Here's What Happened To Gotta Have S'More After Shark Tank

Of all the delicious foods we've seen grace the "Shark Tank" stage, Gotta Have S'more certainly stood out for those of us with a sweet tooth. S'mores are one of the most classic American treats, and Gotta Have S'more aimed to revamp the way we can consume this beloved dessert. People have been whipping up the tasty combination of chocolate, graham crackers, and perfectly toasted marshmallows since way back in the 1920s, and it's been a staple ever since on camping trips or on a warm summer night by the fire pit. That said, s'mores need to be made fresh, and they require an open flame to be the best they can be. As a result, it isn't always easy to just whip up a s'more, and it can be just as difficult and messy to eat them and clean up afterward. Consequently, plenty of us don't enjoy a good s'more as much as we'd like. Well, this is the exact problem Gotta Have S'more aimed to solve.

Gotta Have S'more first hit the scene in the 2010s, and it turned s'mores into something more portable, accessible, and versatile than the public was used to. CEO Carmen Lindner appeared on "Shark Tank" with s'muffins in tow. S'muffins had a crunchy graham cracker base that was dipped in chocolate and a soft roasted marshmallow top. They were designed to taste like s'mores that don't require cooking or a campfire. So, what happened, and where is Gotta Have S'more today?

Lindner entered the "Shark Tank" on Season 4 Episode 16. She arrived on the stage in pursuit of a $75,000 investment in exchange for 25% equity. The Sharks tasted three flavors of s'muffins as she told them that she'd earned $250,000 worth of sales in two and a half years. She projected that she would earn $165,000 that year. Lindner told the Sharks that 75% of her customers ordered directly from her online or over the phone and that they would deliver throughout Los Angeles. She added that she had just expanded to national shipping. Lindner noted that some local specialty bakeries and small stores were carrying Gotta Have S'more, but it hadn't expanded beyond that at that time. It cost $9.34 to make a dozen s'muffins, and she then sold them for $29.95. 

Because s'muffins were shipped frozen, shipping costs were very high, and this left the Sharks taken aback. Kevin O'Leary argued that the exorbitant price made each s'muffin cost about ten dollars, but Lindner assured him that this was similar to her competitors' prices. Unsurprisingly based on his feedback, O'Leary was the first Shark to utter the dreaded "I'm out." Since beginning to ship nationally was costing Lindner so much money, Mark Cuban advised her to stay local instead. Lindner added that she was looking to wholesale, too. Cuban, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Barbara Corcoran were all out, as well.

On "Shark Tank" Lindner called her s'muffins "the next dessert craze." As she walked away from the stage, Lindner's voiceover explained that the fact that the Sharks "didn't go bananas" over her product made her feel like she was "In the Twilight Zone." Still, the Sharks simply weren't fans of the Gotta Have S'more business model, and they even laughed at her shipping methods after she exited the stage. And, beyond the business model, Barbara Corcoran didn't even like the product, itself, saying that it didn't taste anything like a real s'more. 

It couldn't have been easy for Lindner to leave "Shark Tank" with that kind of feedback. And there's reason to believe that this may have had a major effect on Lindner and her business. The "Shark Tank" episode that featured Gotta Have S'more aired in 2013, and by 2014, Lindner had sold the company. Annalisa Mastroianni Johnson owned the building that housed Gotta Have S'more's kitchen, and she'd been supportive of and interested in Lindner's company since she heard about it. She purchased the company when Lindner made the decision to sell it. In a 2017 interview with Voyage LA, Johnson said that upon taking over, she "hired a marketing company to help us plan that strategy and see what the brand essentially needs for it to end up in the right hands and in the right places for people to see."

Thanks to the new CEO Gotta Have S'mMore seems to have gone strong for many years after it appeared on "Shark Tank." The company expanded to begin selling seasonally themed s'muffins, as well as s'mookies, which were similar to the s'muffins but with chocolate chip cookies as the base. Johnson's new marketing efforts were also clear: She added new Gotta Have S'more branding and a decked-out Instagram account with plenty of professional photos to advance the brand. 

On December 12th, 2022, the Gotta Have S'more Instagram account posted an announcement that the brand was back on Goldbelly. This method of ordering and shipping the product outside of Los Angeles was a means of dealing with the national shipping difficulties that the Sharks were concerned with on "Shark Tank." The post's caption said, "Order for the holidays and keep checking back for some new goodies that we are working on!" This was followed by two posts on the same day showing holiday-themed s'more treats. Interestingly, despite their teaser for the future, these were the final posts from the Gotta Have S'more Instagram account, and the company has since shut down. 

Now that Gotta Have S'more is closed for business, it seems that the "Shark Tank" Sharks' instincts may have been correct. Despite many passionate folks' best efforts, the Gotta Have S'more business model proved to be unsustainable. And, while the company survived for quite some time after Lindner's departure, by the time Gotta Have S'more finally closed, the former CEO had already been away from the company for nearly a decade. On her "Shark Tank" episode, Lindner told the Sharks that she was an advertising sales executive who'd been laid off and that she and her husband decided to pursue their dream of opening what she called a "s'more store." 

Before selling her company, it may have been wise of Lindner to take the Sharks' advice to keep Gotta Have S'more as a small business, instead of trying to ship nationally, and this may have helped her to achieve her "s'more store" dream. There's no evidence, though, that Lindner is still pursuing her s'more passion these days, and it's unclear what she has chosen to do next. Her LinkedIn profile has no updates after she left Gotta Have S'more, and the same is true for her replacement CEO, Annalisa Mastroianni Johnson. It's unclear what these businesswomen might do next, but here's hoping that this situation didn't sour them on s'mores entirely.