The Art of Profitable Licensing: Lessons From Seven-Figure Shark Tank Veteran Pat Yates

Home » Podcasts » The Art of Profitable Licensing: Lessons From Seven-Figure Shark Tank Veteran Pat Yates

The Art of Profitable Licensing: Lessons From Seven-Figure Shark Tank Veteran Pat Yates

Pat YatesPat Yates is the President and Owner of Happy Feet Slippers, a novelty business providing high-quality, comfortable house shoes for the entire family. The slippers garnered nationwide attention after a 2014 appearance on Shark Tank, where he struck a deal with Robert Herjavec. Since then, the company’s grown into a multimillion-dollar e-commerce operation. The deal led to licensing agreements with DreamWorks, NCAA, NFL, and Disney. By 2015, he formed a relationship with Mark Daoust, the Founder of Quiet Light, where he now serves as one of the broker’s mergers and acquisitions advisors.

apple podcast
spotify
partner-share-lg
deezer
iheartradio
partner-share-lg
Amazon Music
tune in

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • Pat Yates reflects on his guest appearance on Shark Tank and the opportunities it’s created
  • How to protect your brand without the use of a utility or design patent
  • Pat discusses Happy Feet Slippers’ partnership with Jersey Shore’s Snooki
  • Revenue success and complexities associated with licensing agreements
  • Steps to acquire licensing
  • Merger and acquisition advice for brands interested in exiting a business
  • How to navigate an M&A deal in today’s current market

In this episode…

Happy Feet Slippers started as a kiosk retail venture over 25 years ago. Today, the slipper company is a global success thanks to an appearance on a popular TV show. Soon, more opportunities followed when the founder, Pat Yates, signed lucrative licensing deals with prominent brands. Although licensing helped elevate his company, the experience was the start of a new lesson in business for the seasoned e-commerce entrepreneur.

If you’re an established business owner interested in licensing your products, Pat advises doing your research first. To license a product involves giving another company rights to your intellectual property to produce and sell. Leveraging license agreements has benefits, such as passive income, brand recognition, and acquiring new customers. On the contrary, there’s a risk of intellectual property theft, losing control of your brand, colossal licensing fees, and profit loss.

In this episode of the eComm Breakthrough Podcast, Josh Hadley interviews Pat Yates, President and Owner of Happy Feet Slippers and Business Broker at Quiet Light, to discuss the complexities of licensing. Pat talks about protecting your brand, his various licensing partnerships, and the steps to acquire licensing. Pat also switches gears to discuss mergers and acquisitions, offering sage advice on exiting a business.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Special Mention(s):

Book Mention(s):

Related Episode(s):

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure ecommerce owners grow to eight figures. Of course…

I started Hadley Designs in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.

I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.

If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.

As a special bonus to my podcast listeners, this month I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business strategy audit session at no cost. Email me at josh@ecommbreakthrough.com with the subject line “Strategy Audit” and tell me why your business should win the free audit for the chance to win and don’t worry, if you don’t win the free strategy audit this month, you’ll automatically be entered for future months.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:05

Welcome to the eComm Breakthrough Podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales with the challenges knowing how to take your business to the next level. Join Josh Hadley, an eight-figure e-comm business owner and investor, as he interviews highly successful business owners get ready because you’re going to learn specific actions you can take today to help your business reach its full potential and leave a lasting impact on the world.

Josh Hadley 0:36

Welcome to the eComm Breakthrough Podcast. I’m your host Josh Hadley where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Howard Thai, and Roland Frasier. Today I’m speaking with Pat Yates, an M&A advisor at Quiet Light and owner of Happy Feet Slippers. And today we’re going to be talking a lot about licensing and preparing your business to exit. This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help seven-figure companies grow to eight figures and beyond. Listen, Pat, I started my e-comm business back in 2015. And it took me seven years to grow it to an eight-figure brand. There were a lot of times that I struggled with the challenge of knowing whether my business could actually succeed financially or if my brand could actually become a real well known brand. Or even myself as a leader whether I had the abilities and capabilities to lead a team and actually manage a group of people you’re for our listeners that have had similar experiences or hit similar plateaus, go to eCommBreakthrough.com. And that’s e-comm with two M’s and you can learn a little bit more about how I can help you and to our listeners. This month I’m giving away one $10,000 comprehensive business Strategy audit session at no cost. All you need to do is email me at Josh@eCommBreakthrough.com and in your subject line, just say Strategy Audit and then tell me why I should choose your business as the business to do the Strategy audit for this month. And don’t worry if you don’t win this month because you’ll be entered to win for future months to come. But I’m super excited to introduce you all to Pat Yates. He’s a seasoned entrepreneur with a focus on e-commerce. In 2014. He struck a deal with Robert Herjavec on the Emmy award winning show Shark Tank, Pat grew his single slipper kiosk business into a multimillion-dollar e-commerce focused business. During that time, Pat has done licensing deals with DreamWorks, the NCAA, the NFL, and Disney. And in 2015, he struck up a relationship with Mark the founder of Quiet Light brokerage and continued eventually leading him to becoming an M&A advisor. So welcome to the show, Pat.

Pat Yates 2:51

Thanks. So appreciate you having me.

Josh Hadley 2:54

Pat, I watched your Shark Tank episode and loved you know, everything you kind of went through in that episode, you ended up doing a deal with Robert who, who first kind of went out pretty early on, at least in the episode, and then he comes back in and kind of swoops up the deal. At the last moment, how was that experience being on Shark Tank and going through that?

Pat Yates 3:19

Yeah, it’s I mean, I’ve talked a lot about it over the past few years because it’s one of the people that likes on the speaking circuit with me likes to call me the OG and one of the OG’s on Shark Tank because I’m on Season Five they have so many seasons now I’m like, I can’t be old at everything. I hate that but I mean it’s it’s a difficult process and the very beginning you have to submit several videos and a lot of written documentation, a lot of due diligence and you know, I was turned down and season one or Season Two or something like that. And then they called me back at Season Five was coming to say we’re ramping so much and I was one of the people that came down to the very end and had to fly out there and do my pitch in front of the producers to even see if they keep me so I did that and then it aired in 2014 and it was awesome. I mean the show was going humming bide my time was going poorly in there for like 80% of it the air you’re in there like an hour and 15 minutes most people don’t realize that and it’s cut to eight so for most of the time it wasn’t going very well but the end was pretty good

[Continue to Page 2]

Pages: 1 2