Kisstixx is no longer an operating brand, but its post-Shark Tank story was considerably more successful than the product’s current absence might suggest. The company built retail distribution, expanded internationally and was still being run by co-founder Dallas Robinson in 2017. The exact year Kisstixx finally stopped operating is less certain than many “Shark Tank update” pages make it sound.
The company began in Utah with an unusual premise: two people each applied a different flavored lip balm, then kissed to create a combined flavor or sensation. Dallas Robinson and Mike Buonomo developed Kisstixx while attending Utah Valley University, eventually turning the college project into a business.
By the time they appeared on Shark Tank in 2012, they had sold nearly 25,000 packages in the previous year. They walked into the Tank asking for $200,000 for 20% of the company. They left with an offer from Mark Cuban for the same $200,000, but for 40%. (archive.sltrib.com)
That deal happened. What followed is where the Kisstixx story gets more interesting.
Kisstixx went from a Utah college project to a $200,000 Mark Cuban investment
Robinson's original idea came from an ordinary problem: he was an outdoor-sports enthusiast who regularly dealt with chapped lips. Instead of making another conventional lip balm, he imagined one that could create a different experience when two flavors met.
The founders turned that idea into paired products such as Fire & Ice, Raspberry & Lemonade, and Strawberry Daiquiri & Piña Colada. The company initially operated through Utah Valley University's student incubation program and later moved into the university's Business Resource Center. (archive.sltrib.com)
Before Shark Tank, the numbers were modest but real. Kisstixx sold 3,000 packages at its first trade show in 2010 and nearly 25,000 packages the following year. It had also established distribution with Associated Food Stores and other Utah retailers. (archive.sltrib.com)
The Shark Tank pitch changed the scale of the business.
Robinson and Buonomo presented a claimed $540,000 Walgreens purchase order as part of their case for investment. There was an important wrinkle: what looked like a conventional purchase order was actually vendor paperwork, according to contemporaneous reporting. The distinction became part of the story after the episode aired. (forbes.com)
Cuban nevertheless saw enough potential to make the deal. His offer was $200,000 for 40% of Kisstixx, and the founders accepted. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the deal immediately after the episode aired. (archive.sltrib.com)
The Shark Tank appearance actually produced a major sales spike
Kisstixx did not simply get a television cameo and disappear.
After the episode aired, the company reported selling more than 5,500 units in the following weeks. The founders also said their website traffic became heavy enough to cause server problems. They began sending samples to thousands of potential contacts and were working on international distribution. (forbes.com)
The U.S. Small Business Administration subsequently named Kisstixx one of the winners of its 2012 National Small Business Week Video Contest. The SBA said the company was receiving inquiries from around the world and expanding its kissing-lip-balm concept into more than 30 countries. (obamawhitehouse.archives.gov)
That makes the later history important. Kisstixx was not a company that failed immediately after its Shark Tank appearance. The television exposure did what Robinson and Buonomo had hoped it would do: it put an obscure Utah consumer product in front of a huge audience and made retailers more willing to take the company seriously.
And Cuban's involvement mattered beyond the $200,000.
By 2017, Dallas Robinson was still building Kisstixx
One of the clearest pieces of evidence about Kisstixx's later trajectory comes from an interview Robinson gave to Shopify in February 2017.
At that point, Kisstixx was still operating. Robinson described the company as a retail-focused business selling through big-box and boutique stores, with marketing designed to drive consumers into those stores. He specifically discussed using demographic data around Walmart and Target locations to support retail sales. (shopify.com)
Robinson also spoke positively about Cuban's involvement.
The business relationship, he explained, had given Kisstixx more than capital. Cuban's backing helped remove some of the hesitation distributors might otherwise have had about working with a young company. Robinson described Cuban as a mentor and said the Shark Tank experience had helped put Kisstixx “on the map.” (shopify.com)
That 2017 interview is useful because it contradicts the idea that Kisstixx was already effectively dead a few years after the show.
It wasn't.
Robinson was still talking about selling thousands of units, retail distribution and the difficulty of scaling a lip-balm business. In other words, the company had achieved meaningful distribution, but it had also run into the less glamorous problem of consumer packaged goods: getting people to buy a small, inexpensive product repeatedly and at scale.
Mike Buonomo left Kisstixx before the company disappeared
The founding partnership eventually changed.
According to the long-running Shark Tank Blog update on Kisstixx, Mike Buonomo left the company in January 2016. The same source says Robinson ultimately shut the business down in 2018. (sharktankblog.com)
The 2016 departure is consistent with the broader record. By 2017, Shopify was referring to Robinson as the founder of Kisstixx, while Buonomo was no longer presented as the operating face of the company. (shopify.com)
The 2018 closure date, however, deserves a qualification.
There does not appear to be a strong primary-source announcement from Robinson saying, “Kisstixx closed in 2018.” Several later websites repeat 2018 as the shutdown year, but the evidence is largely secondary. One later account has also pointed to Robinson remaining associated with Kisstixx into 2021, creating some uncertainty about exactly when the company's operations ended. (thelist.com)
So the safest conclusion is that Kisstixx is no longer operating as the consumer brand it was in the 2010s, with 2018 commonly cited as the shutdown period, but the precise closure date is not firmly documented in a primary source.
Kisstixx's website and retail presence eventually disappeared
Today, the original Kisstixx operation does not have the visible retail presence it once had.
The old company website, kisstixx.com, is no longer functioning as an active consumer storefront. The brand's social presence has also gone quiet, and recent reporting found that its products were no longer readily available through the major online channels where they had once been sold. (thelist.com)
That matters because some business databases still carry old Kisstixx information. One database, for example, continues to list the company as “Alive,” but simultaneously describes its headquarters and corporate information inconsistently. Another profile still shows the old website and historical executive information. (cbinsights.com)
Those listings are not good evidence that the original Kisstixx consumer business is currently trading.
There is also a newer KISSTIXX trademark application filed in 2025 by Hangzhou Zuola Biotechnology Co., Ltd. for cosmetic utensils. That filing is not evidence that the original Shark Tank company has returned, and it should not be confused with the historical Kisstixx LLC founded by Robinson and Buonomo. (trademarks.justia.com)
Kisstixx's Mark Cuban investment is best remembered as a marketing win, not a permanent consumer brand
Kisstixx is an interesting Shark Tank case because the television deal clearly produced value even though the company did not become a lasting household brand.
The founders entered the Tank with a quirky product, limited resources and an ambitious retail plan. Cuban invested $200,000 for 40%. Within weeks of the broadcast, sales jumped, the company was pursuing international distribution, and its credibility with retailers improved. (forbes.com)
By 2017, Robinson was still running the business and openly discussing the difficulty of selling lip balm at scale. That is probably the most revealing part of the story. Kisstixx had solved the first problem, which was getting attention. It had a much harder problem after that: turning novelty, retail placement and Shark Tank exposure into a durable consumer-products company. (shopify.com)
Eventually, the brand faded from the market.
So, whatever happened to Kisstixx after Shark Tank? It did not flop immediately, and it did not turn into a permanent success story either. It secured Cuban's $200,000 investment, enjoyed a substantial post-show sales and distribution push, survived for years after the episode, and was still being actively discussed by its founder in 2017.
The original Kisstixx business is now effectively gone. The exact shutdown date remains less certain than the internet's neat “2018” answer suggests. What is much easier to verify is the larger arc: Kisstixx turned one memorable Shark Tank pitch into several years of real retail business, then eventually disappeared from the market.
