Two 'Shark Tank' billionaires offer a life-changing deal to 8-year-old for his baseball glove idea
Age is truly just a number when it comes to having sharp business acumen and young entrepreneurs keep proving that on "Shark Tank." Back in 2023, an 8-year-old kid named Gavin Batarse, an avid baseball player came to the tank with his venture Glove Wrap along with his father Jon and sister Morgan Batarse. Gavin pitched the product which helps baseball players break in their stiff new gloves making the leather more pliable and molding its pocket around the ball perfectly.
"Glove Wrap is an elastic band with the exact width, length, and thickness needed to break in and shape your entire baseball glove while forming a perfect pocket," he explained. "Just place a ball in a glove and wrap it up with Glove Wrap. That’s it. No other product on the market wraps the entirety of the glove,” Jon added.
The family had asked for $50,000 for 20% of the Orange County, California-based business. The product competes with many solutions that have been invented for the issue over the years. Baseball players have wildly varying strategies for breaking in gloves, involving anything from hot water and a tool known as a "glove mallet" to a series of glove oils and conditioners.
"My dad and I just bought me a new glove, and we were going to use the old-fashioned way to break it in with rubber bands, but we didn’t have enough. So I found a piece of rubber that my dad used when he hurt his leg and I asked him if we can wrap the entirety of the glove with it," he said in the episode. Gavin was well prepared and it showed especially when it came to the numbers. "We have sold over 1,000 Glove Wraps. Lifetime sales are over $19,000 [since launching in 2022]," he said. "It costs us $3 [including all expenses] to make. We sell it for $19.99 retail and $10 wholesale."
The sharks soon started sharing their thoughts. Mark Cuban came up with the idea of selling a bunch of them in one go. Many of them dropped out adding that Cuban and Michael Rubin, the CEO and founder of sports retailer Fanatics would be the perfect fit for this investment. "I believe you’re going to be a winner and I want to be able to invest in anything you do in the future," Rubin said. Then Rubin said that he would go on to make an offer only if Cuban joined in. The two then offered $50,000 for a 22% equity stake in Glove Wraps and Gavin happily accepted.
This is not the first time that a kid won the hearts of the sharks. Nathaniel Wellen went to the show with his simple yet very clever invention at the age of 15 and bagged an investment too. The Los Angeles-based high school kid created his own company The Duo which made umbrellas with a second extendable handle designed for two people of different heights to stand beneath it comfortably. The kid pitched with his mother and his sister and impressed Robert Herjavec.