Ariel Barbouth came to New York City ten years ago with $9000 and a dream: to disrupt the fast food industry with his native Argentinian empanadas. Empanadas are pastry – baked or fried – with any number of fillings. They can be filled with meat, vegetables, even sweet dessert fare. The result is a hand-held […]

Jamie Ratner was a mommy blogger looking for family friendly bargains when she came up with the idea for Certifikids. She liked using Groupon for deals on things in her community, but there weren’t many kids’ activities on her local Groupon. This led her to start a “copycat” daily deal site that catered strictly to […]

Janet Wu and Erin Wold created Silk Roll to solve a big problem women have: closet space. Their research showed only 25% of women’s clothes get worn more than once, the rest just gathers dust for years in their closets. Janet thought that if women could get a fair value for their once-worn clothes, they […]

Press Waffles founders Caleb and Bryan Lewis loved waffles as kids. Older brother Bryan rediscovered his love for waffles while summering in Belgium back in 2013 with his wife. They ate Belgian waffles every day and fell in love with them. Belgian waffles differ from the waffles most Americans are familiar with because they are […]

Tommy Prestella, an active duty air force pilot, invented Pickup Pools because his daughter was hot and wanted to go swimming. It was a hot Arkansas summer day at Little Rock Air Force Base and the Prestella’s didn’t have a pool, so Tommy made one. He took tarp and a bunch of bungee cords and […]

Dare-U-Go creator Lisa D’Amato made her claim to fame on America’s Top Model as a sassy, outspoken woman.  She was so good, she even won an All Stars competition. None of that prepared her for motherhood. She didn’t count on the minor mayhem or messes associated with parenting two toddlers, especially when it was time […]

Ryan Bethencourt’s WildEarth Dog treats are part mad science and part genius. They’re grown in the lab using a bioreactor. He feeds Koji, a fungus that grows on grain, with beet sugar and it synthesizes the sugar into pure protein. It’s a vegan dog treat with all the protein a dog needs. Bethencourt is vegan […]

Jason Hernandez invented The Pooch-Selfie so he could take better selfies with his dog. Dogs are wonderful creatures, but they don’t always sit still for a photo-op. They tend to get distracted by just about anything. Pooch Selfie solves the problem by becoming the distraction. Basically, it’s a clamp for your cell phone that holds […]

Scott Swerland and Joe Beaudry bring their own tank into the Shark Tank when they pitch Urban Float, their sensory deprivation/relaxation spa business into Shark Tank episode 1013. Sensory deprivation tanks were all the rage in the late sixties and seventies. They were touted as a way to completely relax and unwind. They lost favor […]

Amanda Naqvi created Kudo Banz to help herself parent her own kids in a more positive way. There’s a ton of research that says positive reinforcement makes for more well-behaved kids, so she set out to become a more positive parent. Anyone with kids knows about sticker charts; they’re a way to visibly reward a […]