Megan Tobler (00:18.249)

Wonderful. Okay, perfect. Well, Shira, in 2021, you were featured on Shark Tank and Lori Griner said something that was really special and noteworthy that I feel like we really need to start with. And she said, and I quote, I love this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a product come into the Shark Tank that resonated more deeply in a social mission way as this. I think it’s genius. This needs to be in every woman’s hands. So I know that everyone now is.

totally on the edge of their seat. So what is this genius product that you created that we all need?

Shirah (00:52.472)

Yeah, first of all, that’s just like the best thing I’ve ever heard. And I replay that sometimes like when I’m feeling sad, I’m like, I need to hear that sentence one more time. Thank you, Lori. I invented Nightcap. It’s a, well, it’s a business now, but the original product that I kept scrunchie was a…

The first thing I thought of in a dream after a friend of mine was roofied at the bar. So it’s a scrunchie that doubles as a drink cover. So when you go out, you can wear your scrunchie on your wrist or on your hair. And then when you go to the bar party,

Festival you take the cover out of the scrunchie and it just goes right over your drink pop in a straw And they’re washable and reusable so you can use them over and over again You know we have like four packs and eight packs and bachelor boxes like to make them You know fun get them for your roommates or your friends and stuff like that keep everyone safe But yeah, that’s what we started with that’s what we went on shark tank with and now it’s you know a whole

products line of things like keychains and disposable stickers, bottle tops, cooler covers and everything else.

Megan Tobler (02:14.195)

Genius. I will say that it’s sad that we live in an age where this is something that we have to think about, but it’s so important that women are aware and are prepared. And that’s exactly what you have been able to do. You’ve brought awareness to the situation and you’ve also equipped women with these different resources to be able to make sure that they’re not one of the percentages out there. want to take a step back though, because you…

said that you created this because you had a dream. And correct me if I’m wrong, you were 16 when you had this dream, correct?

Shirah (02:50.982)

Yeah, I was 16. I had an older friend that had her drink spiked and a couple weeks later…

I went to bed one night and I thought of the idea just literally formed in my head. And when I woke up, I knew I had to do something about it. So I sat down with my dad and just sat down with him at our kitchen table and created, you know, the first prototype with my mom’s stockings and a scrunchie for my room. I felt like it was easier to visually show him rather than explain it to him. So sort of running up

I was like, what can I, how do I make this thing as fast as possible? So I did that and from there I was just working with him because I didn’t know what I was doing, neither did he, but two’s better than one. So he was reaching out to some colleagues and asking friends if they knew certain people and just being resourceful and sat down with a patent attorney and then we…

we found like a local seamstress to start making a couple of the prototypes and she would come over every few weeks with like a new, like gymnastics leotard fabric and a new prototype and we’d be like, okay, we like it this way, but how can we, you know, fix this? And then she’d come back in a couple of weeks and it would be improved. And once we got it to like the final stage, we started.

manufacturing them in Dallas, but my dad immediately was like, Knight Cap or Top Hat. And I was like, it’s not gonna be Top Hat. So he thought of the name and he also knew of a graphic designer. you know, she sent over different logos. I mean, we were picking from those, but I think it’s really cool to think about the beginning of Knight Cap because all of that has been like scrapped, you know, like it’s all.

Shirah (04:48.164)

different now. So you can start something with a logo and create another logo two or three years later. Like it doesn’t have to be perfect in the beginning, but as long as you have something that you can move forward with, I think that’s what really matters.

Megan Tobler (05:04.521)

And I couldn’t agree with that more. I have lots of conversations with women all the time, as you can tell through the podcast. And that is really where a lot of women get hung up is the fear of not knowing how to get started and thinking that everything has to be perfect before taking that first step and not knowing how to get started. you were 16. mean, had you even had a first job yet before you decided to create this product?

Shirah (05:30.982)

I some jobs when I was younger. Yeah, I was a camp counselor from like 14 to 16, I think. I did gymnastics camp counseling and then I did sleepaway camp too. I like…

I guess, mean, I don’t think I’m great with kids, but I guess that was my job before. But like literally I was doing my homework as I was coming up with Nightcap because at 16, like nobody even wants to hire you. I remember I was actively looking for jobs as like a hostess here and there and like giving my resume in, but nobody hired me anyway. So I didn’t.

really have like an official corporate job, no.

Megan Tobler (06:19.081)

Well, and I think that is a really good point to highlight here is because, like I said, one of the excuses that sometimes we give ourselves is that I don’t know how to get started. And if someone at the age of 16 who hasn’t worked in corporate and doesn’t really hasn’t had the experience where you’ve seen how a company fully operates, like you could have had plenty of like excuses not to get started, but you felt really called to do this and you made it happen.

And I have to give huge kudos to your family as well because it sounds like this was very much a supportive environment that was fostered to be able to make sure that you were able to bring this dream into reality. So huge kudos to your parents there. But as far as you mentioned, you were doing this like you’re doing your homework while you’re also figuring out how to bring this product to life. Like how did this journey really unfold and how were you able to balance everything while you’re also

CEO of the company and working to get your high school diploma.

Shirah (07:21.23)

Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. think, I mean, I was, think it was, it was more of a mindset, like I have nothing to lose type of thing. And it was a fun project for me that I didn’t realize where it was going to take us. So I think I’ve always kind of had that mindset though of, you know, I would rather.

like do something about it, then regret, then walk away with regret or like the feeling of what could have happened. So, you know, I think when it comes to balancing it.

I mean, my brother’s my co -founder. He does 50 % of the work and I do the other 50%. So I’m not a one woman show and I have to give credit where credit’s due. But he was at the time going to Florida State University and he came home for the summer and he saw my prototype on the table and you know at…

college he knew how bad of a problem it really was and that there was nothing else out there that was gonna help people from being roofy. So he’s like, this is actually a good idea, like I’m gonna help you with this. he really started like working on getting.

like raising money for the product. Like he participated in all four pitch competitions and won them all at his school. just using the resources that he had while he was there was really helpful for us. But when it comes to balance, think like, I don’t even know what I’m doing now when it comes to balance. try, I think for like now a big part of my like scheduling.

Shirah (09:09.176)

is just like being very particular and, and like not particular but picky with my time. I don’t know if that’s the right word. I plan my days the night before to make intentional is the word. Yes.

Megan Tobler (09:28.188)

Intentional.

Shirah (09:32.132)

Not picky. Intentional is the word. I schedule my days either on Sunday, I schedule my week, or every night before I go to bed, I know what I’m doing the next day, and then everything is just planned. And I think that’s helped me be productive, and it’s helped me with balance. So that is something that I actively do now to help with that.

Megan Tobler (09:55.097)

And for people listening to obviously you were being really intentional with your time while you were juggling schoolwork as well as building this global company, which it’s global today. But a lot of people listening are in corporate and they really need, they’re yearning to be able to get out. So they’re having to start these side hustles. So really being intentional with their time, being able to.

work that nine to five while building a business. And like you said, on Sunday, really map out what your week looks like to be able to make sure that you’re really maximizing the time that you do have, I think is very critical to like really for the health of the company, essentially. So, okay. So I do want to take a step back because I know earlier you were talking about the steps that you took with your dad when you were, you hired the seamstress and you were going through all of that. So how did you go from

prototype, you said your brother had been doing these pitch competitions. At what point did this just, like, did you get the funding that you were really needing to be able to take this to market?

Shirah (10:57.51)

So we started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign when we originally…

I think we started the Indiegogo before we started manufacturing because we wanted to obviously get money pre -orders before we could actually go and buy the batch of orders. So I think our goal was $12 ,000. We hit it, which was great. Shout out to Fox Business Network because they…

One of my old friends had a connection there and we got on the show and within minutes we hit our goal. that was a portion of luck and a portion of just knowing someone at the right time, I guess.

We did it Indiegogo, my brother competed in pitch competitions and my parents also gave us money to start the business. I believe in total it was about $40 ,000 around there and that’s the money that we started with.

you know, for inventory. And from there, we really weren’t selling for the first year. We only started having real momentum after Shark Tank. So before we went on the show, we had sales only because of TikTok and just showing what the product was. Anyone can get on TikTok or Instagram Reels. It’s free. You don’t have to be a

Shirah (12:33.752)

professional really like you just just try I would say like just give it your best shot and like see what you can do tell your story on there that’s really what’s helped us a lot but

In the beginning, it was just showing what the product was over and over again. And one of the videos hit and we did like $40 ,000 in sales and really helped us when we were on Shark Tank tell them that, we just made $40 ,000 in the last couple of weeks. Like there’s validity behind this product. And that’s kind of when, I mean, everything changed, obviously, like Shark Tank aired, we tripled our sales and from there,

it was kind of like, okay, how do we keep this going? I mean, the night of Shark Tank, I don’t think any company is going to match that. But from there, TikTok and Instagram have been our main marketing channel since the beginning, and it still is. We really don’t pay for ads or anything like that. It’s all organic stuff. It’s really just like…

showing the product, telling our story, talking about the mission, educating people on the problem. mean, everything around the issue and like why we started this.

Yeah, and I think any founder can really do that. I think it’s the most important thing ever because why are you starting or what is your purpose? What’s your mission? Kind of thing. We’re all curious about it. So if you give your customers the answers to those questions, I think you feel more connected to the founder at the end of the day.

Megan Tobler (14:15.431)

couldn’t agree more. I also before I continue on that thought, I want to go back to you said that you just got lucky. And I really want to highlight that I actually disagree with you. Like, yeah, there’s a little bit of a lot component in there. But you put in a ton of hard work. And you have an amazing product that is very mission focused. And I think that people really resonate with a mission as

big as this one. The fact that Lori Griner said what she said, she doesn’t say that to just everyone. It’s truly because this is such a big problem and you’re really helping keep people safe. And so I think that, sure, maybe there’s a little bit of luck, but you didn’t have to reach out to your connection to get onto Fox Business News. You didn’t have to leverage all these things. You didn’t have to move forward and bring this idea into conception.

Gotta give yourself some credit too, where it’s deserved because you definitely gotta have to give yourself some kudos here too. But.

Shirah (15:21.946)

Thank you. It’s all perspective at the end of the day. I just acknowledge the fact that like not everyone can jump on Fox business. you know, at the beginning of their, at the start, I mean, it was crazy. It was our first time on live TV. Please don’t go watch it. I mortified by it, but they sat us down and they went three, two, one, go. And it was the scariest thing ever, but you know, it did what it needed to do. So you got to be prepared for all the opportunities.

Megan Tobler (15:51.817)

Absolutely, and you know what it worked it eventually got you on Shark Tank and I have to ask too because you said obviously you raised all this money and then you got all these sales did you have the product in place to support all the sales that Happen to come in overnight or what seemed like overnight?

Shirah (16:10.899)

Yes, we figured it out. We figured it out. But for Shark Tank, when you get all those sales, you know, know, you’re going to get those those sales. You I mean, you you prepare in advance because going on a show like that, I think every company, you know, has to make some changes to their website. There’s going to be a lot of people on your website. So you got to make sure that thing doesn’t crash. You got to prepare your inventory.

But yeah, I mean, we’ve always seemed to figure it out. think we did have an issue after Shark Tank with, like our fulfillment center is in Dallas and there was like a, I think there was like a tornado or something. And I mean, all of our shipments got delayed, but you know, you live and you learn. It was out of our control, but I think everyone was hopefully pretty understanding. It’s been a couple of years now, so I don’t know how they’re feeling.

Megan Tobler (17:07.763)

Well, if people don’t understand the natural disasters happen, then those probably aren’t the customers that you want anyways. Like you want good, yeah. So things happen that are completely outside of your control. You can prepare for the worst, but sometimes even more worse things happen. Hopefully not, but you never know. But you had mentioned earlier too, that all of your advertising is through TikTok and Instagram, as far as like how you’re really able to bring awareness to this product.

Shirah (17:13.935)

it

Megan Tobler (17:35.977)

and get all of the sales. But I also saw that you recently just got into Forever 21. So tell us a little bit more about how you went from being more of like a website based business to actually being featured in stores.

Shirah (17:53.552)

Well, this one’s a fun story. I love this one because last year I was in, two years ago, I was in Vegas for a conference. It was called Shop Talk and it’s a retail conference. So I went with my friend at the time and we were just there because there were a lot of cool CEOs and we wanted to hear them talk.

and we sat like front row for the CEO of Forever 21. And she was up there with a couple other women and it was just like such an inspiring panel that afterwards I noticed that they just like had walked down the steps and they were just kind of all standing there. And I’m like, that’s odd, you they’re like, you got these high caliber people just kind of like standing there. I’m like, well, it’s time to go over there and say hello. So.

Yeah, we went up to the CEO of Forever 21, her name’s Winnie Park, and we said, congratulations, that was so amazing. And I gave her, I took a nightcap out of my bag and I handed it to her. And I was like, this is nightcap, it’s scrunchie that covers your drink. And she’s like, immediately, let’s get this in the stores. And in that moment, I was shocked. And I took her email right then and there.

And I followed up with her, you know, until like something was set up. And I don’t know exactly how long it took from that moment to actually getting in the store, but we are now in all 400 Forever 21 stores just because of one conversation that we had at that conference.

Megan Tobler (19:30.653)

All right, girl, this is not luck. I’m gonna say it all over again. This is not luck. Like you are putting yourself out there. You went on to a major media outlet, not having ever done anything like that. You talked to some huge, big CEO that most people would probably be intimidated by and you handed her your product.

Shirah (19:51.106)

Yeah, and she’s the nicest person ever and it’s crazy when you assume that these high like like the CEOs of these places are like Indemnitating or whatever it is. It’s like they are I mean she in particular is one of my favorite people I just interviewed her like a few weeks ago, and she’s just like an angel

So I like love her, I love Forever 21. I have nothing like bad to say about them. I just like think she’s the coolest and she, all she wants is to like empower women. I just think she’s so cool.

Megan Tobler (20:25.833)

Well, and I know that this originally started as a scrunchie and I know traditionally when we’re thinking about people potentially being roofied, we’re thinking that it’s only for women, but that’s not the case today. Obviously there’s a lot of things that are going on with men. So you also expanded your product beyond the scrunchie. And I think you alluded to it at the very beginning. can we talk about when you went from the scrunchie concept to really broadening the product offering?

Shirah (20:54.118)

Yeah, I want to say it was 2022 when we…

expanded. Obviously, like my brother is my co founder and he sometimes he has good ideas too. So I listen, but he came up with, you know, he recognized that a lot of our customers were saying, I also want this, but I don’t want the scrunchie. And so we had to, we had to listen to them. You know, that’s the most important thing ever. And, and he kind of came up with this concept of having a key chain instead of a scrunchie and the cover goes into the key chain.

So you can bring it out with you, put it your keys, whatever you want to do. And I love it. I think it’s a great little additional product, like, because it’s just the cover. So it’s super easy to throw on there. But yeah, it’s like a unisex product. It’s for anyone who doesn’t want to wear a scrunchie on their wrist. It’s great. I love it. And we also have like beer bottle tops too. And then we just came out with our handy bottle top, which is like a little hand that you can put on your beer.

So it looks like you’re putting like someone’s hand over your it’s just so silly But we’re trying to create fun solutions to a serious problem because at the end of the day what I mean drinks biking is just terrifying and We don’t want to scare people into using these products, but we want people to be safe

And in order for them to want to use our products, they have to be fun. They have to be trendy and they have to be, you like just, you need your customers to want to use them. And that’s a big part of the creation of all of our products is just like, yeah, fun solutions to a very serious problem.

Megan Tobler (22:42.985)

Totally, and it’s one of those things where you wish that the problem didn’t exist, and that’s likely not going, we don’t have control over that as much as we do over protecting ourselves. So that’s why a product like this is so needed. And I’m beyond my college years, and obviously that’s where a lot of this happens, but it happens anywhere these days. I think that this would be a great product for every single bar.

to end like club to have access to because all it takes is turning your head for one little second to blink and just not being paying attention and your life can be forever changed. I, again, I really, really admire what you, what you did. it all started from a dream, which I, it gives me the goosebumps, even just like thinking that, that you knew that you had a big calling here that you just had to.

see to fruition here. So if people wanted to purchase this for themselves, or maybe they even have a business and they want to get things branded with their own logo, I know that’s a possibility to work or they go and learn more.

Shirah (23:54.278)

Yeah, so nightcapit .com is where you can find bulk orders, custom orders, and you can purchase anything on there, learn about us, and we’re also on Amazon, and then also Forever 21. Doesn’t hurt to walk in there and take a look. And then…

Yeah, our socials are nightcapit and I also have a podcast called In Your Dreams.

Megan Tobler (24:25.321)

Well, that’s a very convenient thing. I love it. All right, so I always like to end the show with a piece of advice. So if there is a woman listening to this podcast right now that has a dream for more, but doesn’t know how to get started, what would you tell her?

Shirah (24:42.392)

I would tell her to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. That’s my favorite.

like piece of advice because for example walking up to someone like Winnie Park is not something you do every day or you know something that you feel comfortable doing but I think when you do step out of your comfort zone you get rewarded and you know whether that is whether you get rejected or not you can still say that you did it and you put yourself up there so

Do that, get uncomfortable with the, get comfortable with the uncomfy.

Megan Tobler (25:21.629)

I love it because entrepreneurship is just full of uncomfortable moments. But like you said, it just, the reward is worth it. It allows you to grow and to expand as a human as well as a professional. So Shira, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. It has literally been a dream. So thank you.

Shirah (25:41.822)

That’s awesome. Thank you so much for having me.