Advice from a celebrity billionaire guided this first-time ICAST exhibitor to success
From his armchair on the set of the hit television show “Shark Tank,” celebrity billionaire Mark Cuban nodded as entrepreneur Crystal Lugo motioned through her presentation. Inside of an armored kitchen glove, her fingers mimicked the motions of a fish being scaled before cooking.
GloveScaler, Lugo’s self-designed fish scaling tool, is a simple idea: a glove that anyone can wear that immediately takes dangerous knife work out of scaling fish. Cuban, a longtime co-star of the show, was intrigued by the concept. And he offered Lugo and her husband Brandon a word of advice— go to trade shows. Link with brand ambassadors. Find her community.
Less than a year later, Lugo found herself at ICAST, the annual sportfishing trade show presented by the American Sportfishing Association.
“I actually Googled it,” Lugo says. After discovering that the largest sportfishing trade show on the planet takes place in Florida each year, the self-described “momtrepreneur” made a plan. “It was really a leap of faith,” Lugo says. “I got the smallest booth possible with what I could afford. My husband and I strapped display panels to our backs, and set up our humble 10×10 booth in the middle of nowhere. I knew it would either validate my business or kill my business.”
By the end of ICAST 2024, Lugo realized she had struck gold. On the show floor, Lugo’s invention, the GloveScaler, began to catch fire. Cuban was right.
At ICAST, Lugo met face-to-face with buyers, giving her radiant personality the chance to make a memorable impression. GloveScaler attracted industry media members and content creators, generating thousands of views on Youtube after the show. Celebrity content creators shared her product with more than a million subscribers on the world’s largest video sharing platform. While they were filming, she was networking.
Lugo walked away with a massive list of industry contacts that is paying off in the form of orders today.
“Since ICAST, we’ve seen incredible traction,” she adds. “We landed our first international distributor on Reunion Island, off the coast of Madagascar. We have secured orders in 15 countries across five continents, and a Wal-Mart distributor has plans to place us in 400 stores by Spring of 2025.”
By any measure, Lugo’s weeklong stint at ICAST was time well spent. She’s not only connected to Wal-Mart, but also mega retailers like Bass Pro Shops and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Instead of pitching her product, she’s now focused on ramping up production. She says ICAST helped take GloveScaler from a concept to a viable product poised to disrupt a market segment.
And the fishing industry hasn’t been the only business world to take notice. “We were just invited on a trade mission to Australia by the Virginia Economic Department of Partnerships,” says Lugo. “In a few weeks, I’ll be headed to Sydney with a list of meetings already scheduled with distributors.”
To learn more about ICAST and reserve booth space for ICAST 2025, visit the ICAST website.
Share This Article, Choose Your Platform:
Recent Posts
AUTHOR
