What Happened To The RokBlok Record Player From Shark Tank Season 9?

On December 3, 2017, the 13th episode of the ninth season of "Shark Tank" premiered on ABC, with 3,695,000 viewers watching live or later that night. The third of four pitches that week saw inventor Logan Riley pitching the panel of investors on Rokblok, his Bluetooth-enabled, turntable-less vinyl record player. Armed with numbers from a very successful Kickstarter campaign, he had all of the "sharks" impressed by the device itself. As a product, though, they seemed skeptical that, though there are turntables for all budgets, many people would want to buy a $99 record player of questionable quality that, to be heard at its best, required digitization via Bluetooth.

After a pair of Sharks bowed out, Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec both made offers, with Riley agreeing to Herjavec's, which involved selling the company while getting a job there and earning a perpetual royalty. However, as with many "Shark Tank" deals, it's unclear if the formal deal — negotiated after shooting — ever closed, particularly since Riley and Herjavec have largely been mum about it ever since. Whether or not Rokblok has been a success can be difficult to gauge, too, particularly in light of some horrifically negative reviews of the product, which highlighted visible damage to records that showed up after a single playback. Let's look at how Rokblok did on "Shark Tank," where it's gone since then, if it's still for sale, and what its inventor's done since.

Inventor Logan Riley entered the proverbial tank seeking a $300,000 investment for 15 percent of RokBlok, his wireless, Bluetooth-enabled, turntable-less vinyl record player. Riley was already someone who prefers vinyl records to CDs, and had gotten used to his friends admiring his newest purchases, without having a way to play them while hanging out. Not only did his friends not have turntables, but his apartment, where he had a dedicated setup, was too small to gather in. So he invented RokBlok, a record player that sits on top of the vinyl on a flat surface and plays by moving around the record itself, using either the built-in speaker or a BlueTooth output.

Mark Cuban, who also had concerns about vinyl fans being unimpressed with the sound quality, opted out due to his feeling that Riley would get bored and move onto his next invention, while Barbara Corcoran did the same because she felt it was too early. Kevin O'Leary was intrigued and offered $350,000 for 50 percent, and Lori Greiner seemed interested, but Robert Herjavec beat her to the punch. His proposal was $500,000 for 100% of the business, a two-year, six-figure contract for Riley, and a $5 per unit royalty in perpetuity. Cuban felt it was an amazing offer, saying "If you don't say yes right now..." before being cut off by Riley's response of "I'm gonna say yes to that right now," accepting Robert's deal.

As is often the case with deals involving one of the sharks who does not publish a list of all of their "Shark Tank" investments, it's not clear if Robert Herjavec's acquisition of RokBlok from Logan Riley ever closed. The only time Robert ever tweeted about RokBlok was the night that the episode aired, and otherwise, it doesn't look like he's ever promoted it. That RokBlok's website is copyrighted to Pink Donut, Riley's existing company that he said was not for sale, might be the best evidence that the deal never closed. Well, that and his LinkedIn page not reflecting any work for a Robert-owned company.

Riley has largely been silent since the immediate aftermath of his episode airing, with his most detailed comments coming in a Reddit AMA roughly two weeks later. His most relevant answer was about his relationship with Herjavec. "While I can't say too much about our relationship at this point (Damn NDAs), I can tell you that Robert and his team are incredible," he wrote. "They've given me a lot of great ideas and already provided an amazing amount of advice on how RokBlok can get even better." That's...vague. Some "Shark Tank" blogs claim that the deal never closed, alluding to possible concerns over RokBlok's similarities to Soundwagon, a competing, turntable-less record player sans Bluetooth, but as is often the case, these claims aren't backed by any sources or citations to interviews or news articles.

As of this writing, it seems like RokBlok is probably still in business, but with some caveats. As of September 2024, the official website is still working and taking orders, but the product is out of stock. "Next Batch Ships Winter 2024," reads the disclaimer directly above the big blue "RESERVE" button. For now, at least, it seems like this might be a genuine promise of restocking inventory: Going by Wayback Machine caches of the site, stock ran out between June 5 and July 5, 2024 – when the "Winter 2024" notification is first seen on the site.

Exactly how much demand there is for RokBlok and from who is unclear. The most prominent review is probably the one from YouTuber Techmoan that dropped about a month after the "Shark Tank" episode aired. It's very negative in very specific ways, showing the Rokblok doing visible damage to the records — scratches from it losing control and a noticeable ring from where it chewed up the grooves it played — that was obvious to the naked eye alongside horrendous sonics. (The RokBlok maxed out his stylus tracking force gauge, explaining the groove chewing.) Nobody who saw this would want to own RokBlok.

If we were to go strictly by Logan Riley's social media accounts, it's pretty difficult to discern exactly what he's up to. His Twitter/X account has been almost entirely dormant since the immediate aftermath of his "Shark Tank" appearance. His LinkedIn page is similarly opaque, only showing work as founder of Pink Donut since June 2015. The Pink Donut website, meanwhile, does not look to have been updated in several years, featuring only Rokblok, a pair of apps that are no longer available for download in their applicable app stores, and a podcast that lasted four episodes while predating RokBlok.

The only easy-to-find trace of anything that Logan Riley has done comes from checking the Pink Donut Kickstarter page that he used to launch RokBlok. There, Rokblok was followed by a pair of unsuccessful attempts to crowdfund SnapBacks, marketed as $5 backplates for iPhones that function as MagSafe accessories, attaching via that connection. The first attempt ended with 142 backers playing $4,927, coming short of a $15,000 goal, while the second one got up to 220 backers paying $7,358, just short of a $7,500 goal. According to Riley's final update, it was cancelled due to issues with finding a factory to manufacture the products and not wanting to make backers wait excessively long for their SnapBacks as a result. SnapBacks never returned to Kickstarter, and its X account is dormant.