SnagaStool: Here's What Happened After Shark Tank

Have you ever wanted to guarantee being able to get a seat at your favorite bar? Maybe you'd love to bag a spot with a great view of the TV for the big game when the place gets really busy, or to ensure the best seats to chat to the bartender for your post-work cocktails at a hot new bar. 

And what about when the bar isn't so busy? Would you still be keen to reserve a stool if you might get a reward, such as a free drink? There should be an app for that, right?

This was the premise behind SnagaStool, an idea which Jamie Manning and Adriano Varassin came up with in June 2013, when the Bruins were in the playoffs, and the pair struggled to get a seat at two of their local bars. By the time they hit the third venue, they were so desperate to sit down that Manning offered to pay a guy at the bar $20 for his two stools. An idea was born and taken where a lot of great ideas go: "Shark Tank."

Co-founder Jamie Manning and CMO Dean Whitney traveled from Boston, Massachusetts, to pitch their SnagaStool mobile app on Season 6 of "Shark Tank." Using their example of the "Shark Tank Bar and Grille," they explained how the user selects the time, date, and number of stools required, and then snags a stool at any participating bar.

There was some confusion about the overall premise, with Robert Herjavec asking: If the bar was empty, why would someone pay to reserve a seat? And if it was busy, why would the bar owner want to leave stools empty? Whitney explained that there would be two time periods on the app: peak and off-peak. Users could be guaranteed a seat when the bar was busy by reserving it, while bars could offer incentives during off-peak times to get more customers to fill seats. 

The SnagaStool team was seeking $120,000 for 18% equity. But the sharks struggled to see the value it could offer. One by one, they dropped out, leaving Boston-based millionaire Kevin O'Leary to grill the pair. O'Leary said he had been going to his favorite bar to watch New England Patriots games for 35 years, and he would pay any price to sit and watch the game there. If they had struck a deal with that venue, Grill 23, he would have made a "hell of an offer," he said. As it was, they left with nothing.

Despite the exposure from the show, and increased efforts from the entrepreneurs, the app never took off, and it shut down in 2016. At the time of filming "Shark Tank," SnagaStool had only three venues willing to participate, and the business had not yet generated any revenue. This was bad news for the potential investors, as there was nothing really to invest in at that stage, but it also highlighted a potential lack of interest in the product.

There was also the issue of competition, such as OpenTable. As Mark Cuban pointed out on the show, there were at the time at number of apps specifically designed for bars, so why should they deal with SnagaStool? And yet another problem was that the app was only available on iOS App Store and not for Android, which limited its user base.

Jamie Manning and Dean Whitney were invited to return to "Shark Tank" once they'd ironed out the issues with the app, and addressed the concern that the real estate is always going to be sold out at busy times. They needed to be clearer about the incentive for a bar to use the system. However, they did not return, and SnagaStool ceased operation. Manning went on to launch BaggaBox, a theft prevention bag for packages, but this business also went quiet; the company's last Instagram post was in December 2018.

According to his profile on LinkedIn, Jamie Manning quit entrepreneurship after launching SnagaStool and BaggaBox. In fact, he doesn't have either listed in his "Experience" section on LinkedIn. Having left a job as a Senior Manager at Infinity Pharmaceuticals in 2016, he worked for Akebia Therapeutics until March 2023, most recently as Director of Commercial Operations. Since April 2023, he has been Director of Commercial Analytics and Operations at Ardelyx, Inc, based in Waltham, MA.

Co-founder Adriano Varassin, meanwhile, has held the position of Director of Operations with the Travel Trade Group, based in London, UK, since December 2017. Before that, he was a Business Development Manager for Tourico Holidays.

Since April 2020, Dean Whitney, who appeared on the show with Manning, has been UX Lead at Cytiva (formerly GE Life Sciences) in Greater Boston, leading product and experience for multiple SaaS applications, and driving digital maturity model and global design standards.