Three days after the “Shark Tank” camera crews visited Scott and Megan Reamer’s family in Crested Butte, they were driving back to Boulder, their home of three years, where services for their oldest son Jackson were plentiful.
Jackson, 16, suffered from the super-rare Aicardi–Goutières syndrome, an inflammatory disease that affects the brain. He was one of about 300 people in the world who battled the debilitating disease, and he was one of the healthiest of the lot, largely because of his parents’ unyielding pursuit of a diet rich in saturated fats that helped ease his myriad symptoms. He was laughing and smiling as the pulled away from their longtime home in Crested Butte.
As they neared Fairplay, Jackson started having trouble breathing. They pulled over at a gas station. Megan dialed 911. Within minutes, he had stopped breathing. The EMTs performing CPR on him in the back of the family’s van said they had lost his pulse. Scott, Megan and their youngest son Charlie were frantic.
“Come on buddy, breathe. Breathe, Jackson, breathe,” Scott said.
He and Megan were stunned.
“We had managed his care for all his 16 years as intimately and in such detailed ways as you can imagine and then in five minutes, it all went sideways,” Scott said. “It was this surreal moment.”
, a Thursday in August. But the Reamers, whose focus on pinpointing the , are using their growing chip company to trumpet the benefits of saturated fats, specifically coconut oil. They were among the first to slow simmer potato and corn chips in coconut oil. But their business was a calling, a platform to promote a paleoketogenic-type diet rich in healthy fats and foods people have been eating for thousands of years.
And on Sunday night, on ABC’s ninth season premiere of “Shark Tank,” where tycoons weigh investment in innovative entrepreneurs, the Jackson’s Honest mission got a $1.25 million boost from .
Oza is a former Coca Cola executive who helped build the Vitaminwater, Smartwater, Bai, popchips and Denver-based WTRMLN WTR brands through promotional partnerships with celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Lebron James, Bruno Mars, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake.
But Oza balked at the Reamers’ first request for $1.25 million for a 5 percent stake in Jackson’s Honest. That valued the company at $25 million.
More than a hundred friends and family members watched the season premiere of “Shark Tank” in Boulder’s CrossFit Roots gym Sunday night. Amidst the weights, charts and ropes, three televisions cast the show. In a corner, David McCormick, the vice president of operations for Jackson’s Honest, watched his laptop in amazement. A crowd gathered around him.
The most people who had ever been on the company’s website at one time was 10.
“And thatap when Scott, Megan and I are on there at the same time,” he said.
When “Shark Tank” hit the air on the East Coast, an hour before the show aired in Boulder, the number spiked at 13,769.
“And everyone is checking out our store locator page,” McCormick said. “This is fascinating.”
Since 2012, when Scott and Megan moved their chips from their Crested Butte kitchen to real production, the couple have raised about $3 million from friends and family. Before reaching the deal with Oza on “Shark Tank,” they held a little more than 66 percent of the company.
Jackson’s Honest sales are soaring, from $1.4 million in 2014 to $5.4 million in 2015. Last year, the company sold $10.1 million in chips, but lost $1.7 million, largely because of giving away 18.4 percent of their product at no cost in deals with retailers for shelf space.
“We don’t have a choice. If a retailer wants to bring us in, thatap the cost of doing business,” Scott said.
Still, the investors — called the “sharks” — seemed troubled that Whole Foods represented only about 13 percent of their overall sales. Scott said he should have countered that concern with the fact that the company has a very diverse customer base, with deals with dozens of major store brands from coast to coast. Yes, that means more costly distribution, but it reveals a broad reach.
This year the Reamers expect to reach between $12 million and $14 million in sales and are on track to reach profitability in 2018. In May, the company sold $1.42 million in chips, a company record.
Oza offered $1.25 million for 20 percent of the company. Scott and Megan countered with that amount for 7.5 percent. His final offer, he said, was $1.25 million for 15 percent of the company.
Scott turned to Megan. The closed captioning on the show read: “whispers.”
Scott said he froze, his mind “spinning like a calculator.” They owned two-thirds of the company. Selling 15 percent still left them with controlling interest.
“I couldn’t get out of the logical, right-brain math space,” he said. “I was too in the weeds with the numbers and I turned to her and said this is your choice.”
Megan clenched her teeth and through her smile, she whispered her answer.
“It was my best ventriloquism. I was looking at him, smiling and going ‘yes,’ ‘yes.’ ” Megan said. “I was thinking this guy is amazing and he will be an amazing partner and an amazing mentor and we would be silly to say no to working with him, because we had the space where we could work with him in that equity structure. It was a no-brainer for me.”
As the deal was announced, the crowd in the Boulder gym erupted. Scott and Megan hugged everyone. Friends talked about seeing their chips in groceries across the country. Scott said since the deal, which was reached a couple months ago, Oza has helped them with branding, product development and packaging.
The company is coming out with new products, including a coconut oil-simmered puffed chip.
“He’s already, before this airing, been an enormous amount of help,” Scott said.
