Who is Tyler Simmons?
Tyler Simmons coached lacrosse at Stanford University for six and a half years before leaving to build BucketGolf, the portable backyard golf game he co-founded with his sister, Jen Simmons. The idea came on a Fourth of July family vacation in 2016, when he played a homemade golf-and-bucket game and learned nothing like it was sold commercially. He began making sets as a side project while still coaching, and early sales were tiny, about $5,000 over the first few years. A redesign using collapsible buckets, borrowed from foldable laundry hampers, cut shipping and product costs and made the game easy to carry to beaches and parks.
Sales reached $2.5 million in 2022 and $5.9 million in 2023, with about 85% coming from online and Amazon sales. Simmons applied to Shark Tank ten times before appearing in Season 16, asking for $1 million for 10% to keep popular products in stock. Several sharks bid, and the siblings took Mark Cuban's offer after negotiating it from 15% down to 12.5%. He has described plans for a BucketGolf app for leagues and new course obstacles.
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