Dave Goodman, a former orchestra conductor from New York City, hit the road in 2012 to make his vision for Coco Jack, a Thai Coconut opener, come true. He left New York to live in trailers in Austin, Nashville, and other states out west. While living this seemingly nomadic lifestyle, he was actually building a business. He was inventing and sourcing manufacturing for Coco Jack. Goodman pitches his coconut opener to the Sharks in episode 618 on March 6, 2015.
Coconuts are a delicious and healthy food. They grow in the tropics, but they’re sold in practically every supermarket in the USA. Unlike traditional crops, humans don’t always harvest coconuts: in Thailand, they use trained pig-tailed macaques to climb the palm trees and harvest the coconuts! Unlike macaques and other monkeys, humans have a rough time opening coconuts; that’s why we Homo sapiens need a quality coconut opener!
Goodman’s coconut opener is fairly straight forward: the Coco Jack consists of a big rubber mallet and a heavy-duty ring on a handle to make a controlled strike at the top of the coconut. Just give Coco Jack a whack, and you have a nice opening in the coconut to sip the coconut milk or harvest the flesh. Many of the other coconut opener products on the market involve drilling, which doesn’t make a big enough hole to get the coconut flesh out effectively.
Coco Jack runs about 50 bucks for the mallet, striker ring, and scraper. It’s currently available on the Coco Jack website, but Goodman probably wants a Shark’s help getting into retail stores.
My Take on the Coconut Opener
When I went to the Singapore Zoo ten years ago, my family “adopted” a lone Navy Captain from the Kittyhawk who was on the same zoo-bound bus as us. We went to a primate show at the zoo, and, as luck would have it, our Captain got picked to go on stage and be in a coconut opening race with an adult orangutan. Each contestant got a coconut. Our Captain also got a fireman’s ax. Whoever could open their coconut quickest won the race. The orangutan took ten seconds to open his with his bare hands! The Captain took two whacks at his coconut with the ax and didn’t even dent it! Coconuts are tough to open, unless you’re an orangutan!
I digress; I was just trying to quantify how tough the coconut is! The fact is, they’re so tough to open, you need something along the lines of a fireman’s ax to do the job. Since most people don’t keep one of those in their kitchen, a quality coconut opener comes in handy.
I can probably count on one hand how many times I purchased a coconut in my lifetime, so I’m not sure I’d rush out to buy a Coco Jack, but a lot of people must be buying them if I see them in the store all the time. Supermarkets won’t carry an item if it doesn’t sell. All those people buying up those coconuts would probably love a quality coconut opener, heck maybe I’d buy more coconuts if they were easy to open, I like coconuts. Whether the Sharks like them is another story.
Do Sharks go nuts for Coco Jack?
The only thing Goodman has going against him is the niche aspect of his product. That said, home chefs an pros alike want every cooking tool at their disposal at all times. A well equipped kitchen should have a coconut opener. If Goodman has solid sales, he might get some interest. I’m not sure if Coco Jack is a QVC product or even an invest-able business, but he might field an offer if his ask isn’t outrageous.
Entrepreneur, auteur, raconteur. Rob Merlino is a blogger and writer who enjoys the Shark Tank TV show and Hot Dogs. A father of five who freelances in a variety of publications, Rob has a stable of websites including Shark Tank Blog, Hot Dog Stories, Rob Merlino.com and more.
Speak Your Mind