University of Mary Alumna Claims Personal ‘Super Bowl Victory’ with Shark Tank Endorsement
BISMARCK, ND — While the Carolina Panthers football team lost the Super Bowl over the weekend, another Carolina team is celebrating their own big victory. University of Mary alumna Lisa Bradley and her business partner, Cameron Cruse, received the offer they were looking for from mogul Mark Cuban that will help them grow their handbag company R. Riveter – headquartered in Southern Pines, NC.
“I guess you could say we feel like we won the Super Bowl of business,” commented an ecstatic Bradley, a 2007 graduate of the Gary Tharaldson School of Business and the Harold Schafer Emerging Leaders Academy at the University of Mary. “After four years of hard work building a company, there isn’t a better feeling in the world than to have three of our country’s most successful business leaders negotiating to be part of it.”
Bradley and Cruse came into the “Shark Tank” TV show asking for a Shark to invest $100,000 for a 20 percent equity stake in the company. Two of the Sharks took them up on their offer, but the third Shark, Cuban, went one step further.
“(I’ll do the) same offer but also provide credit you need for inventory,” stated Cuban, entrepreneur, investor and owner of the NBA franchise Dallas Mavericks.
“If you need extra equipment, I have no problem providing credit for that.”
“Throughout our time in the tank, Mark really had an energy that paired well with our foundations of the company,” said Cruse. “His ideas on where we can expand in marketing were spot on and we felt really good about his vision. He also understood that we might need more than the $100,000 investment money to scale the business so he offered us a line of credit as well. We couldn’t be more excited to take our company to a new level with Mark on board.”
Bradley and Cruse are spouses of Army Rangers. Their business model and mission is to empower other military spouses, or “Riveters,” to work full-time handcrafting these stylish handbags wherever they may be stationed. The Riveters make the parts and pieces and then ship them back to the warehouse near Fort Bragg where they are fully assembled for retail.
Riveter garnered praise from all five judges, including author and venture capitalist Robert Herjavec, who has made an empire in the dot-com and tech industry. “I love the story. More so, I love the product and the business.”
After they acknowledged to the sharks that they’ve only invested $9,000 so far into the company, Cuban began clapping and fellow sharks remarked with a “wow.”
“We are ecstatic with the outcome of “Shark Tank” and can’t wait to show more people R. Riveter’s mission to provide work to military spouses while giving our customers high-quality American handmade products,” added Bradley. “Our next step is fulfilling the orders from this weekend; we are currently selling in blocks based on ship date and mailing out in chronological order. Looking to the future, we would love to open up more retail stores while expanding across the country providing more opportunities for military spouses.”