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closeBaby business boom
Charlotte area a growing birthplace for ventures designed to keep newborns to tots happy
LYNN TRENNING
- Special to the Observer"Necessity is the mother of invention," Plato observed. He could have been writing about the $8.9 billion U.S. baby products industry.
YALONDA M. JAMES/Observer staff
Bella Tunno’s Bella Binkers are fashionable and functional. The Binker is a pacifier clip that keeps binkies close and clean.
Research and development departments generate plenty of products. But others are created by parents who identified a need, and grew a business.
Today's well-adorned tots are flush with chic apparel, toys and accessories, a number of which originate in the Charlotte area.
Bella Tunno
Michelle Tunno Buelow, 32, describes the birth of her company, Bella Tunno, as a case of "fate meets potential meets a good opportunity."After her brother Matt died in 2003, Buelow took a leave of absence from her corporate job in brand marketing.
She had a daughter, Riley Rose, with her husband, Todd, a year later. "I loved being home with her, but needed something that would be for me," Buelow recalls.
Buelow found a creative outlet by making bibs, burp clothes and pacifiers for her daughter. People liked them, so she created three prototypes: a burpee, a binker (pacifier on a strap) and a buttie (colorful changing pads), each in 10 different fabrics.
Since its launch in July 2005, Bella Tunno has been profitable, Buelow says.
It sells three lines at different price points: Tunno Tots is exclusive to Target. Bella Tunno Basics is exclusive to Gap. The Bella Tunno brand is carried by retailers from Nordstrom to Amazon.
Bella Tunno products are made in four factories in North and South Carolina. Factories in South America and China manufacture the Target and Gap lines.
Buelow works out of her south Charlotte home 80 percent of the time.
She laughs when asked how many hours a week she works. "If I logged my hours I'd be sickened. It's similar to asking how much time do you spend with your kids."
Wry Baby accessories
Kelly and David Sopp moved their family and Wry Baby business to Mooresville in 2006.
The couple found inspiration for their baby accessory line after the birth of son Atticus eight years ago in San Francisco.
"Our baby shower was the most painful thing we ever lived through," David says. "Everything was teddy bears, and pink and blue, and was trapped in our parents' parenthood. The industry hadn't evolved to keep up with the customers."
Building off their background in advertising, Dave, 40 and Kelly, 38, decided that what the customer wants is comedy: Wry Baby's tag line is "Raising Funny People."
The signature product, the snapsuit, sports phrases such as "Someday I'll Have a Hairy Chest" and "I Heart My Dads," and sells for $24.
The line has expanded to include pillowcases, buttons, books and toys.
Their 2007 sales were close to $1 million, Dave Sopp says. Their products are in 450 boutique gift stores that lean toward urban markets. Locally, look for Wry Baby at The Milky Way, Paper Skyscraper, Shower Me with Love and Studio Flowers.
"We really wanted to shrink our world down," Dave says of the move to Mooresville (home of his great-grandparents). "In the end we were driving literally across San Francisco four times a day." They now live less than two blocks from their office.
The Sopps keep 9-5 business hours, claim to never really be closed, and regularly sneak out to be with their son after school.
They have an employee who sources production all over the world, a sales manager working virtually out of California, and an order fulfillment employee in their N.C. office.
The Yenithing
Getting drenched while bathing her son in 2005 was enough to motivate Julie Yenichek, 33, of Cornelius.She refined the Yenithing, a towel-like apron, while pregnant with her second child, Katie, who will turn 1 in a few weeks. In 2007, she took the N.C.-made product (a mill in Conover makes the terry pile; the aprons are sewn in Hildebran) to the Atlanta Apparel Market.
Yenichek, who works full time in corporate communications, initially thought the towel biz was a hobby. Her goal? "To continue to save for my kid's college education," she says.
The Yenithing costs between $30 and $40, depending on whether you personalize it.
Korbie Diaper Bag
Maria Pistiolis, 65, a professional seamstress and grandmother of 10, hopes a licensing agreement will lead to success.
After watching her daughter struggle with her baby at the airport five years ago, Pistiolis created a diaper bag that unfolds into a bed and a changing table. Urged by friends to patent it, she hired an attorney but was frustrated by many rejections.
She took her Korbie Diaper Bag & Basinette to the PBS show "Everyday Edisons," and it was featured on its first season in 2007.
She entered a 20-year patent partnership with "Edisons." Pistiolis receives 10 percent of net receipts.
The bag/bed, which retails for $149, is available at select Belk stores and on Amazon.com and Korbie.com.
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