PopATot Launches As The New Children’s Necessity

Business and marriage have one thing in common, it takes work to make sure it is something that will last. Evan and Stacy Ellsworth would know all about that, they’re a couple that has just launched a business of their own.

The PopATot is the latest and greatest product to launched into the baby world. Entertaining your child when you’re at an event or a friend’s house can be difficult. This invention will have parents everywhere reconsidering what they will take along to help entertain their child while off watching an older child play a sport or out camping. With the same entertainment value as a walker would have, PopATot keeps your child in once place where they can play with toys, or eat snacks from a cup sitting in one of the cup holders. When you’re ready to go, fold it right up and it slides right into an easy-to-carry case!

Evan and Stacy was kind enough to take some time to answer my questions about their product so we could learn a little more about them and this innovative new baby necessity.

How did the two of you come up with the name, PopATot? Were there any other name options you considered before making the final decision?

Stacy:

We, along with our family, brainstormed tons of names. I remember my sister giving us a list of all kinds of names. After thinking of tons of different names PopATot just made sense, you pop the unit open and you pop your tot into it. We knew we wanted just a made up word that was catchy and cute that everyone would say ‘go get the PopATot.” Just like the Snugli, everyone knows what that is. They don’t say go get the front backpack carrier. One day we expect PopATot to be a household name like it is in our home.

Evan:

I believe we gave it the name PopATot, because the unit just pops right open and it is for older babies and toddlers or (tots).

When did either of you find the time to work on your invention between raising all 5 of your children? How long did it take before it was ready to be sold?

Stacy:

We work well together as a team. Right now as I fill out this interview, Evan is outside playing with the kids. When I get done, we’ll trade positions. We don’t have super defined roles in our home. When we’re done eating whoever doesn’t have PopATot work to do, gets up and cleans the kitchen. We also have kids that know they have to chip in and help with household chores. As a family, we will all fold several loads of laundry together in the living room. We have ‘power cleaning sessions’ where everyone goes to work. There are times our house is a little out of control. There are times we eat fast food several nights in a row. But, the important part is we find time to sit down and eat together and play together as a family. We like to work hard and play hard. Camping is our escape; we try to get away at least one weekend a month if not more. Its total family time, very little work (unfortunately, we have a wireless laptop). Some days I feel like I’m running on adrenaline, green tea, and Diet Pepsi Max. My friends all say I have more time in the day than a normal person.

Evan:

We made the first prototype in the garage; we worked every day after work, before work, and on the weekends sometimes until late in the evening. We would build a prototype, test it using our daughter who inspired it, then make adjustments or totally rebuild it. If we didn’t like that version we would start all over again.

We hired Idea logic Inc. a product design company in N.C. to help us give it some finishing touches. We actually wasted about a month or two trying to get some of the major baby activity center manufacturers to either license, buy outright or partner with us. Most of them didn’t even want to talk to us.

The idea was conceived on a camping trip in April of 07. We are expecting our first shipment Sept 15, 17 months.

What kind of niche do you feel your product is going to fill within the baby market? What kind of response to your product have you seen so far?

Stacy:

The niche … everyone with a baby is going to want one. At first people think it’s only good for travel, it is good for travel but that’s not the only use. Once they start thinking about it, they realize it totally replaces those bulky plastic activity centers. You can use it outdoors (while camping, at soccer games, baseball games, in the driveway while the older kids ride bikes, anywhere!). We keep ours in the back of my van; we have it whenever we need it. Then you have it when you go to grandmas or a non-kid friendly home or office. You can also use it indoors just like the bulky plastic activity centers. Think about it, what if you have small living quarters. It’s perfect, fold it up and keep it in the closet or pantry. It’s easy to move from room to room. I remember my old activity center. I could barely get it through the doors of my home. We lived in a split level at the time; it was very difficult to get up and down the stairwell. I remember having to maneuver it to get it through the outside door to use in the drive way. With the PopATot, that’s not the case, just fold and go.

We are not promoting this product as something you sit your child in for hours at a time. A child needs to have plenty of time on the floor to move around. However, it’s great for those times that you need to keep the baby off the ground or stationary for a period of time to keep them safe. For us it came in handy while camping to keep the baby out of the dirt and away from the fire. We used it at soccer/tball games to keep her sitting right there on the side line watching the games. We take it to grandma’s and more.

The response we’ve seen so far is very positive.

Evan:

The response from the time we took our prototype we made in the garage until now has not changed. If we take the PopATot out in public to a soccer/tee ball game, the park or the beach the response is always the same. We immediately get the feeling we are being watched, we notice people looking our way in groups, we see people looking, whispering and pointing at the PopATot. People of all ages and gender will stop and ask “where did you get that”, “what will they think of next,” “I have got to get one of those.” To put it plainly, we are running at about a 100% approval rating for any parent that has physically seen the product and has a child old enough to use it. We haven’t even received our first shipment or started seriously advertising the product and we have sold several units.

What kind of “stumbles” have you made during the process of building up your product and getting it ready to market? What have you learned from those missteps?

Stacy:

In hind sight, there are always little things you can look back on and change. In my opinion, we have had no major stumbling blocks. We have learned so much.

Evan:

As I said earlier we wasted a couple of months trying to get bigger companies to work with us, I feel they just wasted our time. The main thing I learned was patience and tolerance, nobody is going to work as hard or as efficient as you. I also learned that success is inside everyone one of us, and that maybe the only people that truly deserve success are those willing to work very hard for it and willing to take the risks. We have worked harder in the last year and a half than at any other time in our lives.

How did you come up with the idea for the PopATot? What was the inspiration that got everything started?

Stacy:

We were trying to setup camp when our youngest who was 6 months old, she was very unhappy. It was our first camping trip with her. We had no place to put her to make her happy. She didn’t like the portable play pen, she wasn’t happy in the stroller, and we couldn’t hold her. But, we needed her to be somewhere safe while we got things ready. That evening we were sitting by the campfire and said ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we could design an activity center for the baby that was totally portable and would fold up’. We started sketching and brainstorming that evening.

Evan:

Ditto for everything Stacy said, and our daughter was the inspiration. After having 5 children, I know what parents need.

Where do you see your business heading in the coming years? Do you have any plans to expand on your product into any other baby-related items?

Stacy:

We have more ideas. But, right now we need to get the PopATots on the market.

Evan:

As far as expanding into other baby related items, absolutely! When you have 5 kids you come up with lots of ideas for safe sensible baby products. Until they are patent pending, we cannot divulge those ideas.

What was the hardest part of taking on this task? What was the most rewarding about it?

Stacy:

The hardest part, the time. Time is precious, the kids are only little once. It’s so cool to see our finished product. It’s cool to get the comments from friends, family, and from online posters about how brilliant we are. I think it’s neat that our kids are getting to see that you can have a goal and achieve it.

Evan:

I would also say the amount of time we spent on it robbed time from other activities we also like to do. Signing the loan papers to finance all this was pretty hard to do too. Seeing this dream/vision come to life, and people actually wanting and enjoying the product you created is very rewarding.

Did either of you have any previous knowledge or experience that you were able to use while you got started and during the launch of your business?

Stacy:

I have an engineering degree and work professionally part time as a software developer. I don’t know that either of those are qualifications, but we are both goal oriented. Basically, I had no knowledge. Evan has several associate degrees and is very handy, he’s good at taking things apart and fixing them.

Evan:

Basically we had no prior experience, but we are extremely determined to succeed at everything we do. Quit is not a word that is used in this house. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, but they are never failures, they are opportunities to succeed.

What do you think will make your business successful? What steps do you feel that you still need to take to reach your sales goals?

Stacy:

People using this product will make it a success. I really believe that anybody who uses it will love its portability. It basically sells itself. When the first group of them hit the soccer fields this fall, all the other parents are going to be like ‘where’d you get that’, and they’ll say popatot.com!

To reach our goal, we need to get our product out to parents using them. We need to have availability of the PopATot spread like a virus.

Evan:

Ditto, and stay focused, continue to stick to the plan and always be organized and prepared for anything.

Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs reading this interview and looking to start up a business with their own unique products?

Stacy:

The first thing they need to do is search the US Patent website and make sure no one else has the product. If you really believe in it, make a prototype, expose it to a few people and go for it. We have taken a huge financial and emotional risk, but we believe in our product.

Evan:

If you believe in your product and others like it as well, you probably have a winner on your hands. Don’t write big checks to people offering you the world. Don’t get disappointed if one out of 100 people say to you, “I DONT LIKE IT”, they will and it will probably be someone in your family, your friends, or your parents. “Get off your butt and go for it, you know what you have”. Go to the book stores and spend some time self educating yourself before you start spending lots of money. There are also a lot of free resources like score that are willing to help you succeed.

« Previous Post

Next Post »