Shark Tank's biggest ever miss was sold for $1 billion and used by millions of Americans every day

When Jaime Siminoff, the founder of Doorbell Ring (formerly known as Doorbot), appeared on Shark Tank, he valued his company at $7 million asking for $700,000 for a 10% stake in the company. His pitch was rejected by all but one of the sharks, and Siminoff walked out of the tank without a deal, only to return to the show years later as a millionaire investor himself.

In 2013, Siminoff went on the business reality show “Shark Tank” with his product -- a video doorbell. At the time, he was already raking in $1 million annually in sales and hoped to get at least one shark on board with him, but his pitch fell short, and resonated with just one shark, Kevin O'Leary.  

Kevin O'Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, made an offer of $700,000 which matched what he was asking for, but with a major catch. He said that the money that he would be giving would not be an investment but a loan. He also said that he would only agree if he would be receiving 10% of sales until the loan was paid off. Furthermore, he said that he would also be collecting a 7% royalty on all future sales in addition to 5% equity in the company. Siminoff turned down the offer. He later rebranded the company as Ring and continued to do well, attracting investments from many other sources. Moreover, the Shark Tank episode also helped him to become famous. “We think we got at least $5 million of additional sales through the airing of 'Shark Tank,” he once told Business Insider.

In 2018, the company was acquired by Amazon for over $1 billion which was a testament to the company's success. Now with Amazon's vast resources, the company continued to innovate and expand its product offerings. "I couldn’t believe the price tag," he said on CNBC this week. "Unbelievable," said Kevin O’Leary at the time of the acquisition. "I think giving anybody $700,000 is a full offer, and there’s a reason they call me Mr. Wonderful," he said. “I was the only shark to make any kind of an offer. We didn’t see eye-to-eye, and of course like everybody else, when I saw the deal cross the tape last night, I said, ay, chihuahua, caramba," he added, at the time, via GeekWire. 

Today, Ring is an integral part of any smart home. However, it's not the only security camera brand that is owned by Amazon. The company also owns 'Blink' which offers very similar features. Blink is known for being the economical version of the Ring Cameras which are slightly more expensive.

Siminoff says that he was "always an inventor" and loved tinkering with all sorts of things as a child. “I don’t know if there are serial entrepreneurs — I think it’s people who haven’t found out what they like yet. A lot of the times, you think that’s a serial entrepreneur, but it’s just trying to figure something out," he told Medium.

This article originally appeared 2 months ago.