Did you know plastic straws are known to kill sea animals, including endangered sea turtles? Emma Cohen and Miles Pepper pitched an appropriate solution, Final Straw, their collapsible, portable, and reusable drinking straw, in episode 1001.
According to their pitch, Americans used over 500 million straws every day, and many of them ended up in the ocean. California banned the sale and use of plastic straws earlier in 2018, and there was a growing awareness of the wastefulness they represented.
The entrepreneurs were capitalizing on the plastic straw ban problem. They called their product “the greatest advancement in sucking technology – since like forever.” They came hoping a Shark would help them take their product global.
About Final Straw
| Category | Details |
| Founder (Plural if multiple) | Emma Cohen and Miles Pepper |
| Product Type | Reusable drinking straw |
| Funding (Pre-Shark Tank) | $1.8 million |
| Investment Asked | $625,000 |
| Equity Offered | 5% |
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What Happened on the Shark Tank Episode?
The founders of Final Straw presented a rather interesting pitch for their business in Shark Tank Season 10. To illustrate the issue of single-use straws, thousands of straws rained down on the pair from above. The entrepreneurs gave their pitch, they explained the rise of their business when they felt the market need for their product, and how they started the venture together. Emma and Miles wanted an investment worth $625,000 from the sharks.
The company was taking advantage of a national trend to ban plastic straws and other single-use plastic items that pollute our oceans and could harm wildlife. In 2018, Hardly a day went by without a story of a dead marine animal dying due to ingesting plastics. Many cities, states, and even companies were eliminating plastic straws from the dining landscape.
Environmentalists acknowledged that straws were the tip of the iceberg, but they hoped the awareness bans created would lead to greater efforts and behavior change to help curb the over 300 million metric tons of single-use plastics dumped yearly worldwide. Final Straw said they wanted their product to not only reduce plastic waste but also bring awareness to the “devastating effects of plastic pollution.”
Cohen was no stranger to pollution reduction. In her four years at the Los Alamos National Labs, she was a pollution specialist. The Harvard grad had a degree in environmental management and made it her mission to reduce waste at the labs. Pepper’s background was in cinematography. While working in that industry, he designed drones that lifted heavy objects for the film industry. The pair gathered a team, designed Final Straw, and raised money to get it off the ground.
They gave their pitch and handed out samples. The Sharks took it all in and then came the objections.
What Makes Final Straw Unique?
Cohen and Pepper got Final Straw off the ground with a wildly successful KickStarter campaign that raised over $1.8 million! They listed the product as shipping in November 2018.
- The product is a great alternative to the plastic straws that are just one use away from becoming plastic clutter.
- Final Straw is a reusable, stainless steel straw with soft tips on each end.
- The straw folds up into several pieces.
- It is small enough to fit in a key chain carrier the size of most car key remotes.
- Each Final Straw comes with a mini squeegee to clean the insides.
- They are dishwasher-safe, too.
Find more posts about interesting businesses on the Shark Tank Blog. To get additional information on Final Straw, read FinalStraw – Stainless Steel Drinking Straw.
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Did Final Straw Get a Deal on Shark Tank?
After a fun pitch, the Sharks interrogated the entrepreneurs about their business strategies, how they plan to move forward, and what their future plans are.
Starting with Kevin, he asked about the making and selling costs. The selling price is $20, while it takes $5 to make one. The Sharks found the price too high for people to buy them. According to Daymond, he didn’t think anyone would actually pay this much for a straw.
Shark Lori said that the valuation is so high that the entrepreneurs must have some sales. Emma explained that they hadn’t yet delivered anything, but they started pre-sales and had done $115,000 in sales in a day. That left Lori shocked.
However, since the product had still not been in people’s hands, that made Lori hesitant. Besides, she said she had seen dozens of similar straws for sale. With that, she stayed out of making any deals.
The Sharks felt that the product required a change in consumer behavior—people would have to carry it around. First, the entrepreneurs needed to educate their target audience about the product and its necessity, and then they would have to convince them to buy it. Because of this, Shark Jamie went out.
Kevin told the entrepreneurs that they weren’t a company yet; they were a mission with a product. He made an offer of $625,000 for 10%, plus a $2 per straw royalty until he recouped $1.8 million. Cohen didn’t like the royalty and said she would entertain a higher percentage. Kevin felt disappointed, so he went out.
Mark offered $625,000 for 25%, and the entrepreneurs countered with 12.5% equity. Mark straight-up said, “No, thank you!” The entrepreneurs walked away with No Deal.
What Happened to Final Straw After Shark Tank?
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provided updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who had appeared on the Shark Tank TV show. Things got a bit shaky for Final Straw after their Shark Tank appearance. Before their Kickstarter was even completed, cheap Chinese knockoffs were flooding the US market. Alibaba had dozens of listings for the knockoffs.
With a little urging from CNBC’s Nightly Business Report reporter Andrea Day, Alibaba removed the knockoff manufacturers from their website. In September 2020, the International Trade Commission issued a General Exclusion Order for Final Straw, which barred importing products that infringed on their patent. It was all over the internet, with headings like “How one entrepreneur’s dream became a copycat nightmare.”
While all that was going on, Emma Cohen sued Miles Pepper when she discovered that he was secretly attempting to launch a rival collapsible straw business. He also canceled company credit cards and locked Cohen out of the company’s web properties. The suit must have been settled as Pepper’s LinkedIn profile said he exited the company in February 2019. There were no mentions of it after the initial suit either. Pepper started Sanikind, a reusable hand sanitizer dispenser, with a successful Kickstarter campaign in August 2020.
Trouble Brewing
Sales for Final Straw tanked in 2020, too. The company conducted a Kickstarter campaign for the Final Wipe, a reusable sanitizing wipe. They also launched a concurrent IndieGoGo campaign for the Final Wipe, Final Fork, and Final Spork – a reusable spork. Together, the two campaigns raised over $500,000, but almost nothing was delivered. The wipes that were delivered had mold issues and were virtually useless after a few uses. No refunds were issued, and the company went out of business. Deliveries for the first Kickstarter campaign back in 2018 weren’t made either.
While Cohen still listed the business as “open” on her LinkedIn profile, social media hadn’t been updated since 2021, and the website would not let you order anything. There were also numerous Better Business Bureau complaints against the company. In January 2022, the registered LLC for the company in California was listed as “forfeited.” It turned out that she re-branded to Final Co., and the company was still in business as of July 2024.
Where Can You Buy It?
If you wish to contribute to the environmental movement, the Final Straw could be your solution. Get the amazing reusable, collapsible straw from the official Final Straw website. You can also buy it from Amazon and have it delivered to your doorstep.
Get more Final Straw company information from their social media:
Quick Summary
- Emma Cohen and Miles Pepper founded Final Straw to create reusable drinking straws that would save oceans from traditional plastic straws.
- The Final Straw is unique in the sense that its product is a collapsible, portable, stainless steel straw. It has soft tips, designed to replace single-use plastic straws. It folds into a small keychain-sized carrier and includes a cleaning squeegee.
- Final Straw did not secure a deal on Shark Tank. The Sharks expressed concerns about the product’s price and the need for significant consumer behavior change.
