Rob Merlino: Blogger, Writer, Entrepreneur & Foodie

Besides inventing PoochPaper, Tracy Rosensteel has a lot on her plate. She’s a sales director for a global food service company and she hosts and produces a travel biography show. Pooch Paper is why she’s in the Tank though and she created the product to help the environment. Dog poop is everywhere there are dogs […]

P-Nuff Crunch creator Juan Salinas spent the better part of his adult life making snack foods for industry giants like Kraft, Cadbury and Nestle. Juan is a fitness addict and bodybuilder, so he often felt a disconnect between what he was making for the masses and what he ate for his own nutrition. In 2015, […]

Carson Grill, the 15 year old inventor of The Touch Up Cup is going places. He’s one of those kids who sees a problem and finds a way to fix it. One day, his dad Jason asked him to help touch up some paint around their house. When they opened the paint cans, the paint […]

Josh Aviv first got thinking about Spark Charge in the 1990’s while attending Syracuse University. He knew he wanted to solve a problem and when one of his professors suggested electric vehicle charging, Josh was intrigued. They spoke about the topic for hours. This led Josh to develop a plan to install charging stations along […]

Wylie Robinson and Nick Polinko created the idea for the Rumpl Blanket while bundled in their sleeping bags in a broken down van. They were on their way home from a ski trip when their van broke down. They were out of cell service range and it was cold, so they crawled into their sleeping […]

Garma Guard inventors Bianca and Pete Badawy are a husband and wife team of first responders turned entrepreneurs. She’s a nurse and he’s a cop and they both wear uniforms for their jobs. The problem they have is their uniforms get soiled and smelly. They wanted a quick, easy way to freshen their clothes and […]

The Shark Tank Season 12 Premier is this Friday, October 16 at 8 PM. This season will be unlike any other due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Shark Tank usually shoots in two time slots: two weeks in June and two weeks in September. This year, because Los Angeles is such a hot spot, ABC […]

Friday, May 29 there is an episode 1117 re-run. What makes this re-run interesting is it originally aired on March 20, 2020 – the date most of the USA shut down due to the Covid – 19 pandemic. While doing Shark Tank updates for the four businesses featured in the episode 117 re-run, I noticed […]

Tara Williams created Dreamland Baby because she was sleep deprived. Her fourth child, Luke, would not sleep. When babies don’t sleep, parents don’t either. When you have four kids and aren’t sleeping, life can be a bit rough. Tara has a very positive attitude though and she kept plugging along. One night, little Luke was being […]

Mohammed M. Mahdi, Mohammed A. Mahdi and Anthony Duncan had a lot of help when they started The Mad Optimist. They incubated their business with grants valued at $300,000 at a Cincinnati area small business incubator called The Brandery. They also got free office space for a year and free consultations with executives from companies […]

Joe Demin and Rachel Connors discovered the first Yellowleaf Hammocks while motorcycling in the hills of Thailand. They were in the tribal lands of the Mlabri Tribe, known as “the people of the yellow leaf,” Now, some of those tribeswomen are employees of the business. Back in 2012, Demin did a Kickstarter that raised a […]

As we sit on the eve of the Shark Tank Season 11 Finale, the world has changed in in explicable ways since the season began. Little did we know back in September that an unseen virus would flip our realities on our collective heads. For me, not much changed. I work at home anyways, so […]

Jeff Appelbaum represents The Salted Restaurant Group in his appearance in episode 1124. He claims he has the future of restaurants in his business and he may have been more prophetic than even he thought in the era of Covid-19. Salted operates six different restaurants in four major metropolitan markets. Here’s the catch: they offer […]

Eric Hartsfield and Brett Russel invented RescueReady, their fire escape ladder that’s built right into a window frame, to save lives. Even homes with safety fire escape ladders have risks. If a ladder is stored in a tough to get to spot, precious time can be lost getting it ready. A RescueReady ladder deploys in […]

MC Squares founder Anthony Franco knows a lot about business. He’s built and sold five companies and won numerous awards for his business acumen. So it’s no surprise he finds himself heading his sixth company – a business that helps make collaboration easier. When you’ve been in the business world as long as Franco, you’ve […]

Colt and Stacy Hall invented The Potty Safe to solve a problem. Back in 2013, they were potty training their first child. Their daughter liked playing with her potty trainer and frequently spilled the contents all over their bathroom. It was, to put it mildly, disgusting. The new parents went searching for a potty trainer […]

Tough Ties creators Kevin Shoemaker and Skylar Bennett are snappy dressers. They always wore the best suits to their office where they were commercial real estate brokers. That was all fine and dandy until they became dads. Babies can be messy little buggers and the two snappy dressers were soon dealing with drool, spilled food […]

Schuyler Ellers, aka Lord Von Schmitt, learned to knit and crochet while working as an English teacher in Spain. Little did he know it would become his life’s work. Now, the quirky entrepreneur makes his living selling what he describes as “Recycled Upcycled Sustainable Cosmic Space Crochet for Radical Badass Mother Effers.” In short, he […]

The third time was the charm for DadWare creator Nick Baker. He applied to Shark Tank three times with his product – a kangaroo bonding shirts for dads with infants called the Bondaroo. The Bondaroo is named after his daughter Eva’s nickname: the little Bugaroo. Eva was instrumental in the creation of the Bondaroo too. […]

Barbara Heilman invented Unbuckle Me to solve a problem. She wanted to take her new grand daughter out on excursions while she was caring for her, but her arthritis made it difficult to exert enough pressure on the buckle that secured the child seat. As an occupational therapist, she decided to create a splint to […]

Van Robotics founder Laura Boccanfuso knows the role technology is increasingly taking in education. She also knows teachers and parents struggle with helping kids, especially slower learners, learn to be proficient in math. That’s why her company created Abii, the robot tutor for elementary math education. Abii is a desk top robot that teaches math […]

Tanoshi Computers wants to make fun, affordable computers for kids. The word Tanoshi means “fun” in Japanese and kids seem to embrace that. As for affordable, at $189 apiece with all the software kids need pre-installed, it is relatively affordable. The mission for Tanoshi Computers is that every kid has access to technology. With more […]

Proven Skincare founders Ming Zhao and Amy Yuan took a different approach when they founded their business. They didn’t want to sell a one-size-fits-all skincare product, they wanted to customize their products to each customers’ individual skincare needs. That’ not an easy task, unless you have a huge database. It turns out, they do. Yuan […]

The Little Burro is one of those inventions that is born out of necessity and, when it comes to fruition, it really takes off. Bob Thorsen, a successful construction company operator, invented the Little Burro so his wife wouldn’t have to make a lot of trips to the gardening shed while gardening on their property. […]