Dogs are great company, but many owners don’t always have the time to play with them. If that makes you feel guilty, you might want to try setting up SwiftPaws in your backyard. SwiftPaws is a remote control toy that can play chase with your dog. Founder Meghan Wolfgram took it to Shark Tank and secured a deal with Lori Greiner. As of 2023, SwiftPaws is worth $4 million.
About the Founder
Meghan Wolfgram is an animal enrichment expert from Palm Bay, Florida. She attended the private liberal arts institution of DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.
Before training animals, Wolfgram started her career as a finance intern at BCR Environmental. Meghan has also worked with zoos to improve the living conditions of cheetahs and other animals, but her main focus is on dogs.
Her pups are Pretzel, a miniature pinscher, and Piper, a pointer mix. The duo has participated in many tracks with their trainer. Apart from playing with pets, Meghan also has experience in public speaking, editing, and event organization.
Founding the Company
When Meghan learned about lure chasing, she wondered if Pretzel would be able to participate because he loved chasing stuff. At this time, she was just fresh out of college. Pretzel was a perfect fit for the sport, but he died due to kidney disease.
Despite the tragedy, Meghan was inspired to make professional-grade equipment for lure coursing. Wolfgram launched SwiftPaws in 2012 and began selling to dog daycares, trainers and zoos.
Average dog owners noticed the product and wanted to get one for themselves, so the founder made a commercial version. She raised $670,000 in 2020 and two years later, the company had $1.5 million in lifetime sales.
Shark Tank Appearance
After almost a decade into the business, Meghan Wolfgram was looking to raise more capital and bring on a new partner. Meghan appeared on season 13 of Shark Tank, seeking $240,000 for a 6% equity stake. She demoed the product and the Sharks loved the product,
The business had year-to-date sales of $750,00 and were on track to make $1.5 million in sales for 2021. However, some of the Sharks were not impressed with the profit margins. In 2020, SwiftPaws lost $380,000 due to inventory issues.
Only Robert Herjavec and Lori Greiner were left after the others dropped out. Lori took everyone by surprise when she pulled out her golden ticket, which she hands out once per season. Lori gave Meghan exactly what she was looking for and closed the deal.
After Shark Tank
Featuring on the show was a dream come true for Wolfgram. The next morning after the episode aired, SwiftPaws sold $100,000 worth of product and website traffic peaked at 20,000 visitors on Friday night.
By October 2022, the company hit $1 million in sales, well ahead of the targets Meghan set earlier in the year. They were expecting another boost in orders during the festive period, as Q4 is typically the strongest period.
The company has kept the production in America and has opened up a production facility in downtown Melbourne, Florida. They also got accepted into Amazon Launchpad, an exclusive program that helps ecommerce businesses boost their visibility on the platform. The products are only available on Amazon and their website, SwiftPaws.com.
The version for regular pet owners has an average of 4 stars from 155 customer reviews on Amazon. SwiftPaws is thriving and should close out 2022 with around $1.3 million in revenue. Currently, the business is worth an estimated $4 million.
