Chill-N-Reel has no published net worth. It is a private company, Chill-N-Reel, LLC of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, and private companies keep their books to themselves. What does exist is a set of real numbers the owners put on record: $1.3 million in sales in the year before their Shark Tank taping, just over $70,000 in profit from those sales, and two very different price tags placed on the business during the pitch. Work from those, and a realistic value for the company sits in the high six figures, with a ceiling near $1.5 million.
What is Chill-N-Reel worth?
There is no single confirmed figure, but the pitch left behind two useful bookends.
The founders asked for $300,000 in exchange for 10% of the company. That prices the whole business at $3 million. Robert Herjavec countered with $300,000 for 35%, which prices it at roughly $857,000. One number came from the people who built it and wanted the best price. The other came from an investor about to risk his own cash. With small companies, the buyer’s number is usually the more honest one.
Here is why the gap is so wide. A small product company changes hands based on profit, not sales. Buyers of small online brands generally pay somewhere between two and four times what the owners actually take home in a year. Chill-N-Reel cleared just over $70,000 in profit inside a $1.3 million year. Run that multiple on that profit and you land near $200,000.
The company is worth more than that simple math suggests, though. It owns a US patent on the design, it has a national television appearance attached to the brand for good, and it sells a gift item that people buy three and six at a time. Those things have value even in a thin year. Somewhere between $500,000 and $1.5 million is a fair read, and where it falls inside that range depends almost entirely on how much of each sale the business keeps today.
Revenue is not net worth. A company can move $1.3 million of product and still finish the year owing money. That is close to what happened here.
It also helps to picture what a buyer would actually be handing money over for. In this case that is a patent, a trademarked name, a Shopify store with a few years of customer data behind it, tooling for an injection-moulded plastic part, whatever stock is sitting in the warehouse, and a social following built on videos of people catching fish one-handed. None of that is nothing. None of it is worth $3 million either.
Volume gives another angle on the size of the thing. By the time the trio filmed the episode they had shipped close to 150,000 units, at a retail price of about $13 at the time. The price has since climbed to $19.95, which matters more than it sounds: on a product this cheap, a $7 increase can double what the company keeps per sale.
The numbers Chill-N-Reel put on record
Everything below came straight from the founders during the pitch, filmed in 2021 and aired on 13 May 2022 in season 13.
| Figure | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sales, 12 months before taping | $1.3 million |
| Profit over the same period | Just over $70,000 |
| Advertising spend | About $400,000 |
| Position at the time of filming | $25,000 in debt for the year |
| The ask | $300,000 for 10% (a $3 million valuation) |
| Best offer received | $300,000 for 35% (about $857,000) |
| Outcome | No deal |
Why the sharks passed on a $3 million valuation
Advertising ate the profit. About $400,000 of that $1.3 million went back out the door on ads, which left almost nothing behind. Chris Diede argued the spend was a one-time cost that would pay for itself later. Four of the five sharks were out within minutes. Kevin O’Leary said the sales impressed him even though the product struck him as ridiculous, and Mark Cuban left with a joke about people who cannot hold their own beer.
Robert Herjavec stayed in and made the only offer of the night. He put up $300,000 for 35%, and offered an alternative at the asked-for 10% if he could take a $2 royalty on every unit sold, for good. Jake Rutledge turned down the royalty version. He said he wanted a partner, not just money. He came back at 20%. Herjavec would not go below 35% without a royalty attached, because nothing in the numbers proved the margins were strong enough to justify the risk. The three of them cracked open a beer with the sharks and left with no deal.
How Chill-N-Reel makes money now
It sells a $19.95 gadget, mostly direct to the customer through its own store. The Original Chill-N-Reel is a hard, injection-moulded shell that wraps a standard can cooler, with a hand-line reel built into the side. In the box you get 50 feet of 8-pound test line already wound on the spool, a starter hook and sinker, a foam insert and a snap-on spill guard. It is made in the USA.
Bundles do the real work on order size. Buying two drops the price to about $15.96 each, three to five brings it to $13.96, and a six-pack falls to $11.97 per unit. That is how a $20 item turns into a $70 basket, and it is the reason the product sells so hard as a gift in the run-up to Father’s Day and Christmas.
The catalogue has also grown well past the original koozie. There are sleeves and stickers, apparel, gift cards, a fishing tackle backpack with a cooler compartment on top, and a pair of thumbless mittens called Stand Mitts aimed at deer hunters and ice fishers. Spreading beyond one seasonal product is what turns a hit item into a business with a value attached to it.
The store was still trading in 2026, with more than 1,300 customer reviews on the flagship product and close to nine in ten of them at five stars.
Who owns it, and what are the founders worth?
Three people, and they are all family. Jake Rutledge came up with the idea in 2017 while standing waist-deep in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin, Florida, holding a beer and watching fish swim past him. He had been a Tulsa firefighter for more than twenty years at the time. His son, Chase Terrell, runs sales and works the trade show circuit. Jake’s brother-in-law, Chris Diede, brought the digital marketing side. After a local Oklahoma news story crashed their first website, he rebuilt it properly and took the company past $1 million in online sales within ten months.
None of the three has a published personal net worth, and the ownership split has never been made public. Even taking the top of the company range and dividing it three ways, each founder’s stake would be worth a few hundred thousand dollars on paper, locked inside a business rather than sitting in a bank account. Jake kept his firefighting job while the company grew.
How to size up a Shark Tank company yourself
Three checks get you close on almost any of them.
- Find the profit, not the revenue. Sales figures get repeated because they are the biggest number in the pitch, but profit is the thing a buyer pays for.
- Check how much the sales depend on ads. A brand that stops selling the day it stops paying for traffic is worth a fraction of one that people search for by name.
- Ask whether anyone buys it twice. Gift products spike in June and December and go quiet in between, so a good season says less about long-term value than it first appears to.
Frequently asked questions
What is Chill-N-Reel’s net worth?
There is no published figure. Based on $1.3 million in sales, just over $70,000 in profit and the valuations put on it during the Shark Tank pitch, a range of about $500,000 to $1.5 million is reasonable.
Did Chill-N-Reel get a deal on Shark Tank?
No. Robert Herjavec offered $300,000 for 35%, or the same money for 10% plus a $2 royalty on every unit. The founders countered at 20% without a royalty and the two sides never met.
Is Chill-N-Reel still in business?
Yes. The company still sells from its own store and has expanded into apparel, accessories, a tackle backpack and cold-weather Stand Mitts, on top of the original fishing koozie.
How much does a Chill-N-Reel cost?
The Original Chill-N-Reel is $19.95. Buying more brings the unit price down: about $15.96 each for two, $13.96 for three to five, and $11.97 each in a six-pack.
Who invented the Chill-N-Reel?
Jake Rutledge, a Tulsa firefighter, in 2017 while on holiday in Destin, Florida. His son Chase Terrell and brother-in-law Chris Diede joined him to build the company around it.
Conclusion
Chill-N-Reel’s net worth has never been published, and the honest answer is a range rather than a figure: roughly $500,000 to $1.5 million. That sits well below the $3 million the founders asked for on Shark Tank and above the $857,000 implied by the only offer they received. The business is still running, still family-owned in Oklahoma, and still built around a $19.95 product. If you want a sharper number, start with the profit rather than the sales.
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