You Smell Soap Made A Deal On Shark Tank (But Failed In The End)

For the brave aspiring entrepreneurs who dare to present their original business idea to the panel on ABC's "Shark Tank," the one thing that may rival the disappointment of not reaching a deal may be actually scoring a victory, only for the deal to fall through after all. Believe it or not, this is not a rare occurrence for contestants on the hit series, which is exactly what Megan Cummins discovered after she believed she was taking her You Smell Soap company to a new level.

On Season 3, Episode 3, Cummins bravely walked down the path to step in front of the millionaire investors, trying to convince them to fork over their cash to add the needed equity for her business to thrive. She developed her You Smell Soap brand in her hometown of Emeryville, California, back when it was just a college design project. As she tells Billion Success, she had no intention of profiting from it, but the praise it was getting pushed her to aim higher. 

When Cummins stood in front of the toothy panel of Sharks, she was looking for $55,000 in exchange for 20% ownership of her business. After passing out a few samples, the only offer that came was from Mark Cuban, promising exactly what she came there asking for. However, Robert Herjavec swept in and snagged the deal from Cuban, promising an additional $50,000 annual salary for Cummins while bumping up the ownership to 30%. Cummins took the deal, and she was clearly thrilled. However, that excitement quickly faded as she learned in the following months that not everything goes as planned.

When Megan Cummins went on "Shark Tank" to grab an investment for her luxury soap company, her perception of the judges as a fan swayed her to move her deal away from Mark Cuban. "... I always felt like Robert [Herjavec] was the nice one of the group, since that's how they portray him on the show," she explained. "It was naïve of me." Cummins, like many other seemingly victorious entrepreneurs that stand on the "Shark Tank" stage, found out that not every deal continues past their episode. But, the way Herjavec supposedly handled the situation made it worse.

Cummins told CNET that for six months after her episode, she tried to contact Herjavec but was essentially ghosted. Eventually, the Shark contacted her but with a new offer of 50% of the business, a deal Cummins had to turn down. But that didn't stop her from continuing with her hopes for You Smell Soap. Eventually, in 2014, an undisclosed investor ponied up some extra dough to help the company grow. However, the company would later officially go out of business in 2016.

Although You Smell Soap products are no longer available, Cummins has not stopped trying to find other ways to succeed in business. She has started a fashion jewelry company called Sparklepop and began running Megan Cummins Designs, which is a contract design firm. As for her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, Cummins says, "Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and don't ever let your guard down. You always have to have a back-up plan and 'rolling with the punches' has taken on an entirely new meaning for me."