Two St. Tammany Parish women sent ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ celebrity investors into a feeding frenzy over their ‘Better Bedder’ bed sheet fastener.
In Friday’s episode, three of the ‘Sharks’ attempting to outbid each other for a stake in Nita Gassen and Judy Schott’s company.
In the end, ‘Shark’ Lori Greiner, better known as the “Queen of QVC,” came in with an offer of $150,000 for an 18% interest in the company. The entrepreneurs say they will use their company’s new celebrity-backed capital for nationwide marketing for their company.
“Just making it onto the show was surreal, but to end up having the Sharks fighting over us and coming away with a very hefty business investment by Lori is the biggest imaginable dream come true,” said Gassen.
“It’s all been unbelievable,” Schott said. “We couldn’t believe we kept getting callbacks from the TV producers at ‘Shark Tank,’ and then last summer we were stunned to get the call to go to Las Vegas and do the real show in front of the Sharks. And now I can’t believe we just watched ourselves on TV.”
In 2018, Gassen and Schott were working together at the same Covington insurance company when they came up with the idea of simplifying of making the bed.
Schott, a New Orleans native and attorney by trade who serves as COO of the health and benefits management company, Gilsbar, partnered with a longtime friend Gassen, a Luling native, and immediately began brainstorming.
“Once the invention was created, we immediately realized this product could dramatically change the morning routine of millions of people who usually resist making the bed,” Gassen said. “More than that, it could make changing the sheets simple.”
To date, the pair has sold more than 15,000 Better Bedders with revenues nearing one million dollars. Now with the success of tonight’s ABC-TV top-rated “Shark Tank” show, Gassen and Schott are planning for a major expansion of the Better Bedder’s production, marketing, and distribution.
