A hair tie and some of her mother’s old stockings.
That was enough for Shirah Benarde, when she was just 16 years old, to create what is now a global safety brand.
It is about Nightcapa product that was designed to protect women victims of tampering with their drinks.
The phenomenon, known in English as drink spiking, It mainly affects young people and, many times, its objective is to drug them and then sexually abuse them.
Attacks also affect men.
“I am very, very proud of my 16-year-old self who thought this dream would save lives because it definitely has,” the young American tells the BBC’s Enterprise Day-to-day program.
It all started when one of her friends was drugged in a university bar.
“When it happened to my friend, I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve heard about this before, but it’s never happened to anyone I know’… I felt helpless and wanting to do something about it.”
Make a difference
Shirah Benarde explains that “the problem with drink spiking is that most of the time it is not reported” and that “many of the victims do not go to the hospital.”
“My friend did not go to the hospital, but she lost consciousness. She never knew what they had given her because the substances disappear from the body in less than 72 hours.”
“She was fine, in quotes, but you carry that with you not only that night, but the rest of your life. You have to live with not knowing what happened to you,” he says.
The young woman claims that her friend’s case totally changed the way she felt about going out at night.
“It made me feel like I should be more aware of my surroundings. It can happen to anyone. I didn’t understand it before. And if it doesn’t happen to someone close to you, you’re not so aware.”
“When you go out, you just want to have a good time. And when they tell you that something like that happened to your friend, it’s a very shocking and desperate feeling, because sometimes you’re not even there to help, and that’s very hard: not being present, not knowing what happened,” she says.
“Although I was very young, I always wanted to help people, make a difference, and the truth is that all of this (of Nightcap) it just came to me at that moment,” he adds.
a dream
Shirah says that the idea for this glass cover, which would later become a successful international business, appeared to her in a dream.
“A few weeks after what happened with my friend, I went to bed one night and the idea occurred to me in a dream. When I woke up, I ran around the house, grabbed some of my mother’s socks and a hair tie from my room, and created this little Nightcap“, remember.
“I invented a hair tie that doubles as a drink cover. It’s literally a bow that you can wear on your wrist or in your hair; I wear it in my hair all the time. It’s washable and reusable. You wear it like this, and you never know when you’re going to want to go out for a drink, even if it’s water. So you just take out this cover and there it is.”
The young woman explains that the device is placed directly on the drink and that it even has a hole for the straw.
With the help of his father, who had the idea of the name NigtcapShirah started the then fledgling venture.
“It was a lot of fun at first, taking small steps and enjoying creating the name. My father was a very sociable person, so he contacted a local seamstress and a graphic designer. We started little by little: the logo, the patent… We didn’t really know what we were doing at the time, we just thought that this could save lives, so we had to try it. Plus, I was about to go to university,” he recalls.
An initial US$12,000, which Shirah raised with the help of universities and local communities, and another US$18,000 that her brother raised with family and friends, was enough to begin production.
From there, Nightcap It began to receive orders around the United States and began to resonate among young people mainly through the TikTok platform.
Looking for more financing
The following year, Shirah and her brother, with whom she co-founded the company, began seeking more funding to grow the business.
That’s how they came to Shark Tanka well-known American television program in which entrepreneurs present their projects to millionaire investors.
In a high-pressure environment, the contestants propose their business tips to four wealthy people in the hope of obtaining financing.
“Hello, Sharks. I’m Shirah. I’m 17 years old, and this is my brother, Michael. We are from beautiful West Palm Sea budge, Florida. And we are here looking for US$60,000 for 20% of our company,” the young woman told investors.
“For me, at only 17 years old, doing something so big was a dream come true, especially because I had started Nightcap less than a year before. So being able to be there was something I literally felt like I had dreamed of. It seemed surreal to me, especially at such a young age,” Shirah recalls today.
And he was lucky. He got a $60,000 investment from Lori Greiner in exchange for a quarter of the business.
It was one of the fastest deals in the program’s history.
Lori is known as the queen of QVC, the television shopping channel. He has created more than a thousand products and holds more than 100 patents.
“Lori was interested in Nightcap very quickly. And I think what he saw was that he knew that drink tampering is a big problem. And she herself said: she had never seen anything in Shark Tank “That impacted me so deeply,” he says.
“We went in there solving a current problem that not many people talk about. And Lori, with all her experience, I think she saw the mission and the passion behind the brand and also, I hope, connected with us as founders, as very motivated young entrepreneurs,” he adds.
After the deal with Lori, Shirah says they made US$200,000 in the next forty eight hours. But there was a problem: they didn’t have enough stocks.
“It was crazy,” he says.
So with the $60,000, Shirah and her brother made hundreds of coasters to respond to the high demand.
In the year after the show, sales soared to more than $2 million. Since then, Nightcap It has raised more than US$3 million in total, with annual revenues of around US$2 million.
The company’s valuation also rose, boosted by a $100,000 investment from singer-songwriter Julia Michaels.
Saving lives
There is no single global figure on beverage adulteration because it is very under-reported. But some surveys show its magnitude.
An international study concluded that 2% of the people consulted had suffered this in the last year and one in five at some point in their lives.
It should be noted that this survey skews toward a younger audience and people who go out at night.
There is no national survey in the United States, but university studies suggest that rates are higher among young adults; According to research conducted at several universities, around 8% of students reported having been drugged without their consent in a single academic year.
Shirah explains that they have been more than surprised when learning about the user experiences of their product.
“Some people have told us that they have found pills and powder on top of their Nightcapsomething we never expected to happen, because we thought this would be a deterrent, that no one would try to adulterate your drink. But in reality, sometimes people don’t see that there is a cover in very dark environments,” he points out.
“For us, that means that we have saved someone’s life. That alone justifies everything we have done. Knowing that this is still actively happening out there and that we are literally going against these people,” he emphasizes.
For this businesswoman, the key to eradicating this problem is to raise awareness. And, in fact, it has had an active role in promoting the change of legislation in some states in the United States, such as California.
Additionally, it has partnered with several organizations to provide some of those products for free.
*This story was originally published on the BBC’s Enterprise Day-to-day Podcast. If you want to listen to the English version, click here.
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