Approximately one year after appearing on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” a Loveland startup was asked back on the show to tout its success and discuss the challenges it’s faced.
HummViewer co-founders John and Joan Creed developed a wearable mask that serves as a hummingbird feeder.
“The best thing about HummViewer is that initially, when you see it, it does look like a joke and then you realize it’s not a product, it’s an experience,” investor and entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky, who signed a deal with HummViewer in 2022, said on the Jan. 26 episode.
Joan Creed also describes the startup as an experience that connects users with nature and allows them to see hummingbirds in a new way.
Since HummViewer first appeared on “Shark Tank” in December 2022, it has sold 7,505 units resulting in $525,002 in gross sales, the startup told Colorado Inno on Feb. 8. One day after HummViewer first appeared on the show, it sold out of its inventory.
Before appearing on the show, HummViewer sold 500 units over four years.
“This life-changing success created some problems as well,” Joan Creed said on the Jan. 26 episode.
HummViewer says its greatest challenge is stopping third-party businesses from stealing its images and selling knockoff products.
Joan Creed said she found the first HummViewer knockoff seller on Amazon in March 2023. Since then, there have been “hundreds,” she said.
“The sellers took all of our images and our copy off of our website and everything to make buyers think that they were buying HummViewer,” Joan Creed said. “They would never say the name HummViewer or anything. It was just called a wearable hummingbird feeder.”
HummViewer hired an attorney to help initially but now John and Joan Creed do the work themselves, manually submitting infringement reports one at a time. The problem, Joan Creed said, is that the same seller will relist the product under a different seller name.
“It’s like a whack-a-mole game,” she said. “We have to get rid of seller A and then seller B comes in and relist it.”
More than 60 HummViewer copycat sellers have been removed from sites like Amazon, Walmart and eBay as of mid-January, Joan Creed estimated. The Creeds have submitted more than 150 infringement reports over the last year. They spend a few hours every day reporting these third-party sellers.
“[These businesses] have hindered our financial successes, but we keep moving on and moving forward, but we’ve had financial loss,” Joan Creed said.
She thinks these copycat businesses have also hurt the HummViewer brand. She said some customers have reached out complaining the product was cheap, broken, not put together or that they didn’t receive anything at all when they ordered the wearable hummingbird feeder from third-party businesses.
HummViewer does have a patent for its product, but Joan Creed said fighting patent infringements would cost the startup thousands of dollars.
HummViewer isn’t the only business to deal with copycat businesses and products. Brush Hero, a company that also appeared on “Shark Tank,” said its dealt with the same issue. According to media reports, Amazon has also been accused of coping products to promote its own brand.
