Check 'em out: Visit the FridgeFronts site at fridgefronts.com
ENON — Burned by bad luck and burdened with $250,000 in debt, Jan Augenstein was thrown in front of the cameras like a bucket of chum.
But that was the plan.
It was her hope that the sharks would come, circle and bite.
For the Enon entrepreneur, being eaten alive on the ABC reality series “Shark Tank” is quite possibly the last good option she has.
On the show, entrepreneurs go before a panel of would-be investors — the sharks — to pitch their products and seek financial backing.
For Augenstein, who will peddle her decade-old FridgeFronts idea on the show’s upcoming season finale, taping the show last summer was about as scary as having something brush past your leg in the ocean.
“When you come out,” she explained, “they make you stand there for three minutes.”
That is, without anyone saying a thing.
“If it wasn’t so scary,” she said, “it would’ve been fun.”
Her episode was set to air on Feb. 5, but the season was interrupted by the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon. A new date hasn’t been determined.
Whether she gets her backing from such titans of industry as infomercial pioneer Kevin Harrington — the brains behind Tony Little and Billy Mays’ “Dual Saw” — remains to be seen.
“I thought I’d be sent home crying,” said Augenstein, who’s originally from Springfield. “It’s nothing you could ever prepare for.”
At this point, though, she’s got nothing to lose by swimming with the sharks.
“This has been a big bird to get to fly,” she confessed.
Her FridgeFronts are described as “the fun way to magnetically personalize your appliances.” They’re colorful magnetic skins that attach to the fronts of plain ol’ fridges.
She thought them up in 1999, when, as a former military wife, their dinged-up fridge in base housing was messing with her feng shui.
“Anytime you have a damaged appliance,” she said, “it’s going to take away from your energy.”
With a patent in 2005, and $250,000 put up by her brother, FridgeFronts officially went into business.
The product made the pages of the “SkyMall” catalog, only by the time the first of 2,000 orders started coming in, the price quote had changed at the printer — meaning they took a $10 loss on each sale.
Then in 2008, the product was featured on Rachael Ray’s show.
“I got thousands of e-mails,” Augenstein said, “but we couldn’t fulfill any orders.”
That’s because the printer went bankrupt, leaving $100,000 worth of blank magnetic stock behind locked doors. Augenstein had to buy back her own stock at auction for $6,000.
“At that point,” she said, “my brother said he never wanted to see another magnet again.”
Enter reality TV.
Augenstein spent 45 minutes in a Los Angeles studio — plus eight hours with a camera crew that followed her around Yellow Springs, her home until recently — pitching herself and her product.
Naturally, this being “reality TV,” she had to sign a waiver of sorts.
“Say your lip quivered,” she said. “They can stick (the footage) anywhere. They can misrepresent you. If you have a breakdown because of the show, you can’t sue.
“If you want on TV with your product, you’ll sign anything.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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