. Arlene, a well-traveled motorcycle enthusiast, created excellent content, such as going on cross-country trips or visiting a manufacturing facility in China. Her posts got picked up by the Huffington Post and other publications.

Shark Tank was another way to gain publicity. From the start, Arlene and Desirée had no intention of going through with any deal. They were among the 45 pitches that made it on season 3 out of the 20k applicants. It was a calculated decision to get whatever deal they could get, knowing it would increase their chance of airing.

Arlene and Desirée got in yelling matches and fired back at the sharks in the filming, which we did make the final edit. Arlene says, "The Sharks are the stars, and the entrepreneurs are the props."

GoGo Gear only made $8k in sales in the following two weeks. Arlene contests that even if there are 6 million viewers, they are not GoGo Gear's target audience. In 2018 Arlene can run a $20 Facebook and generate $10k revenue in a single day.

According to a 2014 interview with Shark Tank Blog

With the exposure Shark Tank gave GoGo Gear, Arlene and Desirée had partnership inquiries from all over the world, and Daymond remained helpful in providing advice.

Arlene didn't take a paycheck from the company for seven years and worked side gigs to get by. She sold all her houses and assets to fund her business because she was confident it would succeed.

GoGo Gear added kevlar leggings, which became a successful product. Arelene had GoGo Gear on autopilot printing money. She sold GoGo Gear which left her with a nice exit and allowed her to do other things.

At one point, Arlene had a podcast called What's Your Next Move. Now, Arlene enjoys focusing on socially meaningful businesses, mainly in the tech space. Arlene's advice is to focus, decide your next move, and take action.

Arlene has plenty of material I passed over on account of being concise. For example, in the 2021 podcast, Arlene's family of four got everything delivered and hadn't left their house in nine months due to the covid panic. No comment.

In 2022 I don't know what Desirée is up to. GoGo Gear's Twitter is @LAScooterGirls