Business Opportunities Weblog

April 17, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

FrederickNewsPost:

Stephanie Dellamura dreaded taking her toddlers to a public restroom. Visiting parks and fairs was worse, she said. Portable restrooms are often filthy and there’s no place to wash hands.

She started carrying plastic sandwich bags for her children to use as gloves to keep their hands clean. The flimsy pockets didn’t work so well. They slipped off and made it difficult to grip toilet seats. Dellamura searched stores and websites for a product to protect her children, but came up empty-handed.

That’s when Dellamura invented Gotta Go Mitts. The disposable plastic mittens come 20 to a pack, fit children up to age 7 and cost about $5.

But it didn’t happen overnight. Dellamura was no inventor — she was a mom who had a clever fix for a common problem. But she needed help turning that dream into a product.

A bookstore clerk suggested Tara Monosoff’s “The Mom Inventors Handbook.” It gives readers advice for conducting market research, developing a prototype, manufacturing and marketing a product. Dellamura found the guide practical and inspiring. She followed every step and enjoyed reading about several mom inventors who turned inspiration into action.

Dellamura made the first prototype on her kitchen table. Her mother-in-law and a friend helped cut and sew plastic sandwich bags into child-sized mittens.

Now the finished products, 2.5 million mitts in 125,000 packages, sit in her basement. Dellamura invested more than $17,000 to bring her idea to market, but she expects to start making a profit in fewer than two years — $5 at a time.

She plans to sell Gotta Go Mitts on her website, on eBay, in children’s catalogues and in retail stores. Great Beginnings in Gaithersburg and Bugs and Buttercups in Frederick are scheduled to carry them this week.

Photo by SLKD Enterprise, LLC..

In Invention, Startup, Women | 1 Comment