Rob Merlino: Blogger, Writer, Entrepreneur & Foodie

Chicken Soup may be good for the soul, but Marti Wymer and Scott Gustafson hope the Sharks think their Chicken Soup care package business – Spoonful of Comfort – is an appetizing opportunity for a Shark in the Shark Tank season 8 premier. Wymer started the business in 2008 after losing her mother to lung […]

Phil Petracca and David McDonald introduce the world to their Fizzics Beer System in the season 8 premier of Shark Tank. They’ll pitch to six Sharks, not five. Whether this increases their chances of getting a deal remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: we know the Sharks love beer! The Fizzics Beer […]

Shark Tank season 8 premiers Friday, September 23 at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. There has not been an “official” ABC press release about the show yet, but a trailer on last night’s rerun of episode 728, which originally aired on April 8, 2016, revealed some exciting surprises. The most interesting fact about the Shark […]

Maneesh Sethi hopes to shock a Shark when he introduces the Shock Clock by Pavlok, a wristband alarm clock and accompanying behavior modification system that uses electric shocks. The initial product, the Pavlok, got over a quarter of a million bucks in a very successful IndieGoGo campaign to get off the ground. Now Sethi wants a […]

Aaron Marino didn’t get a deal for Alpha M Style System back in season four, but after that, he began developing Pete and Pedro Bueno Hair – hair care and grooming products for men. Marino is a men’s fashion guru who pitched a “system” that taught men how to dress and groom like a fashionista. […]

Tania Green, like many other women, suffers from PMS and she often found herself bingeing on chocolate treats to help cure the symptoms, so she made her own treats and called them PMSBites. She realized, after three years of tracking her moods, that her worst days were when she was suffering from PMS. On those […]

Tomer Alpert thinks people in the digital age want more personalized communications, which is why he created Felt, an app that designs, prints, and mails hand written greeting cards users create on their iPhones. Alpert hopes to wow the Sharks with his business in the season 7 finale. He created the app, and the business, […]

Rachel Zietz spent a lot of time practicing with a lacrosse rebounder. She’s a girl who loves her sport and wants to be the best she can be. Unfortunately, when practicing lacrosse, you need a way for someone or something to “throw” the ball back to you. If a teammate isn’t available, you use a […]

Camp No Counselors is an adult summer camp that lets “grown ups” relive their glory days of sleepover camp. Each camp session takes place in a real summer camp – outside the “traditional dates” when kids would be there. Campers can book weekend sessions in May or September in one of 9 metropolitan areas. Adult […]

Car covers have been around as long as cars. People always want a way to keep dust, debris, and other environmental hazards off their beloved automobiles. The first car covers were glorified blankets, they evolved into custom, snug fitting covers that stayed in place with tie-downs. Extreme Vehicle Protection car covers are the newest, state-of-the […]

Virtual reality is on everyone’s lips when they talk about the future of gaming, but Brad Baker thinks virtual pinball could find a big niche while giving a nod to gaming’s past. Baker started VPCABS, his business that manufactures virtual pinball machines, back in 2013 when his brother asked him to create a machine for […]

Mai Lieu created the CreaClip to allow women to cut their own hair without worrying about screwing it up. Lieu, who escaped the Viet Nam war with her family at age 4, moved from Canada to Hawaii in 2003. She worked as a hair stylist for a few years and began developing the CreaClip. Once she […]

The Spooner Board is a curved plastic balance board that rides like a skateboard without wheels on just about any surface. Bernie Miller and Ruben Guymer hope to get a Shark on board with their company when they pitch it in episode 729. After the product was “invented” by accident by company co-founder Randy Putland in 2006, the […]

Heather Saffer, creator of Dollop Gourmet Frosting, is that person who always wanted that piece of cake with the extra frosting on it. After a lifetime of baking and making frosting, she opened several retail cupcake shops. She closed her retail spots shortly after she went on (and won) Cupcake Wars back in February of 2012 and […]

When Shelby and Gordy Gogulski began making Your Self Expression Custom Jewelry back in 2013, little did they imagine they’d be media darlings and successful business people before completing high school. They Started the business in 2013 when Shelby was 14 and Gordy was just 9. They filmed their Shark Tank episode during the season six […]

Adam Gerber and Bob Ntoya invented Fruity Faces to solve a problem: how to get kids to eat healthy snacks. Parents know kids love snacks, and the proliferation of junk-food snacks makes it hard to get kids to eat fruit or veggies sometimes, especially when they want something touted by a cartoon character they love. […]

Famous fashion blogger Amy Roiland introduces Fashion Tap, a new fashion based social media network, to the Sharks in episode 724. Roiland is a popular, influential blogger in the fashion world. She wanted to create a social network that let people share photos of their favorite fashions while getting credit for sales of the pictured […]