According to the official "Shark Tank" blog, Michalak and his son Nicholas invested $1.4 million to conduct clinical studies on the product, and it made just $350,000 in sales before Nicholas took the product to "Shark Tank" for some help.
During season 10 of Shark Tank, Nicholas started his pitch by talking about the importance of quality sleep and how breathing through your mouth can interfere with sleep. He invited Daymond John to try the product, then asked the Sharks to invest $500,000 for a 10% stake in the business. John said the product was good, but not good enough to invest in, and Lori Greiner didn't believe the market would respond well to the product. Barbara Corcoran said she was concerned about SomniFix's viability, because Michalak spent "twice as much money than [he] needed to get this off the ground" (via CNBC). Kevin O'Leary also declined.
Mark Cuban was impressed that Michalak invested in clinical studies on SomniFix before bringing the product to market. Cuban said he thought SomniFix could be good for sports performance, so he said he'd invest $500,000 for a 20% stake in SomniFix. Michalak countered for a $2 million post-money valuation. Even though Cuban agreed to the deal on Shark Tank, he never finalized the deal (via Shark Tank Recap).
