Hotslings Is A Growing Biz
I didn’t intend to start a business,” says Kristen DeRocha, a 35-year-old mother of two. “I made a baby sling for my daughter, and people started asking me about it, so I made a few for friends. Eventually, they got so popular that I launched a Web site and started selling them online. Then, stores started calling, and now we’re everywhere.”
Prior to launching Hotslings six years ago, the Texas A&M grad was far from the fashion industry, teaching biology at Dallas’ Woodrow Wilson High School. Six months after launching Hotslings, she left teaching to take on the apparel business full time.
Today, her company is best known for its stylish collection of baby slings, but she also manufactures nursing cover-ups and breast-feeding tank tops in her northwest Dallas facility. National retailers such as Babies “R” Us and Nordstrom carry the wares, which range from $48 to $60, as do local boutiques such as Baby Bliss, Green Living and Bebe Grand.
Despite the retail industry’s gloomy forecast, DeRocha is looking forward to a bright spot on her company agenda: launching a line of apparel for nursing mothers when the time is right, perhaps later this year.
“The day after my son was born, I was answering customer-service calls,” she says. “There’s no such thing as maternity leave for entrepreneurs.”
Photo by Hotslings.
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