Some people get sympathy pains when they're around pregnant
women. Linda Turner got a business idea: to create lingerie that,
as she describes it, "doesn't make a pregnant woman feel
like a cow." The 49-year-old Golden, Colorado, entrepreneur
conceived the idea for the Bellybra while in an exercise class.
"I was watching a woman who was hugely pregnant holding up her
belly and thought, 'There must be something out there to help
her.'"
But after a patent search, countless conversations with pregnant
women and tons of research, Turner found there wasn't. "I
sewed a bit, so I went to Wal-Mart, bought a jog bra and a heavy
girdle and put together a crude prototype," she says. "It
was the most ridiculous-looking thing I'd ever seen, but it
worked. One of my pregnant friends wore it, and she loved
it."
So, prototype in hand, Turner approached Basic Comfort, which in
1991 was a fledgling baby-products firm seeking new ideas. But
instead of signing an agreement and turning over all production and
marketing of her Bellybra, Turner took a $100-a-week job with the
company and got a front-row seat watching her doctor-recommended
product hit the half-million-dollar mark in sales. At its peak, the
Bellybra was sold in more than 200 retail outlets nationwide.
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But after five years on the market, sales of the Bellybra began
to drop. In 1995, one of Basic Comfort's own products, the
Sleep Ez, started to take off. "It wasn't like they
dropped me on my head, but the Sleep Ez required so much
production," says Turner, who by that time also had realized
her invention didn't belong in the baby-products industry. By
mutual consent, they terminated the licensing agreement in March
2000, and Turner created Just a Couple of Dames with partner Cindy
Koch, 36. They've corrected small design flaws, added a black
version of the Bellybra and begun an aggressive marketing campaign,
resulting in 2001 sales projections of $100,000.
Turner doesn't regret her initial decision to take the
licensing route. "It was an incredible test market, and I
would never have learned as much as I did otherwise," she
says, describing it as a no-risk proposition for her.
Best of all, Turner reenters the competitive retail market with
a definite advantage: a successful sales track record that could be
the difference between failure and success. Sounds like all her
labor is finally paying off.