What happened after Shark Tank?

It's hard to believe it's been seven years since Shark Tank aired my pitch. I can say without a doubt that A LOT has happened since my time in the tank.

I wrote about the initial "after the tank" back in 2011 and then again in 2014. And I speak about it as I travel the country talking about my entreprenuerial journey and lessons I've learned about trusting my own intuition and never giving up. I'm forever grateful for my time in the Tank so I thought I'd give you the nutshell version "where are they now—Mod Mom.”

If you're an entrepreneur, I have a sneaking suspicion you'll relate to my timeline below....

So, here goes....

• 2007-2010 - Start Mod Mom. Grow Mod Mom. Live my life covered in saw dust.
• October 2010 - I film my pitch and win a deal with Robert.
• November 2010 - Wait to hear from Robert.
• December 2010 - Wait to hear from Robert.
• January 2011 - I finally hear from Robert and he thinks I'm "still a little bit too small" and encourages me to come back to him in a year. I'm devastated but I pick myself back up off the ground and continue...after I cry for a bit and drink a few Coronas. I knew in my soul I would not go back to him.
• January 2011-April 2011 - Friends and family invest roughly 30K so I continue growing Mod Mom. I'd gotten this far, I wasn't letting anything stop me.
• April 1, 2011 - SHARK TANK AIRS! It's epic! My website crashes!
• April 4, 2011 - I'm giving a speech for the American Society of Furniture Designers in the furniture capital of the US, High Point, NC , and I meet Ty Pennington. It's surreal, to say the least.
• May 2011 - I am a guest on the Nate Berkus TV Show in NYC and I talk about Mod Mom. Sales increase steadily. I continued working with my Amish manufacturing partner who was a dream come true. I inked a deal with them in September 2010.
• April 2012 - I receive a message out of the blue from a true angel investor out of San Francisco. I end up getting a better deal for more money than what Robert was offering in the Tank. Grateful doesn't even begin to describe how it felt (and how I still feel!). My new investor saw my Shark Tank segment on Hulu and reached out to me.
• June 2012 - Scott and I move the family to Flagstaff, AZ. I start talking about the strange stuff I'd been experiencing since 2010. I write about it here: kierstenparsons.com.
• 2012-2013 - We try to grow Mod Mom in other ways but we had difficulty -- manufacturing issues and shipping nightmares became more prevalent. I realized that licensing was the way to go.
• 2013-2014 - Work on a licensing deal with Stanley Furniture and LAND the deal! I was hired as a spokesperson (salary) for Stanley's youth division called Young America. We were working out the details of the licensing deal that was projected to deliver $5 million in sales in the first year. We were in negotiations for eight months. Also, at the same time, I discover I had repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse. They started to bubble up to the surface.
• April 2014 -- I fly down to High Point, NC for High Point Market (largest furniture tradeshow in the US) to perform spokesperson duties for Stanley/Young America and step off the plane to the news that Stanley shut down Young America. I had to read it in the trade magazines. I had lost my spokesperson job and my licensing deal that I was set to sign at Market in April. While apologetic for what happened, Stanley decides to only pay out 2 months of my 12-month contract. There was nothing I could do to fight it. It meant financial crisis for our family.
• April 2014 - My marriage implodes and I join forces personally and professionally with furniture designer, Robert Petril. I go against my intuition to continue to look for licensing deals and put all of my eggs in an offshoot basket called Mod Life Collection—essentially, Robert's (and others upholstery) designs that he'd been trying to get made (as his own line) on his own for a long time.
• 2014-2017 - I put my all into Mod Life and tried to keep Mod Mom going as well. I ignored my gut and put all my faith in the plan to build Mod Life and then build Mod Mom. It was not wise of me. Little did I know, I'd ended up in an abusive relationship (professionally and personally) and lost a lot of time, stability, dignity, momentum, and money. Soul crushing experiences were the norm for 3 years. What I did gain were valuable lessons and healing I didn't even know I needed. I was finally able to pull myself out of the darkness and cut ties in June 2017. I ended up going to work full time as a writer/project manager at the local university to help make ends meet in 2015 through September 2018. I am a wiser, more discerning person now, and am thrilled to say that Scott and I reunited in August 2017 after being separated for three years. We are grateful for the healing 2014-2017 brought on many fronts! (Here's the link to more about what happened with Mod Life: www.modmomfurniture.com/blog/whats-your-business-partnership-with-mod-life .)
• January 2018 - I knew I needed to go back to looking for a licensing partner and found a fantastic one in Colorado! Little Colorado reached out asking if I was interested in having them license current and existing designs and we inked the deal officially in January 2018. They are exactly the type of partner I want—US-based, caring and honest, and they've been in business for 30 years!
• Now - I am working as Entrepreneur in Residence for Moonshot at NACET, a business incubator in Flagstaff, AZ while helping to promote the north american licensing deal with Little Colorado which is about to launch on AMAZON! I am also in talks regarding a European licensing deal and I'm enjoying speaking around the country about the entrepreneurial (and personal) lessons I've learned (and I just filmed at Ted Talk!) throughout the journey. In my free time, I'm working on a memoir and I'm doing what I can to help others survive and recover from abuse. I continue to write about it at kierstenparsons.com.

I couldn't be happier or more grateful for where I am today. It's definitely not been a straight and narrow road but I wouldn't have it any other way. When I think back to who I was pre-Shark Tank, I feel like I was just beginning to understand that I really did have all I needed inside of me to succeed. There were numerous obstacles and lessons along the way. Lessons that tested who I thought I was and lessons that reinforced that no matter what, I ALWAYS NEEDED TO TRUST MY OWN INTUITION. The advice I give now is to enlist help and advice from people who are smarter than you, but always trust your gut in the end. It truly is your compass.

Thanks for riding the ride with me all of these years. As Karen Carpenter sings in that cheesy song that I'm sometimes known to sing at karaoke, "We've only just begun." After 11 years in business, I truly feel like we're just getting started and the sky is the limit.

-- Kiersten