In 2019, Oliver Zak and Selom Agbitor, seniors at Miami University in Ohio, had a hunch to create a tattoo aftercare product store after seeing the digital branding issues in other brands. This started as a test, marketing, and selling of products that still needed to be created. Their “test run” ended up being successful, selling many of these unproduced products. The pair had to cancel the orders since there was obviously nothing to give, but it opened up the idea that this business could actually work. They also wanted to differentiate the product by using clean ingredients since most traditional tattoo skincare products contain unnecessary ingredients that may be harmful.
Zak and Agbitor then established Mad Rabbit Tattoo as an actual brand. After this point, they went on the television show Shark Tank to pitch their idea to investors. The pitch was successful, landing a $500,000 investment from Mark Cuban. Now, Mad Rabbit Tattoo is valued at $56 million, which is a mind-blowing valuation for an idea that stemmed from two college students.
These young entrepreneurs teach us the need to jump on ideas that we may have, even if we are still determining how successful they’ll be because you never know what may happen. Even if it’s just the process of testing a product in a particular market (like Mad Rabbit Tattoo), taking advantage of a possible opportunity is crucial to be a successful entrepreneur. Even though they didn’t create an entirely new product, they identified a problem with only poor solutions, finding themselves a solid foundation for entering the market.
What a fascinating read. These entrepreneurs discovered an untapped market and crafted something truly valuable for their target audience. Their achievement stemmed from delivering a dependable product of consistently high quality, which is hard to do for anyone. It’s truly inspiring how taking risks propelled their brand and provided them with the financial resources they needed when it all could have backfired in an instant. Good work!
This is a crazy story. It is a testament to the importance of thinking of new ideas and trying them out. Imagine if they got that idea and then just ignored it. They would have lost a company valued at $56 million dollars. Even if you don’t think the idea will work out just test it first and see what happens.
These entrepreneurs found a dormant market and created something that was very valuable to their target market. Their success came from delivering a product that was reliable and a consistently high quality. Taking risk is ultimately what elevated their brand and provided them financial resource.
These people’s journey is a great reminder of the value of taking risks and testing out ideas. It’s impressive how they turned a simple market test into a very successful brand as a result of taking a risk!
Hey, I really liked this post! I thought it was so insightful that they did a test run before actually launching their idea. These two men prototyped with no actual product, and it worked. That just goes to show that one doesn’t even need a product to prototype and can test an idea without fully forming products or services. This is an incredible story and is super inspiring!