The day Karen Robinovitz reintroduced herself to slime in 2018, she ran onto the roof of her New York apartment with her friend’s 10-year-old daughter and tried to throw her to the ground.
“It turned me into a 7-year-old for four hours,” says Robinovitz, 52.
It was the first time she felt joy in a year and a half, she says. Within nine months, her husband had committed suicide and her teenage cousin was killed in the Parkland high school shooting. Between medication, support sessions and therapy, the slime game offered Robinovitz unexpected relief — so she bought a handful, then hundreds of jars from the creators of TikTok.
It’s going to be stuck in a niche industry: Some small businesses, notably on TikTok, have reported bringing in more than $1 million a year making and selling elastic rubber bands that you can grab and pop on. your hands. But Robinovitz, who ran a talent management agency for social media influencers, and her friend Sara Schiller, founder of an event space company, saw a chance to sell more than just slime.
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Today, they co-run the Sloomoo Institute, an interactive slime experience A description they prefer of “museum” or “play space” with locations in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston. After purchasing tickets, which average $34 per person, visitors are given a glass of slime and invited to hit it against the wall. Inside, they’ll find customizable slime stations, ASMR rooms, and white fiberglass containers with different textures and scents.
Sloomoo also sells slime, but about 85% of its revenue — up to $4.3 million a month last year, it says — comes from ticket sales. Its first four locations brought in $28.9 million in revenue in 2023, including $4.6 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
The company says its full earnings for 2024 have not yet been finalized.
“Karen and I [have] a deep belief that by touching your senses, you’re creating an emotional connection,” says Schiller, 54, adding that Sloomoo has been profitable since the day it first opened. “It’s much more powerful than just sending of parcels in the mail. slime.”
‘Lines down the block’ for slime
Sloomoo began informally at one of Robinovitz and Schiller’s weekly meetings in Schiller’s loft in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. Both women needed emotional relief: Schiller’s husband suffered a stroke a few years ago, leaving her the family’s sole breadwinner.
Slime covered their hands while they talked: Such intense sensory activities can improve symptoms of depression and anxiety, some studies show. The pair then watched Schiller’s daughters, one of whom is nonverbal and has limited motor skills, handle slime together — a rare way for siblings to bond and play with each other.
The two friends bought more than 900 jars of slime to study, Schiller says, then worked on their own recipes. (Always start with Elmer’s glue, says Robinvitz.) They attended conferences, met and hired slime creators, and raised $1 million from a private investor, the co-CEOs say.
Robinovitz and Schiller scoop slime out of one of Sloomoo’s fiberglass vats.
Courtesy of Sloomoo Institute
They set aside $400,000 of their investment money — “If this fails, we have to pay the rent,” Schiller says — and put the other $600,000 into renovating a rental space near Schiller’s home.
They invited slimes, parents and lifestyle influencers on rough tours mid-build as a marketing strategy, Schiller says. Their grand opening in October 2019 sold “3,000 tickets” before the pair even opened the doors, they say.
“I remember this mother crying to me, saying, ‘My daughter has to come today, all her friends are here,’ and I said, ‘I can’t sell you a ticket, we’re at capacity,'” recalls Robinvitz. “But when I came back, the little girl ran [in]threw off his shoes and jumped into the lake of sludge”.
“There were lines down the block,” Schiller adds. “People weren’t crazy about getting in. They couldn’t believe they had an opportunity to actually get in.”
Debt, expansion and ‘doing something that’s never been done before’
In its first week, Sloomoo sold $1 million worth of tickets, Robinovitz and Schiller say. After five months, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived and the business let go of about 90 part-time employees, retaining only the co-executive directors, an accountant and their resident slime maker.
They sold slime online, hosted virtual slime-making camps for kids, and hosted corporate workshops for companies like Google and Pfizer until fully reopening in 2021. The following year, Sloomoo raised $5.8 million in a Series A funding round led by by Raptor Group, and opened its Chicago and Atlanta locations.
The company took on $5 million in debt from its investors to open in Houston in 2023 and Los Angeles last year, the co-CEOs say. They’ve paid off, and their future expansion plans include more locations, physical products, software, games and even live entertainment, they point out.
Schiller and Robinovitz adding to a slime wall.
Lanna Apisukh
The popularity of their central product, the slime itself, has ebbed and flowed over the decades—from the slippery, chemical-smelling slime of the 1970s to Nickelodeon’s “Slime Time Live” in the early 2000s. boosted by TikTok will probably eventually fade, Sloomoo’s longevity depends on giving visitors memorable, unique experiences, says the researcher, consultant and author of experience economy Joe Pine.
Experience-based businesses are successful when they’re memorable, meaningful, create a sense of awe and, most elusively, change who we are, Pine says. Interactive art exhibition company Meow Wolf and Italian grocery chain Eataly, for example, check all four boxes, he says.
Sloomoo’s cauldrons, walls and lakes of aromatic slime round out the top three, notes Pine. He’s not 100% sold on Sloomoo’s ability to transform people — but Schiller and Robinovitz say it’s certainly changed them both, at least.
“Karen and I can be SVPs at big companies, and we’ve chosen to do that because it’s really meaningful to us,” says Schiller. “We want people to know that you can choose to try, get out there and do something that’s never been done before.”
“After what we’ve both been through, what are we going to fear now?” she adds.
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