'Shark Tank' offered $150,000 to a toy company founder. Then, his product went straight to Hollywood.

For more than a decade, “Shark Tank” has been inspiring people and encouraging entrepreneurs to innovate by creating success stories on reality TV. One such success story is Mensch on a Bench, a company founded in 2013 by Neal Hoffman. By December of 2014, he got himself a $150,000 investment on the show. Little did he know that the time that it would only take a year before some big industry players took notice of a product that addressed a need in the market.

At the time, there were several mascots for the most popular American festival, Christmas. This was not the case for the Jewish festival of Hannukah which takes place around the same time. Hoffman saw that there was a gap in the market and capitalized on it with Mensch on a bench. In his pitch on “Shark Tank”, he said that every package came with a 12-inch Mensch doll, a bench for the same, and a book that told the story of Moshe the Mensch.

Lori Greiner and Robert Herjavec had bought 15% of the company for $150,000 at the time. It was not long before others also started to show interest in investing in the Hanukkah-centric company. It was reported by Inc. that in 2015, Pilgrim Studios had bought film and TV rights for Moshe the Mensch for a nominal fee for six months.

Hoffman was tight-lipped about the figure at the time but said that the studio would have to purchase the rights at a higher price after six months. Pilgrim wanted to make an animated special featuring Moshe but did not use the story told in the book. They even reportedly matched the Sharks’ offer for a stake in the company but the founder refused to give up any more of what he had created.

The Pilgrim deal, in all probability, paid dividends for Hoffman since Mensch on a Bench is popular across the country today. It has been more than 10 years since he got his deal on “Shark Tank” and he went on to make full use of the opportunity, funds and exposure, for which he is quite proud. "What I created was like the Forrest Gump of Judaism,” he said as per WCPO.

Hoffman said that the sales have been good in 2024 and that the product line has expanded from Moshe to a Snow Mensch, Mitzvah Moose, Dreidel Dog, a Jewnicorn, and a talking grandmother doll called Ask Bubbe. It’s safe to say that Business has been going fantastically well for the now-veteran entrepreneur.

He was always passionate about the toy industry to begin and was also an executive at Hasbro before starting Mensch on a Bench. "I never wanted to leave toys ... I got off track when I left Hasbro, (Mensch on a Bench) allowed me to get back on track," Hoffman explained. It’s safe to say that it will take a lot for Hoffman to completely sell off his business given what it means to him.