In 2020, a Bentonville 14-Year-Old Was on Shark Tank. Where Is She Now?
Heather McCombs
May 29, 2025
In 2020, Bentonville native Sofia Overton received a $35,000 investment in an episode of "Shark Tank" at the age of 14. While her business venture as a teen was short-lived, it proved to be a transformative experience that laid the foundation for her future pursuits and personal growth.
Her business, Wise Pocket Products, specialized in custom socks and leggings designed with built-in pockets. The idea was born out of Overton’s frustration with the lack of functional pockets in kids' and girls’ clothing. The turning point came when her cousin suggested she stash her ice cream money in her boot. While the solution worked, it was uncomfortable, and that moment sparked her entrepreneurial spirit to design a better alternative.
Her idea struck a chord with two of the “Shark Tank” investors and — along with the financial investment — Overton said she received invaluable mentorship after she appeared on the show.
The episode aired in January 2020, just before COVID-19 began disrupting businesses around the world. As a result of the pandemic, the manufacturing plant in North Carolina that Overton relied on moved its operations overseas. It had been the only facility she could find capable of producing her custom socks.
“It was very important for me for my products to be manufactured in the United States of America,” she said.
Having sold out of her remaining inventory and fulfilled her financial obligations to investors, she saw it as a natural point to step away from the business and turn her focus back to school.
“I made a lot of amazing connections whenever I was young,” she said. “I learned how to network, which was very important, especially at a young age. I learned how to hustle and balance work and life and school.”
What Is She Doing Now?
Overton is headed into her senior year this fall at the University of Arkansas, where she’s majoring in art history and minoring in political science, with plans to pursue a master’s degree there after graduation. She hopes to work in museums and has done several internships with Crystal Bridges.
“I've always loved museums, ever since I was a kid going to Crystal Bridges whenever it was still being built,” she said. “I'm hoping to be able to give back to my community, like the museum gave me whenever I was young, and really engage with people and have them love the museum as much as I do.”
She’s also currently working on self-publishing a political science/romance novel she wrote over the last year called “Capitol Coffee.” She said she thinks her experience in business and writing creatively go hand in hand.
“You have to be creative to come up with new innovation for a business idea, and there is a lot of writing in business,” she said. “I learned how to write professionally, and that helped me in writing creatively.”
Overton said she believes she wouldn’t have been as successful as she was from an early age without the support from the community of Bentonville. Launching a business at just 14 gave Overton a taste of entrepreneurship and set her on a path of self-discovery that continues to shape her ambitions today.
“You can write your own future, you can be in control of how your life is going,” she said. “It was a really important lesson to learn at that age.”