Three years ago, Rebecca Cutler and Jennifer Krane saw big
changes happening in the athletic wear and maternity industries.
Women were wearing athletic clothes for going out, not just working
out. Obstetricians were encouraging pregnant women to keep up a
modified exercise regimen to stay fit, whether it be yoga, walking
or another favorite sport. Designers were creating fashionable
clothing lines for pregnant women, and celebrities were making
pregnancy look hip, beautiful, fashionable, even athletic. Cutler
and Krane did some research and learned that 4 million babies are
born every year in the United States, and American women spend an
estimated $1.2 billion annually on maternity wear.
There was a pregnant pause, however, when they compared what
they saw to what was on the racks at sporting and maternity
stores-especially when it came to tennis, a sport Cutler and Krane
both love. "[Pregnant women] were buying extra-large
nonmaternity tennis skirts-pulling them on, feeling awful and not
really fitting into them," says Cutler, a mother of two. They
thought a box set of fashionable maternity athletic clothes that
included a mix-and-match reversible tennis skirt, a few V-neck
shirts, and shorts that could transition from the tennis court to a
night on the town just might sell.
Fast forward to 2004: Cutler, 36, and Krane, 38, are co-founders
of Raising a Racquet, a 2-year-old Darien, Connecticut,
company that makes athletic wear for pregnant women. Their
multipiece box sets retail from $108 to $158 and are sold at stores
like A Pea in the Pod, Bloomingdale's, Copeland Sports, Mimi
Maternity and Pickles & Ice Cream. The company has expanded
into three clothing lines for tennis, golf and yoga. Gross sales in
the first year were $250,000 and are projected to reach close to $1
million in 2004.
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Jumping on trends early helped Cutler and Krane develop a loyal
customer base, especially among stores with limited buying
resources. "[They might] pick up fewer pieces of Nike running
pants and hold that money back for the Raising a Racquet yoga
kit," Cutler says. It's also making the company a
contender. Adidas, Nike and Reebok have come out with maternity
lines since Cutler and Krane started the company, and Raising a
Racquet has been mentioned in stories alongside these industry
behemoths. "That was thrilling," Krane says. "I
think we hit [the trend] just right."
Early trend spotting can set up young companies for long-term
success. But how can entrepreneurs discern whether what they're
seeing is a long-lasting trend or a fad that will die out in six
months? Mistaking the two can put entrepreneurs out of business
faster than they can say "fad."
So what is the difference between a trend and a fad? Ask 30
people, and you'll probably get 30 different, yet similar,
answers. A fad is a statement, a one-hit wonder, something
eye-catching that comes and then goes just as quickly. (Think Pet
Rock.) A trend has roots and staying power; it strikes a deeper
chord and is connected to a larger change in society. The real
debate starts when you ask people whether a popular product or
service is a fad or a trend. Take the Atkins diet, for example.
Some experts say it's a trend because it's become part of a
lifestyle and ties into larger trends like the quest for health.
Others argue Atkins is a fad that's riding a larger, long-term
trend: a fundamental shift in consumer behavior.
A trend is "nothing more than a manifestation of an
individual's values," says Vickie Abrahamson, co-founder
of Minneapolis trend analysis firm Iconoculture,
who points to the late 1990s craze for clear products such as clear
beer, clear soap and even clear Pepsi as a fad that didn't
connect with consumers. Even Saturday Night Live parodied
the fad in a humorous commercial for clear gravy. Clear products
didn't succeed because the inventors didn't factor into the
design process the value people put on their senses of sight and
smell. In the end, clear beer just couldn't tap into the
importance consumers place on the total beer experience, and the
genre went flat. As Abrahamson puts it: "[Clear beer] was fun
until people actually tasted it."
Originally published in the June 2004 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
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