Latino Immigrant Went From Scrubbing Toilets To Getting Project Funding On Shark Tank

This is reality television at its finest, Shark Tank’s most recent episode featured a tear-jerking finale, where Dominican immigrant Robbie Cabral overwhelmed by emotion, accepted one of the three investments he was being offered. “Ay Dios mio” Cabral would say trying to hold back the tears as the path ahead of his Benjilock project cleared towards success. At the end, he accepted a $200,000 investment for 15% equity of his company from Canadian-Irish businessman Kevin O’Leary.

This wasn’t an ordinary success story, one has to take into account that the moment when Cabral was offered the funding for his start-up, was actually the culmination of many struggles. Before becoming the CEO of a serious well-funded startup, Robbie was an immigrant student who had to work janitorial jobs just to get eat.

Robbie Cabral was interviewed by Entrepreneur, so he could share some of the lessons he learned during his journey, below we have a summary of what he said.

Sit down, be humble.

Robbie Cabral first arrived in Los Angeles from the Dominican Republic with the dreams of becoming a rock star, after many failed attempts at doing this and with his friends gone back home, Robbie decided to stay in town and keep pushing forward.

Even though he had a BA college degree, Cabral worked every janitorial job he could come across with, it wasn’t ideal, but his positive view on life would assure him that something else would come out of this sacrifice. Eventually, Robbie managed to save enough money for a business management course at UCLA.

Learn to live with rejection.

His newfound credentials and connections did not mean that Robbie’s problems were over, in fact, he was just getting started on the ragged path to success, and he realized it when even after so much sacrifice cleaning up bathrooms and soaking up vomit from hotel rooms, Robbie still couldn’t land a better job.

However, Robbie learned to take in the bad with the good, after every interview Robbie would learn something about the business and about himself, he learned the value of punctuality and how following up after the interview regardless if you get the job or not speaks volumes about a person’s passion and aspiration.

Treat others how you want to be treated.

After some time Cabral finally landed a good-paying job at a real estate company, and with his wife now pregnant, it seemed that everything was now falling into place for our Dominican friend, but big businesses tend to be capricious and for reasons above Cabral’s control he was laid off during the holidays, but instead of making a scene and going into fetal position over what other people could easily perceive as a tragic turning point in life, Robbie took the high-road and hooked up one of his co-workers with a promotion.

“I told them that this has been a positive experience for me, but I just wanted to recommend one thing: To give a young kid on my team a full-time job,” Said Robbie to Entrepreneur. “Because he’s been working here part time and I don’t think you guys appreciate him enough.”

Stay curious.

The good karma he had built up to this point would not save him from what was about to come. Having no job, no prospects and with a new baby that he struggled to take care for, Robbie felt into a deep depression. Defeated and with an extra 50 pounds of fat on his body, Robbie thought about going back to the Dominican Republic, while he figured it out, he decided to go to the gym, at least obesity was something that he could control.

“That’s where the whole BenjiLock idea started because I noticed people having issues with their combination, locking their keys inside the locker, getting stuff stolen all the time,” said Cabral. “One guy had a Bluetooth lock but couldn’t get a Wi-Fi connection. So I thought, what if I designed a simple lock that you can open with your fingerprints, but also with a traditional key?” Having no tech skills whatsoever, Robbie met a local engineer that bought into his vision and designed the prototype.

Take big chances.

The project remained nothing but a prototype for three years, and Robbie would do anything in his power to maintain the project alive, even with his family and friends dismissing his idea and telling him to get a real job. But it was a friend that actually gave Robbie a push in the right direction when he suggested Robbie to go big and take his prototype to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

His prototype won the Innovation Award in the Smart Home category and people encouraged him to audition for Shark Tank, which was doing an open casting inside the convention.

“I’d never even heard of the show,” said Cabral. “But I ran over to their booth at the last minute. I was one of the last people on the line.” After his audition, he was told, “There’s something here. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll be in touch.”

Go with your gut.

After pouring blood, sweat, and tears into his pitch, Cabral was finally being taken seriously, fellow Dominican-American Alex Rodriguez and Lori Geiner had all bought into his vision and were ready to make Cabral a good offer, but in the end, it Kevin O’ Leary that filled Cabral’s eye.

“I went with my gut, and my gut kept telling me to go with Kevin, He was asking all the right questions. He just connected with me.” said Cabral. “Even though I had to do all those crappy jobs,” he says, “I always followed my gut, followed my passions and just kept pushing.”

Now, Robbie Cabral is ready to reap the benefits of his lessons.

Article inspired by Entrepreneur // How This Entrepreneur Went From Cleaning Bathrooms to Cleaning Up on ‘Shark Tank’