THE BIG IDEA

Mark Cuban’s final 'Shank Tank' move: deviled eggs

Here’s a fun fact: Deviled eggs are called that because “devil” was once used to describe foods that were highly seasoned.

Here’s another one: Mark Cuban ended his 15-season run on “Shark Tank” to spend more time with his family and to focus on his own startup, Cost Plus Drugs.

His final investment was in Deviled Egg Co., a restaurant chain that only serves one thing.

That’s it?

Yep. The menu consists of nothing but deviled eggs — available in 19 flavors including crab rangoon, gyro, and sriracha bacon — and deviled egg salads.

Founder Raechel Van Buskirk started Deviled Egg Co. as a side hustle out of her Omaha, Nebraska, home in 2017. She opened a food trailer with business partner Alexi Wellman in 2020, and now has two restaurants and one storefront in the Dallas area, per CNBC. 

The “Shark Tank” judges were fans of the eggs, but it was Cuban — who lives in Dallas and owns a minority stake in the Dallas Mavericks — and Barbara Corcoran who put down a joint offer of $250k for a 20% stake. 

Is it sustainable to serve only deviled eggs?

There are already several chains that only offer one thing, or have a limited menu. Crumbl Cookies’ menu is predominantly just cookies in fun flavors, yet in 2022, it sold 300m+ cookies and made $1B in sales.

Deviled eggs may be an easy appetizer to make yourself — and they probably aren’t as popular as cookies— but Deviled Egg Co. claims to be profitable with $1.2m+ in revenue in 2024, and to already have interest from potential franchisees.

Factors in its favor:

• A limited menu means lower overhead, more reliable quality, and less food waste. 
• It’s easier to train staff to make a bunch of deviled eggs than a sprawling or complicated menu. 
• Younger consumers are shifting toward on-the-go snacks over full meals. 
• Health-conscious Americans are really into protein right now — 63% of US consumers want protein-packed snacks — and eggs are a reliable source. 

BTW: Our favorite niche eatery? Alien Fresh Jerky. It’s got beef jerky and extraterrestrials. What more do you need? 

🔗

RECOMMENDED READING

• Who wants to be a millionaire? Apparently, everyone. The average net worth for an American household has reached $1m — but how did it happen?

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Listing price for a 10-bed, 13-bath Los Angeles mansion that just isn’t selling.

While LA remains a hot housing market, homeowner Sean “Diddy” Combs put this one up for sale a week before his arrest and, due to the severity of charges against the rapper, no one wants it.

Michael Tachovsky, a partner at Landmark Research Group, told Business Insider that when people buy a house that expensive, they enjoy bragging about it — and “P. Diddy’s reputation, at the current time, really isn’t a positive bragging point for a potential buyer.” 

There is at least one interested buyer: Steven Belmont, who bought Kanye West’s Malibu mansion for half the asking price last year. He offered $30m with plans to renovate and “remove the stigma.”

HOW YOU HUSTLE

We don’t need to tell you — our readers are amazing. So amazing, in fact, that it was worth dedicating some real estate to. Here’s our weekly spotlight on a Hustler doing something big.

Who: Maya Chivi

What: Miss Moss

Why: “Bringing more nature indoors helps our mental health and adds greenery to our spaces. By using preserved moss, dried flowers, and fallen bark and logs, we can enjoy the beauty of nature without having to worry about watering or maintenance.”

Origin story: “I loved seeing green walls in public spaces but found living walls too complicated to maintain. I then discovered sustainably-harvested preserved moss and created my first piece for our home. Our friends loved it and started asking if I was going to create more… I signed up for my first market and the response was overwhelming! And so Miss Moss was born.”

One truly innovative thing: “Each piece we create is totally unique, featuring preserved moss (that doesn't need any watering!), bark, wood sticks and logs, pine cones, and dried flowers. Our moss comes from sustainable suppliers, and we only use naturally fallen wood and pine cones. We’ve also started drying locally grown flowers, while still sourcing our beautiful strawflowers from Ukraine.”

Biggest win in the last year: “I increased my prices and got completely sold out at my last market; I had custom requests to fill for months. I also made my largest piece yet and people were asking if I could make pieces triple the size!”

Want to be featured here? Tell us how you’re hustling.

AROUND THE WEB

🍅  On this day: In 1994, the first commercial GMO — the Flavr Savr tomato — hit US grocery shelves.

📚  That’s cool: A library of public domain short stories.

🗞️  Newsletter: The Gist is a 5-minute, 4x-weekly read helping 1m+ fans stay informed on top men’s and women’s sports stories. Subscribe here.

🐜  That’s interesting: Why ants invaded a speaker.

🐑  Aww: Two little friends. 

QUOTE OF NOTE

To be fair, most major companies have been on the receiving end of Reddit posts like the one above. But few receive such colorful vitriol as Adobe. 

The Photoshop maker has its customers up in arms over its newly-announced Creative Cloud pricing change. Starting next month, Adobe will auto-subscribe users of its priciest, most feature-laden plan to a new AI-heavy plan, at an even higher cost ($780 annually, up from $660).

Though Adobe anticipates it'll notch $23.55B in revenue in this fiscal year, Wall Street hasn't been impressed by its AI monetization to date; this move looks to be an attempt to shore those numbers up.

Downgrading often isn't so simple, as the 20+ apps in Adobe’s Creative Cloud are the lifeblood of many creatives. But there is another solution, per another Redditor: "k, so I will just keep pirating."

SHOWER THOUGHT

You don’t realize how little you actually know about someone until you have to buy them a birthday present. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Ben “Will try literally anything labeled Oreo” Berkley.

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