Snap Clips entered the Shark Tank with their silicone and Velcro-made collars that grip onto weights to make it easier to secure and swap them during workouts.
We interviewed founder Martin Dimitrov who created the first prototype in his junior year of high school using the metal strips out of the sleeves of the ’90s accessories, slap bracelets. He launched on Kickstarter in February of 2016, and by March, had over 23,000 in pre-orders. To date, he has around 65,000.
As of now, the product is only available on their website, but the company has plans for a weighty future, with its sights set on retailers such as Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods, GNC and Vitamin Shoppe.
Here’s what else he told us about…
How the Idea Came About
(www.snapclips.com)
It started in my junior year of high school’s entrepreneurship class. We had to come up with 10 problems that we face every day and having advanced P.E as my next class, I hated struggling with the spring weight collars that were broken half the time and not safe. The idea of the ’90s slap bracelets popped into my head and I ended up ordering 50 slap bracelets off of eBay which I used to make my first working prototype.
Experience With Kickstarter
It was awesome. I learned so much about all aspects of business, some that I never knew existed. I learned how manufacturing, product design, packaging design, website design, customer service, and networking all work. That’s not even one-fourth of everything I learned.
Composure in the ‘Tank’
(ABC)
You can’t have any negative thoughts, otherwise, you lose before you even get to pitch. I was 100 percent confident, going in there and knowing exactly what I wanted and who I wanted to partner with.
Other Tank products for the gym: