Clean Green Golf Balls on Shark Tank: $6M in Sales and a Two-Shark Deal

TL;DR:

• Rami and Sami Mubasher launched Clean Green Golf Balls in 2021 after a test batch of 20,000 used golf balls sold out in a single weekend
• Pitched Shark Tank Season 17, Episode 13 asking for $350,000 for 5% equity ($7M valuation)
• Landed a deal with Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec: $350,000 for 15% equity plus a $1 per-unit royalty until $1.05M is repaid
• Revenue grew from $1M (first 6 months of operation) to $6M in 2024, with $7.1M projected for 2025

The Weekend That Started Everything

In the summer of 2021, Rami Mubasher bought 20,000 used golf balls. He listed them online. They sold out in a single weekend.

That’s the whole founding story, really. Not a lab, not a patent, not years of product development. A test batch, a listing, and a weekend. When 20,000 balls disappear that fast, you’re not looking at a lucky sale — you’re looking at a market that already exists and that most businesses have ignored.

What Rami had spotted was the scale of what gets lost on American golf courses every year. The Danish Golf Union estimated the worldwide total at 3 to 5 billion balls lost annually. In the United States alone, estimates range from 300 million to 1.5 billion balls every year. Those balls don’t disappear — they sink into ponds, roll into rough, and end up in homeowners’ backyards along course boundaries. Each one is made from synthetic rubber and plastic polymer that takes 100 to 1,000 years to decompose, releasing zinc and microplastics into soil and water as it breaks down.

Marine researcher Matthew Savoca of Stanford University estimated that lost golf balls alone contribute tens of thousands of tons of debris to U.S. ecosystems each year. Researchers collecting balls from one shoreline area found 50,681 golf balls in shallow water — about 2.5 tons of debris from a single stretch of coastline.

The recovery side of this market had always been there. Professional divers pull balls from golf course ponds. Used ball brokers sort and resell them. The industry is worth about $200 million annually. But the consumer-facing, brand-first version of the business — where someone can go online, pick their preferred brand and grade, and get a bag of quality used balls delivered at a fraction of the cost of new — that part was largely underdeveloped.

The 20,000-ball weekend told Rami and his brother Sami Mubasher that the demand was there, it was real, and the buyers were waiting.

The Founders

Rami Mubasher studied psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Sami studied history and philosophy at Texas State University. Neither path screams “golf ball e-commerce,” but that’s not really the point — what both of them had was a family background in online retail and a clear read on how to source, list, and sell physical products at scale.

They’re both from Bastrop, Texas, a small city about 30 miles southeast of Austin. Their company is incorporated as Bastex Investments LLC, and under that umbrella they’ve also launched a scholarship program for college students.

The business model they built is operationally straightforward. They work with professional divers, golf course staff, and local homeowners to collect lost balls from across Texas and beyond. The balls come into their Bastrop facility, get soaked in a cleaning solution, run through a wash, dried, and then sorted by brand and condition. From there they’re graded and packaged for sale.

Neither founder has a background in logistics at scale, which makes the revenue numbers they brought to Shark Tank all the more notable. Getting to $6 million in annual revenue within three years of the first weekend batch — without institutional funding, without a warehouse acquisition, without a major logistics deal — suggests the demand was strong enough to pull the business forward faster than most operators could push it.

The Product

Clean Green Golf Balls sells used golf balls. That’s the entire product.

It sounds simple and it is simple, which is part of what makes the business interesting. There’s no proprietary technology, no patent, no physical product to design or manufacture. The inventory is free in the sense that nobody created it — it’s out there, sitting in ponds and rough at golf courses across the country, waiting to be retrieved.

The grading system gives the product line its structure. Mint balls are essentially indistinguishable from new — no scuffs, no discoloration. Near Mint has minor cosmetic marks but performs identically to new. Good grade has visible wear. Shag/Range is what you bring to the practice facility when you expect to lose them.

Brand selection covers the major names: Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, Kirkland, Top-Flite, Pinnacle. Buyers can filter by brand and grade, which means a golfer who plays Titleist Pro V1s exclusively can get a sleeve of near-mint Pro V1s for a fraction of what they cost new.

The sourcing cost runs about $0.32 per ball. The average sale price is around $1.25. The gross margin works out to roughly 74% — a number that got the Sharks’ attention on the show and that holds up under scrutiny. The company reported approximately $700,000 in annual profit on $6 million in revenue, putting net margin around 11.7%. For a physical product business without proprietary manufacturing, that’s a solid operation.

The company has also moved into custom logo printing and personalized golf balls for corporate events and business orders. That side runs on the same operational infrastructure but at higher margins, since buyers pay a premium for branding.

“We source these balls for about 32 cents each and sell them for around $1.25. The supply is essentially unlimited — golf courses lose millions of balls every year.”

Orders go through cleangreengolfballs.com and through marketplace listings on Amazon and Walmart. The Amazon position is the most significant: Clean Green is the number one recycled golf ball seller on the platform, which means the reviews, the listing ranking, and the brand recognition are all working together in a category where trust is what converts browsers into buyers.

The Shark Tank Pitch — Season 17, Episode 13

The Mubasher brothers walked into the Tank asking for $350,000 in exchange for 5% equity. That put the implied valuation at $7 million — about 1.17 times 2024 revenue.

For a company with $6 million in revenue, $700,000 in annual profit, and four straight years of growth, a $7 million ask is not aggressive. The numbers they laid out were consistent: $1 million in the second half of 2021, $3 million in 2022, $4.3 million in 2023, $6 million in 2024, and a projection of $7.1 million for 2025.

Kevin O’Leary was interested but wanted downside protection. His offer: $350,000 for 10% equity, with a $1 per unit royalty until he recouped $350,000, then dropping to $0.50 per unit in perpetuity.

Robert Herjavec came at it from the equity-only side: $350,000 for 17%, no royalty.

The brothers asked whether Kevin and Robert would work together. Both agreed. With two Sharks in, the founders pushed for 12% combined equity. The Sharks held at 15%.

The final terms: $350,000 for 15% equity, split between O’Leary and Herjavec, plus a $1 per unit royalty until $1.05 million has been repaid.

The Deal Sheet

Ask	$350,000 for 5% equity
Implied valuation (ask)	$7 million
Final deal	$350,000 for 15% equity
Implied valuation (deal)	~$2.33 million
Royalty	$1/unit until $1.05M repaid
Sharks	Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec

The valuation compression — from $7M to $2.33M — is steep. The founders gave up three times as much equity as they originally offered. But the deal has a logic to it from both sides.

For the Sharks, the royalty provides a near-term return that doesn’t depend on an exit. At current sales volume, the $1 per unit royalty gets paid back within roughly a year if distribution deals accelerate volume. For the founders, two experienced operators with retail relationships could open doors that a profitable-but-small Amazon seller can’t reach alone.

Business Insights

The defensibility question is where this business gets honest. Used golf ball retrieval has low barriers to entry. You need supplier relationships, a cleaning setup, and an Amazon account. Established players like PG Golf have been doing this for years with deep retail penetration and existing brand recognition in the golf specialty market. There are over a dozen competitors operating online in the same category.

What Clean Green built that the older players didn’t is a brand that works for the online-native and mobile buyer. The TikTok Shop presence is a genuine differentiator — short-form video of the cleaning and sorting process performs well organically because the process is satisfying to watch, and that audience skews younger and more impulse-driven than the golfer who finds used balls through a specialty retailer.

The royalty structure O’Leary negotiated puts pressure on margins in the near term. At current volumes, paying $1 per ball until $1.05 million is repaid takes a bite out of what is otherwise a strong margin profile. But if the O’Leary and Herjavec combination accelerates volume through new channels, the royalty period shortens and the net impact becomes manageable.

The environmental positioning is an asset that competitors can’t easily copy. “We’re keeping golf balls out of landfills” is true, measurable, and increasingly relevant to buyers thinking about their consumption choices. Clean Green doesn’t have to stretch to make that case — it’s embedded in the business model from the start.

“Every ball we sell is one that doesn’t sit at the bottom of a pond for 500 years. That’s not marketing — that’s just what we do.”

“Clean Green is proof that the simplest business models are often the hardest ones to argue against — low barriers to entry, but they got there first and built the brand.”

Revenue growth over four consecutive years without institutional backing is a signal of operational discipline and genuine demand. The projection of $7.1 million for 2025 represents about 18% growth on top of a year that already grew 40% from 2023. Some deceleration at this stage is normal for a company hitting the $7 million mark in a category with established competitors. The question is whether the Shark deal changes the trajectory in the two to three years after it closes.

The scholarship program under Bastex Investments LLC is a minor note in the financials but it adds something to the brand story that matters for long-term community positioning — particularly in the golf community, where local ties and institutional relationships open doors that cold outreach doesn’t.

Online Presence and Community

The company runs cleangreengolfballs.com on Shopify, with a content section covering ball maintenance, cleaning guides, and general golf care. The content strategy targets search traffic from golfers researching used ball options — the right audience for an e-commerce business in this category.

On Amazon, Clean Green holds the top ranking for recycled golf balls. That position was built over three years through review volume, listing optimization, and price competitiveness. The brand recognition built through TikTok Shop has reinforced the Amazon position by creating a buyer who already knows the name before they search.

Instagram (@cleangreengolf) and Facebook handle customer-facing content. TikTok has been the growth channel — the platform rewards behind-the-scenes operational content, and a cleaning facility running at scale is naturally engaging for an audience that also watches factory and sorting videos.

For coverage of other Season 17 participants and episodes, The Shark Monitor maintains a running archive at thesharkmonitor.com.

What People Are Saying

Reaction to the Clean Green pitch was largely positive. The business is easy to follow, the numbers are real, and the pitch didn’t rely on theatrical hooks or claims that are hard to verify. Viewers watching the episode understood the economics within the first two minutes — which is not something every Shark Tank pitch can say.

The deal negotiation drew the most attention in community discussions. The founders came in at $7 million and left with $2.33 million implied — a significant concession. But the framing that came back most often in post-show commentary was straightforward: they already had a profitable business. They didn’t come in desperate for capital. The Sharks they got bring retail relationships and distribution experience that writing a check doesn’t automatically provide.

The golf community’s response was also worth noting. Golfers already know that used ball quality varies wildly by source — some sellers pass off scuffed, waterlogged balls as “near mint,” and the online marketplaces for used golf equipment are hard to trust without brand credibility behind the seller. Clean Green’s grading system and its Amazon review base give it credibility in a space where credibility is earned rather than assumed.

The sustainability angle got picked up in some green-focused outlets. The scale is real: 300 million to 1.5 billion balls lost annually in the U.S. alone, each one carrying heavy metals and synthetic rubber into soil and water for up to a thousand years. A company that recovers and resells millions of those balls each year has measurable environmental impact as a byproduct of running a profitable business.

One question that stayed open after the episode aired: Walmart physical shelf presence. The company already sells on Walmart.com, but physical retail is a different commitment — it requires volume guarantees and supplier relationships that a $7 million revenue company doesn’t always have the position to negotiate solo. Whether the O’Leary and Herjavec connection opens that door is something that post-show reporting will eventually answer.

Final Take

Clean Green Golf Balls is a real business with real margins, growing revenue, and a product that solves an actual problem. The Mubasher brothers didn’t invent a new category — they built a better consumer brand in a category that already existed, then captured market share through Amazon and TikTok before most of their competitors figured out those channels mattered.

The Shark Tank deal they accepted was not the deal they asked for. The valuation dropped from $7 million to $2.33 million, and the royalty structure adds a near-term burden to margins. But getting both O’Leary and Herjavec in the same deal gives the company two Sharks with different and complementary networks: O’Leary’s financial media platform and business connections, Herjavec’s background in scaling companies and reaching retail distribution.

The defensibility question doesn’t go away. There’s no patent on cleaning golf balls. The sourcing relationships can be replicated. The Amazon ranking can be competed away by a better-funded rival. What the Mubashers have is a three-year head start, the number one position in their category on the most competitive consumer marketplace in the world, and a company built on operational discipline rather than fundraising.

At $6 million in revenue and $700,000 in annual profit, this isn’t a company that needed rescuing. It’s a company that needed distribution reach to hit the next threshold — whether that’s physical Walmart shelves, golf course pro shop partnerships, or a private label deal with a major retailer.

The 20,000 balls that sold out in one weekend in 2021 have become a $6 million operation. Whether the Shark Tank deal turns that into something that competes on physical shelves against the biggest names in golf retail depends on what Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec actually do with what they bought.

The brothers showed up to the Tank with clean books and honest projections. That’s the same discipline that got them here without anyone’s help.

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