#127 Rasmus Barfred from TheMagic5: Business Lessons From A Shark Tank Brand

09/22/22 • 22 min

#127 Rasmus Barfred from TheMagic5: Business Lessons From A Shark Tank Brand

Hey Budai Nation,

We’ve got a celebrity joining us for this episode of The Ecom Show!

You may recognize Rasmus Barfred and his company TheMagic5 from the huge splash they created with their show-stealing speech on the popular business reality show, Shark Tank. Their pitch threw all the sharks into a feeding frenzy, and the co-founders walked out of the tank with a deal from Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec.

He’s here with us today to share the business lessons that helped him land the deal, and of course to get candid about his experience in and beyond the tank.

Join Rasmus Barfred and our founder/podcast host Daniel Budai to learn more about:

✅ The Story Behind TheMagic5

✅ How To Prepare For Shark Tank

✅ TheMagic5’s Marketing Strategy

Let’s dive right in!

The Story Behind TheMagic5

TheMagic5 is a made-to-measure swimming eyewear brand co-founded by Bo, Niklas, and Rasmus. All three of them were swimmers that struggled with finding a good long-lasting pair of swimming goggles. United by their passion to solve this issue, the three of them set out to create a brand new technology that completely revolutionized this space.

TheMagic5 uses optimal fitting technology to map a customer's face and then creates a completely customized pair of swimming goggles. Their technology is so precise and advanced that they have a return rate of only 1%.

TheMagic5 was founded back in 2017, and soon after Rasmus moved to the USA to expand their business further. Magic5 has spent a lot of time researching and developing its product. They started out by surveying over 450 athletes, swimmers, and triathletes to understand the core issues that people faced with swimming goggles. They then purchased all the different kinds of swimming goggles available in the market to understand the design aspect better. After their primary research, they were clear that they needed a customized product to solve this issue properly, and hence put all their resources into developing the technology they needed. And all that research paid off well for them as TheMagic5 has successfully sold over 100,000 pairs of their personalized swimwear, and has two wonderful sharks as investors to help them scale their business to newer heights.

How To Prepare For Shark Tank

It’s impossible to watch Shark Tank without visualizing how you would go about pitching your business to the Sharks. Rasmus got candid about his experience on and beyond the tank. Here are some of the highlights from this episode:

Why did you decide to take your business to Shark Tank for an investment?

There were two things that drove Rasmus and his co-founders to pitch on Shark Tank. The first was awareness:

“Our customer base is everyone from top Olympic athletes, to regular swimmers that swim once a week. We wanted to reach that audience through a mass consumer television show that was super interesting.”

The second was the need for a strategic partner. The optimal technology TheMagic5 uses can be adapted to work with other products as well, but expanding to new verticals requires some strategic guidance which drove Rasmus and his partners to approach the tank. They were particularly interested in getting a deal with either Mark Cuban or Robert Herjavec for their expertise in technology, and they were fortunate enough to walk out of the tank with investments from both the sharks.

How did you prepare for the tank?

The key thing is to know your numbers. If you don’t know your numbers the sharks will see right through you. Secondly, have an explanation to justify any questions that may arise after you share your numbers.

Prepare and practice your pitch several times before you go in. Run yourself through all the different scenarios before walking in, and make sure that you discuss how low you’re willing to go during negotiations beforehand. This makes you look more decisive.

Who should go into Shark Tank and do you have any advice for them?

Shark Tank gives you access to an audience of 5 million viewers on primetime US television. All the press, tension, and visibility surrounding your business make Shark Tank the ideal show for several businesses. Especially those that have a consumer product, tangible product, something that's easy to relate to and can be easily bought online. But the tank has also worked great for transactional websites, apps, and vending machines in the past.

The key is to go in if you know your numbers, strengths, and weaknesses. You need to know your business in and out before you go in for a pitch because only the first minute of your time on Shark Tank is uninterr...

#127 Rasmus Barfred from TheMagic5: Business Lessons From A Shark Tank Brand

Hey Budai Nation,

We’ve got a celebrity joining us for this episode of The Ecom Show!

He’s here with us today to share the business lessons that helped him land the deal, and of course to get candid about his experience in and beyond the tank.

Join Rasmus Barfred and our founder/podcast host Daniel Budai to learn more about:

✅ The Story Behind TheMagic5

✅ How To Prepare For Shark Tank

✅ TheMagic5’s Marketing Strategy

Let’s dive right in!

The Story Behind TheMagic5

How To Prepare For Shark Tank

Why did you decide to take your business to Shark Tank for an investment?

There were two things that drove Rasmus and his co-founders to pitch on Shark Tank. The first was awareness:

How did you prepare for the tank?

Who should go into Shark Tank and do you have any advice for them?

Previous Episode

Juan Chavez From JMC Equipment: Business Secrets From an Inc.5000 Company

Hey Budai Nation,

We’re honored to share that Juan Chavez, the CEO of the successful automotive business JMC equipment, is our guest for today’s episode. JMC equipment has been holding the title of an Inc.5000 company for the past 4 years now. They have a successful B2B e-commerce store that you’ll learn more about in this episode.

Welcome to The Ecom Show! Your go-to weekly e-commerce podcast for uncovering new stories, strategies, secrets, and everything e-commerce. This podcast is sponsored by Budai Media, a retention marketing agency that’s helped 125+ e-commerce businesses generate over $35M+ in additional sales revenue.

Join Daniel Budai (our host and the founder of Budai Media) and Juan Chavez in this episode to learn more about:

✅ Juan’s Journey With Jmc Equipment

✅ A Business Lesson That Juan Learned the Hard Way

✅ Juan’s Advice for New eCommerce Owners

Let’s jump right in.

Juan’s Journey With JMC Equipment

Juan is the second generation to be leading the team at JMC Equipment. The business was founded by his father, and Juan joined in after he decided to call quits on his first venture. JMC equipment is an automotive parts distributor to repair shops and retail stores. Before Juan stepped in, his father would approach stores in New York one at a time, and find leads door to door.

Juan helped launch JMC into the world of e-commerce by setting up a website and letting customers approach them instead. JMC is a unique company because their team is based out of Medellin, Colombia, but their sales are focused entirely on the US market.

Juan E. Chavez is based out of Medellin, Colombia. He has another successful business venture as well. Juan runs his own travel and real estate company that helps clients based out of New York find their dream apartments in Colombia.

Back to the Inc.5000 company though, JMC equipment has a solid team of skilled professionals that take care of the SEO and e-commerce side of things. They’ve also invested in building a strong team of salespeople, and customer-care executives that make sure that their leads get the information and push they need to purchase.

JMC Equipment sells high-ticket products with their average orders running anywhere between $2000 and above. In order to close a deal, they’re very active with their email marketing and even go a step beyond by calling their abandoned cart to close the sale. Their paid marketing efforts include a combination of Google ads, Facebook ads, and email marketing. For organic marketing, they also have an enriched library of educational blogs.

A Business Lesson That Juan Learned the Hard Way

Juan has over a decade of business experience under his belt. We asked him what’s the hardest thing that being in business has taught him, and here’s what he had to say: “The hardest thing I’ve learned goes beyond business, it’s basically about how to pick yourself up from a failure.”

I have been in that position where I thought that I might have to shut my business down. But the resilience to push forward despite the difficulties is what helped. Every other skill is a skill that you could probably just learn, you know if you put in the work, and if you put in the hours, but actual experience of like, you know, the experience that you go through when you make a mistake, and you lose money, or whatever, maybe you're or you're thinking about quitting is not something easy to understand.

But if you stick with it, you will eventually come out the other side a lot stronger with tougher skin. So the biggest lesson is not to give up when failure is knocking on your door.

Juan’s Advice for New eCommerce Owners

The best way to start an e-commerce business is by finding a good product that you have knowledge about, and that you’re motivated to sell. Ideally, find a way to sell this product without having to start with production. Dropshipping is a great way to escape inventory management. Once you have your e-commerce storefront, and marketing taken care of you can look into expanding into starting your own production. This gives you time to focus on taking your business off. The second piece of advice would be to know your industry. Research and talk to your potential customers, it’s the best way to grow your business.

That’s all for this episode of The Ecom Show. If you enjoyed it please make sure to be back here next Thursday for a brand new episode.

Click on the link below to subscribe to our weekly newsletter and receive actionable tips, strategies, and resources to help you grow your e-commerce store. 👇

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Next Episode

#128 Brian Roisentul from BSR Digital: Brand Marketing Strategies Using Third-Party Data

Hello Budai Nation,

Today we’re welcoming Brian Roisentul, CEO and founder of BSR Digital, a social media marketing agency specializing in paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads. The successful agency is managing over $3.6M/year worth of ads for different e-commerce brands.

Besides his position as CEO, he’s also the host of the Fit Growth Machine podcast which treats customer acquisition strategies for e-commerce brands. Brian will share with us his success story and journey in the world of social media marketing, but also some pretty valuable strategies for e-commerce brands to scale their businesses quickly and more effectively.

Join Daniel Budai (our host and the founder of Budai Media) and Brian Roisentul in this episode to learn more about:

✅ Brian’s Success Story in the Digital World

✅ Marketing Strategies for Fashion and Apparel Brands

✅ The Use of Third-Party Data to Scale Your Online Business

Let’s jump right in.

Brian’s Success Story in the Digital World

Brian comes from a background in computer science. He used to work as a software developer for a software factory, based in the US. During the 2008 recession, they closed their doors, like many other companies in the USA back then, which lead him, along with other partners, to start a brand new venture, with which he will keep working in software development, until 2010. He then started his first solo Software Factory to raise its capital shortly after, evolving into a startup with 40 collaborators.

A few months of existence later came the “boom” of social media, when everyone was looking to grow their organic prospects online, trading trucks, cars, and all the crazy stuff for fans and followers. That’s when Brian decided to surf the digital marketing wave and offer viable solutions to their clients, generating leads and sales through social media, shifting from software engineering to leading a pure social media marketing agency, specializing in scaling e-commerce brands in a specific industry he loves: Fashion and Apparel.

Marketing Strategies for Fashion and Apparel Brands

Brian Roisentul, through his own personal experience, breaks down the process of going from the product idea to the end customer into 3 simple, yet very complex phases:

🔸 Choosing the right industry:

His example is pretty clear, he totally left the Tech world for the Marketing world. It took him passion, and motivation, but mainly knowledge since it was a flourishing discipline back then, and he witnessed the birth of social media marketing, taking the opportunity to put into practice his knowledge in software engineering and transcribing it into Digital Marketing. And then, once again, focusing on what he was comfortable and experienced with the most, the Fashion and Apparel industry.

In short, do what you know best, get knowledge, try and fail, learn and focus on a niche or two, and give it all you got to make it grow and evolve into a successful business.

🔸 Differentiating your brand within the industry:

Brian gives a very interesting example of a phone case brand, and how they differentiated themselves from the competition: They helped catch babies’ and toddlers’ attention with fun phone cases that make them look at the camera and smile, making thousands of parents happy, as they take beautiful pictures of their loved ones, thus keeping amazing memories. It was simple, yet ingenious.

And that’s just one idea among many others. You might sell the same product as everyone, but a single asset can make you stand out from the crowd. For example, selling the same T-Shirt as your competitors, but using special fabric, like organic or recyclable materials. The possibilities are endless.

🔸 Acquiring leads and making sales:

Probably the hardest phase to reach, but also the most satisfying, once you start making your first sales, and taking off your business. Brian’s experience showed that the best leads are people who previously bought products similar to yours, or showed interest in your industry or niche. And the best way to get those leads is to actually know them.

And what do you need to be able to know and target them? DATA! There is no marketing as efficient as data-driven marketing, and that’s why everybody’s rushing to gather data about their target audience, they will know what they like, and what they buy, but also their expectation...