Black Sands Leisure will get increase from Hart, ‘Shark Tank’

By Craig Horleman,
Delaware State Information by way of The AP

Six years in the past, Manuel and Geiszel Godoy had been solely seeking to fill a necessity for his or her daughter and youngsters like her. However they ended up exceeding these expectations.

Mr. and Mrs. Godoy, homeowners of Delaware-based Black Sands Leisure, had been unable to search out kids’s books and comics that represented their household and its Black heritage.

They realized how such illustration continues to be one thing with which the leisure trade struggles. Whereas there are a number of examples — similar to “Black Panther” — Black characters, administrators and content material creators stay the minority within the leisure world and face extra struggles whereas making an attempt to make it there.

So the Godoys began their enterprise as a method to diversify the sector, by introducing Black characters and storylines of their comedian books.

“We noticed a necessity simply to do tales on African historical past earlier than slavery. We wished to attach with that side as a result of it’s by no means actually been instructed earlier than. So we deal with all of the totally different international locations round Africa and different Indigenous teams, too,” mentioned Mrs. Godoy, whose firm’s books additionally prolong to the Incan and Malaysian cultures.

They began Black Sands to inform tales of sturdy Black characters set in these early days of historical past earlier than colonization. Established in 2016, their empire has grown to 25 titles. The most well-liked collection is “Black Sands,” about necessary Black pharaohs and their households in historic Egypt and surrounding areas.

To additional their journey into getting these tales instructed in a full-length, animated approach, the couple, each Military veterans, scored $500,000 on the ABC present “Shark Tank” by way of actor/comic Kevin Hart and Mark Cuban.

Mr. Hart’s world media firm Hartbeat formally closed the deal not too long ago with Black Sands Leisure.

As a part of the partnership, Hartbeat will provide advisory providers to speed up Black Sands’ efforts, particularly within the space of movie and TV. Hartbeat and Black Sands are already in growth on an animated characteristic and a collection across the “Black Sands” flagship franchise.

“The second that Manuel, Geiszel and the Black Sands Leisure workforce walked into the ‘Tank,’ I knew that this was an organization that I wished to convey into my eco-system,” mentioned Mr. Hart in an announcement.

“The Black Sands workforce was on the lookout for a companion that has sources to develop their distribution, increase on their manufacturing, discover new inventive expertise, and promote their present and future portfolio of content material — these are all areas of Hartbeat’s core enterprise. I’m very excited that our workforce will have the ability to assist Black Sands develop and proceed to share their distinctive tales with audiences all around the world.”

The deal follows Mr. and Mrs. Godoy’s profitable Kickstarter marketing campaign, which reached its objective of $10,000 in a single minute and garnered $100,000 in at some point. Black Sands has offered 200,000 print copies of its comedian books, leading to $2 million in gross sales since its inception.

Apart from their navy backgrounds — Mr. Godoy was a radar technician, and Mrs. Godoy labored in human sources — each have an curiosity in artwork.

“I went to vogue design faculty in California and have a bachelor’s in vogue design. I labored with Calvin Klein designing for them. … And my husband went to varsity for online game design. So he’s an artist, as nicely,” Mrs. Godoy mentioned.

As well as, each have had fingers in writing most of the books.

Mrs. Godoy, who serves as the corporate’s chief monetary officer, mentioned she could be very stunned by the corporate’s success.

“I believed I used to be going to proceed to do vogue eternally,” she mentioned.

However, pondering again to Black Sands’ early days, she mentioned going the unbiased route was the precise transfer.

“Normally, while you write novels and stuff, you must go to the large canine, and so they wish to change all the things,” mentioned Mr. Godoy, Black Sands’ CEO. “I bear in mind making an attempt to pitch this actually lovely e-book, and so they wished to vary the character’s title from Godoy to Jefferson simply due to their market analysis. And I’m like, ‘That’s sort of silly stuff.’”

Mrs. Godoy agreed.

“My final title is Godoy. It’s about my son and my daughter. I wrote about them within the e-book, and so they wished me to vary the names. My children love me incorporating them in our tales,” she mentioned.

Within the ‘Tank’

The choice to go on “Shark Tank” was made for a number of causes. “We wished publicity, and we wished to develop and scale the corporate, to take our firm to the subsequent stage as a result of there may be a lot purple tape concerned,” Mrs. Godoy mentioned.

Nevertheless, showing on the present was a troublesome process.

“They don’t play video games. They wish to know your whole historical past. They do their due diligence. They wish to know your credit score report of your organization, the well being of your organization. They wish to see all of your paperwork referring to your organization. It’s a really, very, very arduous course of. And so they had been telling us throughout that course of, lots of people get minimize, and so they don’t make it,” Mrs. Godoy mentioned.

They appeared on “Shark Tank,” which was taped in summer season 2021 and aired Jan. 7, with their head of studio, Teunis De Raat.

They got here in asking for $500,000 for a 5% stake of their firm however settled for a suggestion from Mr. Hart and Mr. Cuban of $500,000 for 30%. The actor would deal with the leisure portion, and Mr. Cuban the technical facet of issues.

Mr. Godoy shared his pleasure about Black Sands’ future with its new traders.

“They’re placing their title on the market with us. And now that that’s occurred, we will really begin making some actual enterprise performs on the animation manufacturing facet,” he mentioned. “We’ve got it on the market. It’s all public. It’s all able to go. And that alone permits us to go after key voice actors, go after animation studios and stuff like that, once we couldn’t try this prior.”

Assist us Proceed to inform OUR Story and be part of the AFRO household as a member –subscribers at the moment are members!  Be part of here!