Ride-On Carry-On ‘Shark Tank’ Update: What Happened After the Show?
Want an update on Ride-On Carry-On since it featured on "Shark Tank"? Find out what happened after Darryl and Randy Lenz got a deal for their travel-friendly child seat.
June 22 2021, Published 3:07 p.m. ET
Longtime Shark Tank viewers might remember the fourth episode of Season 2, and not just because that was when Kevin O’Leary introduced his “Mr. Wonderful” moniker.
In that episode, husband-and-wife team Darryl and Randy Lenz introduced Ride-On Carry-On—a child seat that can be strapped onto a piece of rolling luggage. Here's an update on that Shark Tank product.
As Darryl explained on the ABC reality series, she drew on her 27 years of flight attendant experience to design the product. “I’ve watched countless families deal with the frustration of traveling with small children. Anyone who has kids knows how stressful it can be,” she said. “By the time you arrive at the airport, you’re dealing with pulling your cumbersome stroller out of the trunk of your car. … By the time you arrive at the gate, you are tearing your hair out. It’s just a nightmare.”
Darryl and Randy Lenz sold thousands of units, but they needed help getting into retail.
After presenting their product—which shark Robert Herjavec called “lawn chair strapped to a piece of luggage”—the couple asked the investors for $50,000 in exchange for 25 percent of their company.
The couple said they had sold thousands of units online—so many that they were able to pay off the $150,000 mortgage on their house and become debt-free. They boasted that Businessweek picked the Ride-On Carry-On as one of the top 25 new products of the year. They were the only company on the list that wasn’t a Fortune 500 company.
But Darryl and Randy needed the sharks’ help to get into the retail market, raise product awareness, and optimize their website.
The couple’s ‘Shark Tank’ appearance came down to retail versus licensing.
Some of the sharks tried to convince Darryl and Randy to sell the idea to a luggage company. “For me, the path to what you need to do is so obvious, and you may not agree with me, but I think it’s a licensing idea,” Herjavec said. “I don’t think you need to be here asking for money, I think you need to license it.”
O’Leary even offered $50,000 for only 20 percent of the company, on the condition that the Lenzes find the two biggest luggage companies and let him negotiate a licensing deal. “You’ll keep 80 percent, and I’ll take 20 percent of everything forever,” he said.
But Barbara Corcoran believed in the product’s potential and met the couple’s original offer. “I think it’s a catalog sale, I think it’s a retail sale, I don’t go along with the way of thinking that it should be sold to a luggage company,” she said. “I can see this thing selling like hotcakes.”
The deal paid off for Barbara Corcoran.
According to Shark Tank Blog, Darryl and Randy’s deal with Corcoran went through. A Season 3 update on the company showed that Ride-On Carry-On was thriving, with shipping containers filled with inventory and deals with retailers in the U.S. and overseas. Corcoran also revealed she had earned her investment back and then some, the blog reports.
The product was previously available on Amazon, where it has an average of 3 stars from 62 ratings. “If you travel a lot like we do, this is indispensable,” one user wrote in a five-star review. Another user posted a one-star review of the Ride-product and said their toddler “fell off of it twice.”
Shark Tank Blog reports that the product is now being sold as the SitAlong Toddler Luggage Seat through the company Think King, although it’s currently out of stock on that company’s website.
