Portland sandal-maker, Eugene gold-panner will vie for investment dollars tonight on Mark Cuban’s popular show.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
A pair of entrepreneurs from the Willamette Valley will put their respective ideas to the test tonight on the popular TV show Shark Tank.
Liz Forkin Bohannon, the founder of Sseko Designs — which makes and sells sandals made by Ugandan women — will pitch her startup to a panel of investors on ABC, the Portland Business Journal reports:
She came up with the idea for the company while volunteering at a nonprofit in Uganda that worked with high-potential women. Many had no options for financing college.
“I thought, here are 25 of the brightest women in the country and the fact that they’re not going to continue to become leaders is silly,” she said.
The PBJ report says the company has been profitable for almost four years.
Mark Peterson, of Eugene, will also make a pitch to the “sharks.”
Peterson has sold 4,000 of his gold-panning kits already, the Register-Guard reports:
Peterson, who founded Western Mortgage Brokers in 2000, applied for a “Shark Tank” audition in October 2013 after he learned about the show from his accountant. Five months later, a show producer contacted him by email. “My mouth just dropped because I’d literally put it out of sight, out of mind,” he said. Peterson was invited to fly to Los Angeles in June, although there was no guarantee he would be taped or his appearance would wind up airing. He learned only recently that his appearance would be broadcast.
His kit, contained in a 5-gallon bucket and weighing 8 pounds, combines specially designed screens and a clear collection bowl so prospectors can concentrate on panning the fine material that can contain tiny gold dust or nuggets rather than the larger gravel and rocks hiding it.
