Doorbot Shark Tank Update

Doorbot Shark Tank Pitch

Jamie Siminoff wanted a better way to know who was at his door before answering the door, so he created Doorbot. Doorbot is a video-recording doorbell that notifies the homeowner through an app when a person is at the door, displays live footage from the Doorbot, and allow the homeowner to speak with the person.

Doorbots costs Jamie $81 per unit, and he sells them for $199 through his online store and will launch in his first retailer, Staples, later this year. The store launched nine months ago and has done $1 million in sales, increasing each month. Last month's sales were $250k.

Lori didn't believe Doorbot was different enough from the current completion. Mark didn't see Doorbot progressing to an $80 million company. Daymond struggled to see where Doorbot fits in the market. Robert didn't see Doorbot as a software company but rather a product company that he felt would be knocked off by competitors. Jamie opened up with a joke about Kevin making royalty offers, and when Kevin was the last shark left, he made a royalty offer. Jamie countered with a loan, but Jamie and Kevin never agreed on a deal.

Doorbot After Shark Tank

Jamie Stumbled went on the How I Built This

While at Babson, Jamie sold electronics on campus and offered services such as doing anything for $15 an hour. After college, some friends asked Jamie how much he would charge them to write a business plan for their hotdog stand start-up. Jamie had no intention of pursuing that path until they surprisingly agreed to his $10k ask. This led Jamie to get other inquiries, creating a company called Your First Step to provide business plan services. Jamie didn't consider his services to be particularly amazing, but during the "dot com boom," people were overpaying and still pleased with Jamie's work. Jamie worked with a company in Bulgaria for a business plan, which led him to pivot into his next business.

Jamie sought to create a cheaper way to connect international callers. He moved to Los Angeles, California, and made a company with another guy that knew more about the technical side of the business. It grew to a few countries when his technical partner ran into money issues and left the company. Jamie remained and had people owed money from the business on his back. Jamie went to Barnes and Noble and bought a Cisco Voiceover IP book that was 700 pages and read it front to back. Jamie learned how to fix the systems and understood the technology, contrary to when he started. This business went from 2002 to 2005, when Jamie sold his stake and walked away with around $1 million.

In 2005 the popular Blackberry phone was out. Jamie was out to dinner with a friend/mentor of his who Jamie saw experiencing frustrations with email firsthand. Jamie suggested they solve their issue by transcribing voicemail to readable text, and the two decided to start the company PhoneTag jointly. After building PhoneTag up to a solid business Google Voice came out, which overnight crushed PhoneTag. Fortunately, there was still enough market value for Jamie to sell the company for around $17 million, which ultimately led to the investors all getting their money back at break-even.

Jamie's next business was Unsubscribe.com, which filtered out emails beyond the functions of the default spam filter. The business turned out to be a great product that got a lot of interest. However, companies didn't want to pay for the service. Jamie believed the most money the company could reasonably make per year was $30 million. Jamie decided to sell the business, once again resulting in a near-break-even investment for Jamie.

Jamie sat back and realized he loved inventing more than business building. He found the problem with raising money was that it forced Jamie to stay railroaded on the same path for years that investors bought into. Jamie wanted the freedom to invent, so he raised money for a business called Edison Junior Design Laboratory, where Jamie hired a small team of young guys to work out of his garage to build a handful of ideas from a list Jamie had built up over the past several years. If an idea showed promise, they would move forward with the product at a larger scale. Otherwise, they would scrap it and move on.

As Jamie tinkered in his garage, he could not hear the doorbell, and it became a nuisance for him to manage deliveries and guests showing up. In 2011, there was no quick solution on the market at a reasonable price, so Jamie utilized the tools around him to MacGyver a solution. Jamie was so focused on the projects for Edison Junior Design Laboratory that he saw his personal issue with the doorbell as a side gig for nights and weekends with no intent to sell. By 2012 he had a working video doorbell prototype.

At the time, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo were crowdfunding websites but had restrictions and issues that Jamie thought could be better implemented. Jamie sought to create a crowdfunding website called Christie Street to work in conjunction with his projects at Edison Junior Design Laboratory. Jamie only had a few products to use in his slides made to raise money for Christie Street so he added the video doorbell to round out the list. To Jamie's surprise, the video doorbell got the warmest response. Jamie gave the video doorbell the name Doorbot and used it as a poster example in future pitches to raise money for Christie Street.

At the time, Jamie's wife, Erin, financially supported the family. Erin told Jamie she believed Doorbot was Jamie's best invention because it made her feel safe. Jamie wasn't sure the feeling would resonate with others, but he successfully received $250k in preorders on Christie Street. The money ran out in a flash, and Jamie put what he could into the business. In 2013 Jamie was able to raise $1 million. In Jamie's networking, a person suggested that Jamie go on Shark Tank (Jamie thought "obviously"), but then the person gave Jamie a foot in the door with a producer's email. Jamie immediately sent an email and got a call back right away, securing a spot.

Jamie took Shark Tank very seriously. He paid $8k to build a set for the show, watched the show religiously, and studied 300 possible questions the sharks may ask. While on set for Shark Tank, Doorbot only had four working prototypes. When it came time to set up backstage, the first three prototypes didn't work, but by some miracle, the last prototype worked. Jamie desperately needed money but bravely decided to step away from Kevin's aggressive offer. Shark Tank aired in November, perfect timing for the holiday season. When Shark Tank aired, Doorbot got around $100k in orders on the first night, underdelivering what Jamie hoped for. Fortunately, the sales continued for several days, and Jamie credits Shark Tank with millions of dollars of sales.

On Christmas Eve, Jamie gets messages from customers that the Doorbot is not working. Jamie found that in their late push to improve video quality and the mad dash to fill orders, necessary code was improperly used on over 5000 devices, which was unfixable. Jamie had no money to correct the orders or refund the customers and thought the Doorbot had reached its doom. Erin was willing to risk their home and do whatever it took to save Doorbot. When all hope was lost, Jamie brainstormed a potential workaround solution that could be fixed remotely. At 6:30 am Christmas morning, Jamie got a call from his engineer that it worked. Doorbot was saved.

Jamie knew Doorbot only served as a proof of concept that large companies would copy. Jamie decided to go for it and rebuild Doorbot the product from the ground up as well as the company's business practices such as top-notch customer service. Jamie wanted a new name for the new and improved business. When a friend told Jamie the domain ring.com

In 2015 Ring was still unprofitable, and Jamie had many days that he woke up in tears, terrified of how things may turn out. No serious competitors ever showed up. Ring had worked with Amazon periodically in Ring's development process. In 2016, Amazon made a strategic investment in Ring. In late 2017 an Amazon representative sat down with Jamie for lunch and brought up Amazon's interest in buying Ring for $1 billion.

According to marketrealist.com

Jamie returned to the Shark Tank as the first entrepreneur to become a Shark. As of 2020, Jamie felt at ease knowing he had secured his family's long-term finances no matter what happens. Jamie remains the CEO of Ring in 2022.