Jumping Into The Shark Tank - One on One With The Magic 5

By: Joe Trusty - Pool Magazine

Fresh off his recent appearance on NBC’s Shark Tank, Rasmus Barfred one of the co-founders of the innovative new Magic 5 swim goggles discusses their revolutionary new product. One that not only caught his company a couple of sharks eager to invest but is making the world reimagine how a performance swim goggle should fit.

Barfred and his partners Bo Haaber (CEO) and Niklas Hedegaard (COO) successfully pitched their product for investment on the hit TV show back in October. In our one-onone interview, we asked Barfred how he and his colleagues first got into the competitive swim goggle space.

The product differentiates itself from all others on the market in that the Magic 5 goggles are specifically designed for the end-users face. We took a deeper dive with Barfred who broke down the technology behind what makes Magic 5 so unique.

“All other swimming goggles are kind of ‘onesize-fits-all’. Now matter how big a face you have, or how deep your eye sockets are, you buy a product from a retailer and just hope for the best,” said Barfred, “We turned that around and wanted to make one product for one customer. It is bespoke product and a tailor-made goggle.”

With ringing endorsements from Olympic Athletes, The Magic 5 are suddenly being taken very seriously. Consumers who are looking for a custom-fit pair of swim goggles, can hop onto the Magic 5 website and download their proprietary face-scanning app. The technology maps every contour of the customer’s face and links that data to their order. This is where the magic happens.

“Our AI technology is basically a huge set of rules that we have learned over the course of the last four years. These rules determine and understand how we should produce the product so that it fits your face the best possible way,” explained Barfred.

Technology based swim goggles won over all of the sharks on NBC’s Shark Tank. Take a deeper dive on The Magic 5.

Photo Credit: The Magic 5

Exactly how big is the swim goggle market? “Approximately 70 million people or 9% of the population of the western world, swim for fitness purposes,” said Barfred. “On average, these consumers buy one pair of goggles per year. It’s like a pair of running shoes, you wear them down over time and need a new pair.”

Capturing a larger portion of the roughly $6 billion dollar swim goggle market is first priority for The Magic 5 and was their driving intention to go on Shark Tank. Appearing on the show to pitch their product to the sharks presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Denmark natives.

The Magic 5 were seeking $500K for 2.5% equity in their company. Learn more about the goggles and their recent appearance on the hit TV show Shark Tank.

“Just having the opportunity to go on Shark Tank was a really big deal for us,” said Barfred, “to put things in comparison, there are as many viewers of each Shark Tank episode as there are people in Denmark.”

The Magic 5 founders were well prepared to pitch to the sharks, immediately winning them over with the tech behind the goggles. “I think one of our advantages is that our business is born in data and technology,” explained Barfred, “everything that goes on behind the scenes is data-driven. From how you scan your face, to how we make sure that every goggle is produced to fit the exact curvature of your eyes and really giving you that next-level experience.”

While viewers got a good sense of what it was like to be in the shark tank, the Magic 5 founders would spend additional time off-camera pitching their product. “We were in the tank pitching it for 55 minutes, what you see on television is only a snapshot of that. As soon it was established that we were a technology company that makes swim goggles, we actually got 2 offers from each of them,” said Barfred.

On camera, Robert Herjavec decided to go solo at the last second and dropped a bombshell offering of $1M for 6.5% which the founders were thrilled to accept. Mark Cuban wound up coming in on the investment with Herjavec after the show aired. “They decided to split the deal and asked us if we were interested in that and of course we were,” said Barfred. Having both involved would mean twice the firepower and a tremendous show of faith from the two sharks.

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