What Occurred To The FashionTap App From Shark Tank Season 7?

Going up towards the heavyweights within the social media realm with your individual platform is not any small feat to say the least. However these worries did little to discourage Los Angles-based influencer and entrepreneur Amy Roiland who believed that her fashion-centric app, FashionTap, wouldn’t solely carve out a novel area of interest all its personal, but additionally be a game-changer within the business as an entire. 

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As its title implies, FashionTap was a social media platform made by and for vogue and elegance influencers. Its greatest perk was permitting creators to tag on to the web site of the merchandise they donned, versus comparable platforms the place tags solely ship you to that model’s respective account. Content material creators are given an additional incentive as they’re paid out a portion of the gross sales. Regardless of being the sister of “Rick and Morty” co-creator Justin Roiland, Amy Roiland’s true declare to fame was her in style on-line weblog and social media deal with @afashionnerd, which gained a considerable following due to her vibrant ’60s-inspired aesthetic, ultimately partnering with main manufacturers similar to Forever21 and FreePeople.

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Six months into launching FashionTap, Roiland discovered herself on Season 7 of “Shark Tank,” which featured different distinctive app pitches similar to the equally fashion-focused MTailor and password protector SplitKey. Whereas Roiland introduced no scarcity of ardour and confidence to her pitch, the Sharks largely noticed her naivety to the house as a pink flag. However when one of many buyers did make a suggestion, the entrepreneur gave a response that left the Sharks speechless. 

Amy Roiland was seeking to get $100,000 in return for 10% fairness of FashionTap. She described its uniqueness when in comparison with comparable platforms, stating that it not solely offers customers a neater means of getting the precise garments they want, but additionally proves helpful to creators who’re given a fee. The corporate was working with three income streams. The primary was an e-commerce retailer which might accomplice with massive field shops and take 10% of gross sales. The second could be sponsorships that will contain manufacturers paying for influencers to put on their merchandise. The third have been the aforementioned affiliate hyperlinks, with customers getting between 3% and 35% of the sale. 

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Inside FashionTap’s six months of existence, it had gained 6,000 downloads. The corporate made $60,000, however with income cut up between content material creators and numerous teammates, Roiland wasn’t making something and largely residing off of her financial savings. She hoped to place the $100,000 in the direction of advertising and marketing, stating that attending to 100,000 month-to-month customers would get them to $7 million. 

A lot of the Sharks believed that Roiland was vastly underestimating the challenges forward in getting customers emigrate to her platform and making offers for affiliate and e-commerce alternatives. Barbara Corcoran was the one one to make a suggestion, favorably evaluating Roiland to the entrepreneurs behind considered one of her most worthwhile investments, Grace and Lace. Nevertheless, Corcoran was declined outright when she requested for 25% fairness, as Roiland needed her different teammates to keep up their share. The Sharks have been shocked, particularly on condition that Roiland would not even counter. Corcoran exited the deal after that, leaving Roiland empty-handed. 

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Whereas FashionTap’s pitch did not garner a reception as legendarily poor as that very same season’s health-focused social media app RoloDoc, it nonetheless proved how powerful the sharks are to impress. Nevertheless, Amy Roiland’s ambitions for FashionTap have been too powerful for any criticism to penetrate, and she or he continued to anticipate greater and higher issues for the corporate. 

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FashionTap’s “Shark Tank” episode aired on April 29, 2016. Rather less than a month later, Roiland was interviewed on an episode of the Amber Mac podcast collection “The Feed” the place she mentioned her expertise on the present. Whereas she had respect for the sharks, Roiland nonetheless felt that they did not see the core of her mission, stating, “I simply felt like quite a lot of them do not know the style business and form of what the issues are like presently that I am fixing and quite a bit them did not get it… it wasn’t dangerous … they really liked the app they thought it was stunning however they only did not see the necessity for it so it was type like I felt like I used to be on one other planet.” She added that Daymond John was the Shark she was aiming for, given his success elevating vogue manufacturers prior to now. 

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The entrepreneur nonetheless struggled to search out assets, however acknowledged that one thing thrilling was within the works, though the chance was by no means revealed. “I positively want extra funding,” she stated. “I am in the midst of a very thrilling factor that I can not discuss for funding, as soon as I can get the funding for the app, I can construct out far more options that will make everybody actually pleased.” 

Sadly, regardless of Amy Roiland’s momentum, FashionTap did not final for much longer after its time on “Shark Tank.” In accordance with Amy Roiland’s LinkedIn, the corporate went defunct in 2018. As we speak, its Instagram account is the one little bit of on-line presence that continues to be of FashionTap, though it has not been up to date since July 2016.

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As is the case with many “Shark Tank” companies that go black, discovering particular reasoning for FashionTap’s disappearance is tough. The one little bit of official data on the market comes from a 2022 interview with Roiland performed by Portraits Digital Journal. When requested about her “Shark Tank” look and the way she felt in regards to the monetization and social purchasing options she boasted about in her app ultimately being adopted by main gamers like Instagram, Roiland remarked, “Sure I knew this might occur and social commerce could be big. Too dangerous I did not have a greater crew in place.” 

Whereas a extra environment friendly crew or perhaps a Shark might have helped give Roiland’s enterprise a lift, it is onerous to think about that even probably the most highly effective participant might have made a lot of a dent within the house when extra established gamers have been persevering with to innovate. Merely put, the issue that Roiland hoped to resolve, whereas admirable, would have been addressed by bigger rivals ultimately if it was crucial sufficient. Even with the very best intentions, FashionTap’s handful of perks wouldn’t have been sufficient to compete in the long term.  

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Though issues did not pan out with FashionTap as Amy Roiland had hoped, that did not imply her time as a creator was over. Removed from, as as a substitute of trying to go toe-to-toe with the established titans, she as a substitute selected to adapt her distinctive sensibilities to the trendy panorama. Whereas the outcomes have been largely profitable, they weren’t with out some main bumps within the highway. 

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As of right now, Roiland continues to have a robust following throughout her numerous social media channels. She sports activities 270,000 followers on Instagram and over 611,000 on TikTok as of this writing, each of which nonetheless have her go underneath the title @afashionnerd. She continues to collaborate with manufacturers, even designing and curating collections for such firms as Betty & Veronica Eyewear and Ella Grace Couture. In 2018, she married her longtime sweetheart Ben Bayouth and in early 2020 the 2 had their first daughter, Ryder, adopted by their first son, Rockwell, in 2024. 

Whereas to not the extent of her extra notorious sibling, Amy has discovered herself within the middle of controversy. She’s been criticized for closely that includes Ryder in a lot of her content material, given the shortage of safety youngsters obtain throughout social media. In 2022, she obtained additional backlash after fellow influencer @smacmccreanor declined Roiland’s request to utilizing their studio house free of charge, inflicting Roiland to ship detrimental feedback and voice messages. Extra not too long ago, Roiland skilled private strife as Ryder was recognized with a mind tumor in late 2023 and has been going by way of chemotherapy ever since.

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