Surprise Ride Shark Tank Update

Surprise Ride Shark Tank Pitch

Donna Khalife and Rosy Khalife's family emigrated from Lebanon to Canada when they were young. Donna went to Harvard and worked on Wall Street, while Rosy studied Marketing and traveled the world. They quit everything and rejoined forces to start Surprise Ride, a subscription service to deliver boxes with themed activities for kids to get kids off their phones.

Donna and Rosy calculated their customer acquisition cost to be $5.30 and the lifetime expected spending of each customer to be $130. A subscription costs $29 monthly, and Surprise Ride currently has 220 active members after its first four months, equating to $25k in sales.

Donna and Rosy raised $100k from Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm. They expect an additional $100k investment will get them through the next 12 months. $40k will go to a marketing agency to target moms and get traffic to their website. They project to do $500k in revenue next year from 3,500 subscribers.

The sharks think the business will require much more money than expected to be successful. Mark points out that the girls are outsourcing so much of the company that he questions their level of oversight and involvement. Robert made an offer, and the girls immediately directed their attention to the other sharks, which, if the girls have ever watched Shark Tank, they would know, doesn't sit well with Robert. By the time the rest of the sharks went out, Robert gave the girls the same respect they had given him, and he went out. The girls try and accept the deal after Robert goes out, but it's too late.

Surprise Ride After Shark Tank

Donna Khalife went on the Shine Strong

Growing up, Donna's family pushed education as a ticket to a better life. They could not afford fancy colleges, but Donna applied anyway. She went to Boston University with an initial focus on engineering before shifting to business. Donna furthered her education with a full-ride scholarship to Harvard. Following School, Donna worked on wall street for four years for JPMorgan. Donna always dreamed of being a Hollywood actor, so she booked a ticket to Los Angeles, did stand-up comedy for a year, and was an extra in several movies. Donna felt the pressure and resistance from family and peers as she took a step far away from the safe, successful path she had established. Donna felt this reemerged her creativity.

At the time, Rosy was in school on the other side of the world in London, England. Donna and Rosy maintained communication through a shared Google doc where they jotted down ideas daily, which is where Surprise Ride began. Donna and Rosy learned how to create a basic website, shared their new business with friends, and ran social media ads to get their first few hundred subscribers. When they went on Shark Tank, they were still shipping out of plain boxes but presented with beautiful boxes that looked like their vision. In one week following Shark Tank, they had $500k in sales. Donna and Rosy listened to customer feedback and improved the product each month.

Donna went on the Community

In season 1, episode 10 of Beyond The Tank, we got an update on Surprise Ride. Surprise Ride had done $20k in sales at the time of Shark Tank and $1 million in the year since with a 30% profit margin. Kevin O'Leary saw Surprise Ride as too early when it was on Shark Tank, but after thriving for a year, he decided to make the girls an offer of $50k for 2.5% equity and a 6% royalty until $50k paid back. The girls sought help with getting their customer acquisition costs down and regretted not having the guidance of a shark, so this time, they accepted.

Donna and Rosy went on the Ask Mr. Wonderful

Eventually, in the growth of Surprise Ride, they explored selling toys in retail locations, but the expansion would require them to raise more money. Instead, they hit it off with the couple behind an independent online toy company, Fat Brain Toys, out of Omaha, Nebraska, who was looking to enter the subscription business. The opportunity felt right for both parties, and according to prnewswire.com

As of 2022, people can subscribe to the Surprise Ride box at fatbraintoys.com

According to Donna Khalife's LinkedIn

According to Rosy Khalife's LinkedIn