Pick-Up Pools Update: What Happened to the Truck Bed Pool After Shark Tank?
For decades, college students, tailgaters, and weekend warriors tried to build DIY swimming pools in the back of their pickup trucks using cheap plastic tarps and abrasive bungee cords. The result was always the same: massive water leaks, scratched car paint, and a collapsed mess in the driveway.
Active-duty Air Force pilot Tommy Prestella decided to fix this exact problem with Pick-Up Pools, a custom-fitted vinyl liner designed to turn any truck bed into a watertight oasis.
The Bottom Line (Executive Summary)
- The Shark Tank Deal: Prestella pitched Pick-Up Pools in Season 10, securing a $100,000 investment for 33.3% equity from Mark Cuban.
- The Aftermath: The deal with Cuban closed, and the company expanded its product line to fit three different truck bed sizes, selling through their official website and Amazon.
- Current Status: Pick-Up Pools is entirely out of business. The company shuttered its operations in late 2022 due to manufacturing hurdles, intense knock-off competition from overseas, and serious payload capacity concerns from automotive experts.
What is Pick-Up Pools?
Pick-Up Pools is a heavy-duty, custom-fitted vinyl liner engineered specifically to transform the bed of a pickup truck into a functional, watertight swimming pool.
The product eliminates the need for ropes, tie-downs, or bungee cords by utilizing a specialized patent-pending elastic stretch design that pulls tightly over the corners of a standard truck bed.
The liner is constructed from durable 20-mil polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with radio-frequency welded seams to prevent tearing and leaking. When users finish swimming, a built-in drainage valve near the tailgate allows the water to empty out cleanly without having to dismantle the entire setup.
| Industry | Founder(s) | Core Product | Retail Price | Target Audience |
| Recreational Goods | Tommy Prestella, Diana Baima | Custom Truck Bed Pool Liner | $199 – $209 | Tailgaters, Campers, Families |
The Founder Behind Pick-Up Pools
The idea for Pick-Up Pools was born out of a sweltering Arkansas afternoon. In the summer of 2014, Tommy Prestella was stationed as an active-duty pilot at the Little Rock Air Force Base. The temperatures were soaring, and his young daughter was tired of running through a basic lawn sprinkler. She wanted a real swimming pool.
Without an inground pool in his backyard, Prestella resorted to a classic rural hack: the “redneck swimming pool.” He bought a heavy-duty tarp, draped it over the bed of his pickup truck, and strapped it down with a network of bungee cords.
Predictably, the setup failed. The tarp shifted under the weight of the water, the bungees snapped against his truck’s paint job, and the water leaked out almost as fast as the garden hose could pump it in.
Prestella searched the internet for a proper, purpose-built truck pool liner and found absolutely nothing. Identifying a clear gap in the consumer recreation market, he designed his own prototype.
He sourced high-grade PVC vinyl from a manufacturer in Virginia and contracted an assembly plant in California to ensure the product was 100% made in America.
Prestella launched a website in 2015 and ordered a conservative initial run of 20 units. He kept two for demonstrations and immediately sold the other 18.
However, running a startup while serving in the military proved immensely difficult. In 2017, Prestella was deployed to an undisclosed location in Africa. To keep the patent-pending idea alive, he brought his sister, Diana Baima, on board to manage day-to-day operations, handle the supply chain, and fulfill orders while he was overseas.
Pick-Up Pools’ Shark Tank Pitch & Deal
Tommy Prestella walked into the Shark Tank during Season 10, asking for a $100,000 investment in exchange for 25% equity in Pick-Up Pools. The initial pitch was met with smiles from the panel, as the visual of a working truck bed pool right there on the set easily commanded the room’s attention.
The mood quickly shifted when Kevin O’Leary demanded to hear the sales numbers. Prestella admitted that the company had generated only $7,060 in year-to-date sales, with a meager lifetime revenue of just $12,000.
The Sharks were visibly stunned by the low figures. Prestella explained the context: he was an active-duty military pilot who had spent years deployed overseas, and his original manufacturing partner had unexpectedly retired, causing massive production delays. He needed the $100,000 to rebuild his website, drive marketing traffic, and secure a reliable manufacturing pipeline.
Prestella also broke down the unit economics. The pools cost between $110 and $117 to produce domestically, and he sold them for roughly $199 to $209 depending on the size.
He expressed his desire to eventually lower the manufacturing cost to $25 and sell the unit for $60 to capture a mass-market audience, though achieving that would require moving production overseas.
| Season / Episode | Initial Ask & Valuation | Sharks Present | Notable Offers | Final On-Air Deal |
| Season 10, Episode 17 | $100,000 for 25% ($400k Val) | Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Barbara Corcoran | Barbara Corcoran: $100k for 25% (Conditional) Mark Cuban: $100k for 33.3% | Mark Cuban: $100,000 for 33.3% |
Lori Greiner was the first to drop out, stating she liked the novelty of the product but had no idea how to market an automotive-adjacent recreation item.
Robert Herjavec followed suit, bluntly stating that Prestella simply wasn’t ready to run a full-scale enterprise and that this was a product, not a true company. Kevin O’Leary also exited, citing the abysmal sales figures and his lack of belief in the product’s long-term financial potential.
This left Barbara Corcoran and Mark Cuban. Corcoran saw the vision and offered exactly what Prestella asked for $100,000 for 25% equity, but attached heavy contingencies. She required his sister to work on the business full-time, demanded the manufacturing costs drop below $100 immediately, and mandated the hiring of a dedicated salesperson.
Mark Cuban then cut in with a far cleaner offer. He proposed $100,000 for 33.3% equity, flat. Cuban offered full access to his team to help optimize the website and negotiate lower manufacturing costs, stripping away all of Corcoran’s conditions.
Recognizing the value of Cuban’s massive e-commerce infrastructure, Prestella quickly accepted the deal.
Did the Pick-Up Pools Deal Actually Close?
Yes, the handshake agreement on television successfully transitioned into a finalized legal contract. Following standard due diligence, Mark Cuban finalized the $100,000 investment for 33.3% equity.
Pick-Up Pools was officially added to the portfolio on the Mark Cuban Companies website. With Cuban’s backend support, the company completely revamped its online storefront, integrated directly with Amazon for fulfillment, and launched three distinct product sizes (Short Bed, Standard Bed, and Long Bed) to accommodate a wider variety of pickup trucks.
The “Shark Tank Effect” provided a massive spike in visibility, allowing the company to move significant inventory throughout 2019 and 2020.
Pick-Up Pools After Shark Tank: The Current Update
Despite a promising start and the backing of a billionaire investor, the momentum did not last.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, Pick-Up Pools enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, largely driven by the pandemic when consumers were trapped at home and searching for creative backyard recreation options.
However, as the product gained traction online, it caught the attention of overseas manufacturers. Amazon quickly flooded with cheap, mass-produced Chinese knockoffs. These competitors bypassed the expensive American manufacturing process and sold highly similar truck liners for a fraction of Prestella’s $200 price tag.
By the summer of 2022, operations began to fracture. Without a full-time, dedicated CEO—as Prestella remained committed to his military career, the company struggled to defend its intellectual property or pivot its marketing strategy.
In July 2022, business intelligence firm PitchBook officially updated the company’s status to “Out of Business”. Shortly after, the official Pick-Up Pools website went offline, the Amazon product listings were removed, and the brand’s social media pages went completely dark.
As of today, the company shows no signs of a revival. Mark Cuban Companies has quietly archived the brand from active promotion, marking this investment as a loss.
What is the Net Worth and Valuation of Pick-Up Pools?
At the time of the Shark Tank pitch in 2019, Mark Cuban’s investment of $100,000 for 33.3% equity placed the company’s valuation at exactly $300,000.
Today, the current net worth and valuation of Pick-Up Pools is $0. The corporate entity is dissolved, no revenue is being generated, and the product lines are dead.
While the business failed, Tommy Prestella’s personal financial stability remains secure through his continued and decorated career as a pilot in the United States Air Force. The closure of Pick-Up Pools was less about financial ruin and more about the harsh realities of consumer hardware startups.
Operating a physical product company requires full-time executive oversight, ruthless supply chain management, and constant legal battles against patent infringers, commitments that proved impossible for an active-duty serviceman.
Is Pick-Up Pools Still in Business?
No. Pick-Up Pools is officially out of business.
The company ceased all manufacturing and retail operations in 2022. If you attempt to visit the original pickuppools.com domain, the URL either fails to load or redirects to an unrelated parked webpage. There is no remaining customer service infrastructure, and the trademark appears to have been abandoned.
The Automotive Reality: Why Truck Bed Pools Are a Dangerous Idea
Beyond supply chain issues and knock-off competitors, Pick-Up Pools faced a massive headwind from the automotive industry itself: the basic laws of physics.
A standard 6.5-foot pickup truck bed holds roughly 48 cubic feet of space. One cubic foot of water equates to 7.48 gallons, meaning a fully filled standard truck bed holds around 360 gallons of water. Water is incredibly heavy, weighing 8.34 pounds per gallon.
If a consumer filled a Pick-Up Pool to the brim, they were dropping approximately 3,000 pounds of dead weight directly onto their truck’s rear axle. When you factor in the weight of two or three adults sitting in the pool, the total weight easily approaches 3,500 pounds.
Most light-duty consumer trucks, such as the Ford F-150 or Chevy Silverado 1500, have a maximum payload capacity of roughly 1,500 to 2,200 pounds. Filling the bed with water aggressively exceeds the manufacturer’s maximum payload limit.
Automotive accessory manufacturers, including major bed-liner companies like Dura-Liner, actively advise against truck pools for this exact reason. The extreme weight can blow out tires, permanently ruin suspension systems, warp the truck bed, and cause severe chassis damage.
Prestella added a disclaimer to his website warning customers not to overfill the pools and to check their vehicle’s payload capacity. However, in the consumer product space, relying on customers to read warnings and calculate fluid dynamics is a losing battle.
The inherent liability risk of the product likely stymied any major retail partnerships or licensing deals with automotive giants like AutoZone or O’Reilly Auto Parts.
Where to Buy Pick-Up Pools in (And Top Alternatives)
Because the company is permanently closed, you can no longer buy an authentic Pick-Up Pool. Secondary markets like eBay occasionally feature dead-stock units, but buyers should proceed with caution since the PVC vinyl may have degraded in storage over the last four years.
For consumers still looking to cool off in their driveways, the market has reverted to two primary alternatives:
- Heavy-Duty Tarp Systems: Many people have returned to the original DIY method, purchasing 20-mil industrial tarps from hardware stores. While these are prone to leaking, they are highly cost-effective and easy to replace.
- Standard Inflatable Pools: Rather than using the truck bed, the safest and most popular alternative is buying a standard, heavy-duty inflatable pool from brands like Intex or Bestway and placing it on the ground next to the vehicle. This completely eliminates the risk of suspension damage to the truck while providing a superior swimming experience.
