Peter Solimine nails innovation with app to nap through meetings

How Peter Solimine’s Beulr app disrupted remote work culture by letting users sleep through virtual meetings

Peter Solimine presenting Beulr on Shark Tank with a video avatar in a virtual meeting / Image Credit: Shark Tank

Peter Solimine sparked headlines by building an app that lets people nap through work meetings while a looped video attends for them. The concept turned heads when he pitched the idea on Shark Tank, seeking funding for what started off as a clever hack born during the pandemic.

Peter Solimine created Beulr while studying economics and computer science at Tulane University in early 2020. Faced with 7 AM Zoom lectures, he wrote a script that could log into meetings automatically and play a recorded video of himself paying attention. This let him catch up on rest and watch the recording later. Soon this quiet campus project evolved into a platform used by thousands.

During his Shark Tank Season 13 appearance, Solimine requested $150000 from the Sharks in return for a 20 per cent stake in his startup. He delivered a memorable entrance dressed in pajamas, emerging from a bed to illustrate how Beulr let him stay asleep while the app handled attendance. Despite his charm and early traction, concerns about ethics, integrity, and scalability led the Sharks to decline his offer.

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Beulr had already grown to around 92,000 users after minimal marketing spend. Solimine later introduced a $6.99 monthly subscription, though the service remained free at launch. The app’s feature set let users upload a short video of themselves and schedule virtual meetings. No interaction was possible during the meeting—if someone asked the avatar a question, it would simply respond with the looped footage.

Despite leaving the Tank without a deal, Solimine’s profile soared. In the days after the episode aired, Beulr’s user base jumped to around 126,000 and he raised roughly $675,000 in seed funding from other investors, far exceeding the modest valuation he originally pitched.

However, the futuristic concept couldn’t sustain long term. The company pivoted toward offering productivity tools like meeting transcription and recording services instead of promoting meeting skipping as a feature. In November 2023, Beulr was finally shut down formally, and Solimine posted a RIP message on his personal projects page.

This app built by Peter Solimine may have been short lived, but it raised discussion about meeting fatigue, automation, and the blurry ethics of virtual presence in today’s remote world. The story of Beulr shows how a quirky idea turned into real momentum, but also how shaky foundations and public scrutiny can ground even the most inventive startups.

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If you want to learn more, SlashGear explores the Beulr trajectory, examines why the Sharks passed, and covers the app’s rise and fall. Meanwhile interviews with Solimine give insight into his entrepreneurial journey, his lessons learned from Shark Tank, and what he’s working on now