Whatever Happened To Touch Up Cup Paint Container After Shark Tank Season 12?

Whether you've recently changed the color of your walls or you've been sticking with the same shade for decades, touchups are a necessary part of keeping your color looking fresh and blemish-free. A few drops of extra paint can help conceal children's scribble marks, nail holes, or scuffs from furniture, but holding on to leftovers from previous paint jobs often means battling with rotten cans of paint or layers of rust. Heading to the hardware store and attempting to color match every time you need to cover a mark isn't much easier, so father and son team Carson and Jason Grill developed the Touch Up Cup to help solve this issue.

The Touch Up Cup is a very simple design — essentially just a sealable cup with a built-in mixer and customizable label — but it promises to make a common process much simpler. The novelty of their pitch was driven by then-15-year-old Carson Grill's knowledge and involvement in the brand, and it definitely helped them gain attention. But did the product itself have enough staying power?

Carson and Jason Grill's appearance on Season 12, Episode 1 of "Shark Tank" was a success in just about every way. The duo impressed the stars of "Shark Tank" with their numbers, and young Carson Grill's knowledge of the facts and figures of the business added an extra level of appeal. The Sharks were also happy to see that Carson Grill also had three other patents on products that he was including as part of the final deal.

Originally, the Touch Up Cup team was seeking $150,000 for a 10% stake in the business. Guest Shark Blake Mycoskie started things off with an offer of $200,000 for 25% and Daymond John came in with $200,000 for 17.5%, later revising to 20%. The three other Sharks dropped out after hearing these offers, stating that the Grills were in good hands. After some negotiation, the father-son team managed to talk Mycoskie down to offering 17.5% for $150,000, which they eventually accepted.

After their pitch on "Shark Tank," the father-son team behind Touch Up Cup found quite a bit of success and publicity thanks to their time on the show. The clip of then-15-year-old Carson Grill throwing around upper-level business terminology picked up steam online, and the YouTube video of the pitch earned over 3 million views since the episode's air date in 2020. Shorter clips also circulated around Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, helping to create free advertising for the business.

At the time of their pitch, the Touch Up Cup had done $220,000 in sales and made some promising deals to get their products in stores, but their numbers boomed after appearing on the show. According to their most recent update, the business did $1 million in sales in 2021 and was projected to do over $3 million in 2022. The company also expanded its product line and made advantageous deals with nationwide retailers like Walmart and Lowe's.

While the Touch Up Cup team seems to have hit pause on its social media accounts, it appears that the full line of Touch Up Cup products is still available for sale. On the brand's website, they now offer nine different products: three kitchen-focused storage containers and a grease storage bag that are a bit more separate from the Touch Up line, as well as a tarp, brush set, roller cleaner, roller, and roller cover.

The full collection of products is available for sale on the Touch Up Cup website, but the business has also made deals with a few brick-and-mortar retailers to push its products in person and make them more accessible to potential customers. Currently, the Touch Up Cup is available at Lowe's, Meijer, Walmart, and Theisen's. It has also expanded to sell online via Amazon rather than just through its own website, a move that is likely helping to increase brand awareness.

Touch Up Cup hasn't posted on social media since March 2022, but according to recent posts, it was working on expanding the brand to include more products. Instead of just selling the Touch Up Cup, it continued to develop items to help throughout the entire painting process, whether you were starting a new large project or simply concealing a scuff on the wall. As mentioned above, these newer items include a paint roller, roller saver, and touch-up brushes for smaller jobs.

When Season 12 of "Shark Tank" was airing, Carson Grill was just starting high school, but per his LinkedIn, he appears to be making his way toward graduation in 2024. He is also the co-founder and partial owner of OCD Detailing, an automotive detailing company out of his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. It's unclear if Grill's main project is still Touch Up Cup.