Professional boxer Tony Adeniran couldn't have known in 2017 when he founded Black Stallion Boxing Plus in San Antonio that a global pandemic would pose unheard-of challenges to his studio — and also inspire him to develop a non-impact workout glove that he would pitch on the popular reality show "Shark Tank."
In the show's season finale, which aired May 20, Adeniran — a Houston native who now splits his time between San Antonio and the Bayou City — asked for a $100,000 investment in his company from the show's panelists, including guest Shark, actor and comedian Kevin Hart. Although he did not receive the funding, Adeniran told the Business Journal that appearing on the show was an enormous boost in exposure.
Adeniran, who has been boxing for 16 years, injured his hand in his first professional match in 2014 after knocking out his opponent in the first round. One year later, he won another fight in 2015, but his hand injury worsened, keeping Adeniran out of the ring until November 2019.
He used the interim to pursue other avenues, and founded his own boxing studio, Black Stallion Boxing Plus, in 2017. Beginning with only two coaches, it has grown to six full-time employees. Its revenue has also increased 400% in the past five years as its expenses have gone down, according to Adeniran.
But like so many other business owners, Adeniran was forced to pivot amid the pandemic.
His clients could no longer come into the studio, so he was going door-to-door visiting them at their homes in the early days of Covid, he said.
"I went from seeing 40 to 50 clients a day (at the studio) down to eight people because of the commute," Adeniran said. "I wanted to be safe (with) Covid, so I'd pull up to the driveway, stay at the bottom of the driveway, keep 10 to 20 feet between us and yell instructions for the workout."
He began thinking about gaps in boxing equipment. While weighted gloves existed, they often function as the equivalent of "an ankle weight for your wrists," Adeniran said, and the weight is not distributed realistically. Other times, boxers would shadow box while holding dumbbells, or box in the pool for resistance.
"(One day) it just hit me ... What if you could a use a glove that's not meant for impact, with water on the inside for a dynamic resistance — versus having to hold dumbbells and worry about hitting yourself in the face with weight not distributed properly?" he said.
Adeniran began developing the new Aqua Glove, and by the fall of 2020 he had a prototype of a water-filled boxing glove created by Priority Designs of Columbus, Ohio, and had applied for a provisional patent. As he tried to find the right manufacturer — a struggle due to Covid industry challenges — he applied to appear on the TV show "Shark Tank," and promptly forgot about it.
Then, in 2021, he got a phone call asking him to appear on the show. Also last year, he raised $40,000 in 30 days via a Kickstarter for the product. That fall, he filmed the episode of "Shark Tank" that aired May 20.
In February, he secured a manufacturer for the Aqua Glove.
"We’re curating all the tooling to be ready for production in the next couple months, and our targeted delivery date ... is late fall of this year," Adeniran said.
Adeniran said he's grateful for his "Shark Tank" stint.
"Going on the show itself is already a win for entrepreneurs," he said. "The exposure itself is really a big win. I learned a lot just being on the stage — you get probed, you get pushed, you get questioned."
