Owning a private swimming pool in your garden is a dream for many. However, this is an expensive dream. This inspired Bunim Laskin to create Swimply, an online marketplace where users can rent other people’s pools by the hour. Think of it like an Airbnb but for the pools. He launched his startup on Shark Tank but couldn’t get a contract. As of 2022, Swimply is worth around $30 million.
About the Founder
Bunim Laskin is a very private person, but he is known to be from Lakewood, New Jersey. He is also the eldest of 12 children, which is why he spent a lot of time looking for ways to entertain and care for his younger siblings as a teenager.
One day, he notices that one of his neighbors doesn’t often use his swimming pool. So, he kindly asked if his family could use it in return for paying 25% for pool maintenance.
The neighbor agreed and five other families made the same deal with Bunim. He soon realized he could start a scalable business from this. He was 20 at the time and attending Talmudic College of Florida.
Foundation the company
As a young adult, he launched Swimply in 2018 and it was considered the premier online marketplace for private pool rentals. Bunim launched a beta, which only featured four pools in the New Jersey area.
Later, he used Google Earth to find houses with swimming pools. He even knocked on their doors to convince owners to register on his marketplace. This strategy helped him list the top 100 pools and helped him generate some momentum.
His family and friends gave him $30,000 to officially launch the business in 2019. The entrepreneur raised around $1.2 million after securing over 400 bookings.
Shark Tank Appearance
Despite the huge capital investment he had just made, Laskin thought it would be a good idea to get additional help from angel investors on Shark Tank. In 2020, he appeared on season 11 of the show, offering 5% equity for $300,000.
The fast-talking entrepreneur claimed that Swimply could make a profit of $15 million by the end of 2020. However, Barbara Corcoran and Kevin O’Leary felt his predictions were way too over the top. Barbara again announced that she was absent because she did not understand the business.
Lori Greiner and Mark Cuban liked the business model because it was similar to Airbnb, but they still had doubts about the projections. Robert Herjavec said the assessment was impossible to complete, and Laskin was left with no deal.
After Shark Tank
Swimply has become one of the best rejected Shark Tank success stories. Shortly after her episode aired, the pandemic hit the economy. This forced public pools to close, but private pools remained open. The Swimply app has over 250,000 downloads on Google Play and Apple app stores,
This helped them reach over $1 million in revenue as he was getting 15,000-20,000 bookings per month. This triggered a Series A investment cycle that raised $40 million in 2021. The round was led by Mayfield and a few angel investors, including former Airbnb co-founder Nate Blecharczyk.
Now, Swimply operates in the United States, Australia, and Canada, earning mostly positive reviews from customers. Swimply earns around 10 million a year and the company is worth $30 million.
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