Going gaga for kids' hair-care products.
As sales representatives for the country's top ethnic
hair-care lines, Lamont Kennerly, 38, and Frank Conwell, 46, saw a
niche that had yet to be filled: ethnic hair-care products for
babies.
Business was slowing for the pair's sales brokerage firm in
1991 as more companies moved their sales staffs in-house. So
Kennerly and Conwell rolled up their sleeves and got to work
launching Anika Laboratories Inc., manufacturer of Soft &
Precious hair and skin products specially formulated for black
babies.
Content Continues Below
"We did it our way," says Kennerly, proud that they
financed the company themselves from day one. "It gave us a
little more flexibility."
The founders' backgrounds in the industry helped everything
come together for Anika; a chemist they'd met at a former job
was hired to help develop the shampoo.
"Once you talk to one person, they lead you to another
one," says Kennerly. The bottle manufacturer referred them to
the cap manufacturer, who recommended the label maker, and so
on.
The baby products are on the shelves of such chains as Wal-Mart,
Winn Dixie and Eckerd, with sales expected to reach $500,000 by
year-end. --H.C.F.
Page
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 