Shark Tank season 15 took pitches from entrepreneurs based all across America when filming the show in the summer of 2023. The Fidget Game founder and CEO Brandi Marie came in confident with her children’s game helping children learn how to read. We’ll have to wait and see how she fared with the sharks and if she got a deal, but what happened to The Fidget Game business and founder after pitching on Shark Tank?
Before starting her educational games company, Brandi was a teacher and reading specialist for six years. All of her games are backed by research and offer multi-sensory learning. The Fidget Game website claims the game helps kids learn how to read within weeks. The Fidget Games Instagram page explains how the game works, and it’s actually quite simple.
The rules are as follow:
1. Choose a card pack
2. Read the word
3. If you get a heart card this signals you need to know the word by heart you cannot sound it out
4. If you get a lightening bolt this signals you can read the word in a flash by sounding out the word
5. if you say the word correctly you can roll the die and pop down the bubbles
6. watch out for the gremlin card, you will have to roll and unpop
7. if you get the unicorn card you can roll the die twice
8. whoever pops all the bubbles down first wins!
The Fidget Game rules (Instagram).
What Happened To The Fidget Game Business After Shark Tank
The Fidget Game founder and CEO Brandi Marie (Instagram).
On the show, Brandi wowed the sharks when she told her personal journey. She said one day her husband, out of the blue, asked to get a divorce. Blindsided, she fell into a depression and one day while in bed watched a video of Barbara Corcoran telling her story about getting left by her partner for the secretary. Barbara, when splitting the business with her ex, was told she would never succeed without him. She used the disrespect to create a a real estate empire called Corcoran Group.
Brandi used Barbara’s story to inspire her to build her own business. She moved into her mom’s home and started building her educational reading games for kids. Brandi then made $3.2 million in sales in first 13 months was in business, getting teachers to use the games she invented in their classrooms. She also got teachers to promote the games on social media, and she ended up getting the top ranking spot on Amazon for educational reading games.
Brandi’s incredible margins on her products impressed the sharks. The landed cost to make The Fidget Game and Word Pop are $3.89 and $3.45 respectively, but both sell for $29.99! Kevin O’Leary, Barbara, and Daymond John all liked the product because they all had Dyslexia.
She asked for $500,000 for 10 percent equity in her company, with aspirations to grow globally and in different languages. Barbara offered her $500,000 for 20 percent right after the pitch ended, and Brandi countered with 15 percent. Barbara agreed to the deal.
Since Brandi went on the show, she’s focused on inventing even more games for her educational games company to offer customers. Besides sellings games on her website direct-to-customer (DTC), The Fidget Game is also on Amazon for $29.99 USD.
The Fidget Game Instagram account had over 3,000 followers right before Shark Tank season 15’s episode 7 aired, but it’s starting to grow due to the Shark Tank Effect.
Brandi Marie’s Instagram shows she loves to travel when she isn’t busy working thirteen-hour days on her business. She also likes to test out her games with her niece and nephew.
