Most people don’t enjoy coffee if it’s too hot or too cold. But getting coffee to the right temperature and maintaining it is no easy task. Coffee Joulies are small metallic beans that can keep your cup of joe at the ideal temperature for hours. Founders Dave Petrillo and David Jackson took it to Shark Tank and got a deal with four Sharks. As of 2023, Coffee Joulies is worth an estimated $250,000.
About the Founders
Hailing from Pennington, New Jersey, Dave Petrillo and David Jackson are best friends with a mechanical engineering background. Pettrillo graduated from Lehigh University, and Jackson got his degree from Stanford.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Petrillo was a project mechanical engineer at Lutron Electronics. Three years later, he was hired as a part-time professor at The Cooper Union. Next he joined Peloton Interactive as an engineering consultant where he climbed the ranks to become a senior product design engineer.
Founding the Company
As serial coffee drinkers, the two Dave’s grew tired of burning their tongues every time they got their coffee too hot and waited for it to cool down. This dilemma inspired them to design their brainchild product.
They discovered an undisclosed company that produced a phase-changing material capable of setting water at the ideal temperature for drinking and making it last for hours. They put the material in stainless-steel capsules and called them Coffee Joulies.
The startup was established in 2011 and they raised over $306,000 on Kickstarter, which was a record for the crowdfunding platform at the time. As for sales, they made $575,000 in the first year.
Shark Tank Appearance
Petrillo and Jackson gained early success through online sales, but wanted to dive into wholesale and retail in 2013. The duo appeared on season four of Shark Tank, seeking $150,000 for a 5% stake.
The two Daves were very confident at the start, boldly claiming that at least one of the show’s judges would invest in Coffee Joulies. Daymond John initially dropped out, but came back in to steal a deal.
Kevin O’Leary got the ball rolling with an offer of $150,000 with a $6 royalty per retail sale and a $3 per wholesale transaction until he got his money back. Then, the royalty would drop to $1 per sale. Lori, Robert and Daymond all joined Kevin to seal the deal.
After Shark Tank
Despite initiating one of the one biggest bidding battles on Shark Tank, the deal didn’t close according to Mashed.com. It’s common for deals to fall apart after the show as the due diligence process takes a long time. Potentially the royalty aspect of the deal was the reason it didn’t didn’t happen.
The products are available to buy through Joulies.com and Amazon, however they are currently sold out, and their online presence has been inactive until recently. In February 2023 they made a Facebook post revealing Coffee Joulies’ was for sale at Thread & Leather for a short time.
Coffee Joulies’s website is still active but has an average star rating of 3.3 from 181 customer reviews on Amazon. The company had impending contracts with major retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond. It appears both founders are busy working full-time jobs. Petrillo is a Staff Hardware Lead at Peloton Interactive and Jackson founded another business called SpeedBoard. At its peak, the company was valued at $3 million.
