Before doorbell company Ring was acquired by Amazon in a reported $1 billion deal and became a fixture in over 10 million American homes , the company was the tinkering project in the garage of founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff.
A doorbell that could connect to your phone, Ring—originally called Doorbot—was supposed to be cheap to produce, but instead became an undertaking that far exceeded what Siminoff had imagined.
"It turns out we were way over our skis," he told Fortune at its 2019 Brainstorm Tech conference .
The desire to turn his garage invention into a viable business took him to reality show Shark Tank in 2013. Desperate for funds, he used the company's last $20,000 to build an elaborate set to pitch the product. "I was completely broke when I went on the show," Siminoff said.
Valuing Doorbot at $7 million and asking for $700,000 for a 10% stake, Siminoff touted the budding company's impressive online sales and a strong mission to make neighborhoods safer through increased surveillance as reasons to take a chance on it.
The fish didn't bite, and Siminoff's appearance on the show would foreshadow the less-than-straightforward path to Ring becoming a blockbuster product. The show's sharks weren't confident in the product's ability to sell, and billionaire investor Mark Cuban believed the company to be worth only $40 million. He would become one of hundreds of investors to say no to Siminoff.
Five years later, after Siminoff announced the deal with Amazon, another shark, Kevin O'Leary, changed his tune on the product, calling it "probably the biggest miss" in the show's history until that point.
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