Seven years ago, Dawn Myers saw Lori Greiner invest in a woman-owned hair company on ABC's "Shark Tank."
She felt inspired, and started her own hair company catering to curls and coils. Today, Myers is the founder and CEO of Washington D.C.-based The Most, a parent company for brands Richualist and The Most Curls. And on Friday's episode of the show, she snagged a six-figure investment offer of her own.
On the show, Myers pitched her $400 thermal hair infuser called The Mint, which she said detangles and distributes heated conditioners and gels throughout a user's strands. It uses coffee pod-like cartridges, which retail for $6 each or $36 for a monthly 6-pack subscription.
The 38-year-old wanted $150,000 for 10% of The Mint, which she says took five years to perfect.
"I ended up selling my home," she said. "I eventually would liquidate my 401(k) so that we could build this product."
Myers, a lawyer by training, said her lack of beauty, tech and engineering experience made it hard to attract investors.
"I put together this really rudimentary prototype [in 2017] and I started applying to accelerators and incubators and pitch competitions," said Myers, adding: "Everybody who I went to said, 'There's no way you can make this.'"
Her pursuit for funding got harder in January 2022, when she was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. She ultimately raised $1.1 million in venture capital while undergoing surgeries and chemotherapy treatments, a Richualist spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.
'Thank you for seeing women's innovations'
The show's investor judges were inspired by Myers' backstory, but had two qualms, they said: the product's price and Myers' vision for it.
Myers said the price was so high because she only had 100 units of product, which cost $120 per unit to make. But she'd found a way to cut manufacturing costs in half, and planned to cut The Mint's price tag correspondingly, she said.
Mark Cuban and Emma Grede both asked her why she wouldn't keep the price at $400. "We want to rope people into this pod subscription," Myers responded. "We're sitting across the table from Procter & Gamble and L'Oreal right now ... They want to do a strategic partnership where we co-brand these pods."
That was the wrong move to make, said both investors.
"It's a bloody distraction," Grede said. "[The Mint] should be what you're talking about. You need to get out there and establish that this is the thing for curly hair ... I just don't feel like you should muddy the waters at this early stage."
"When you are disrupting an industry, focus on the disruption," Cuban added.
Kevin O'Leary, Robert Herjavec and Greiner bowed out of making investment offers — citing baldness, lack of industry knowledge and prior conflicting investments, respectively. But Cuban and Grede made Myers an offer: $150,000 for 20% equity in her invention.
Myers was reluctant, saying she wanted to "protect" her other investors. So the duo sweetened their offer: $150,000 for 15% equity, plus 5% in advisory shares. She accepted, and thanked Greiner for inspiring her in the first place.
"Thank you for seeing women's innovations," said Myers. "Thank you for supporting me indirectly."
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."
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