A forensic pathologist and self-described “wall doctor” from Chester County, PA has a “prescription” for fixing a hole in walls that he presented to the sharks on ABC’s Shark Tank last week. The story behind the invention goes something like this – Dr. James Lewis was carrying a Christmas tree up the basement stairs when his daughter took a tumble nearby. The forensic pathologist dropped the tree and ran to patch her up. The house didn’t fare so well — the tree’s stem punched a two-inch hole in the brand-new drywall. The repairman took three weeks to arrive, left a mess, and then charged $350 for the fix. “I’m going to invent something that puts you out of business,” Dr. Lewis, a native of Chester County, Pennsylvania, remembered saying. The contractor laughed, but the doctor got to work. Wall Rx, a user-friendly drywall repair kit now on sale in 1,700 Lowes stores, was born. “I had to find a way to make it easy, make it clean…and make it inexpensive,” the doctor- entrepreneur explained. “Some people search for mechanisms to do that. I searched for the materials to do that.”
Check out how well the pathologist did in front of the sharks on Hulu or other venues for complete episode that aired last week. No spoiler here.
The presentations can of course take hours and the show’s producers “make for TV” and get the show into 43 minutes + commercials to fill up the hour. His air time was relatively short. Did he hook a shark?
If you look at what gets funded, there are three attributes that are always present. In every case, the entrepreneur was able to articulate the opportunity in 90 seconds or less. Secondly, they were able to convince the sharks that they can execute. And third, they knew their numbers.
When is someone going to present a pathology invention to the sharks?
