Simple pillow evolved into multimillion-dollar baby

GOLDEN, Colo. -- If you've given birth or adopted in the past 10 years, chances are you know what a Boppy is. And more important, how to use it.

If you haven't, well, read on. Because this is the story of a woman who came up with one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" ideas -- a simple pillow stuffed with foam -- and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business. She now has the No.1 baby product in the country, according to American Baby magazine.

Susan Brown had already decided she was going to quit her day job when she invented the Boppy, almost accidentally. Her daughter's day care center asked parents to bring in pillows to prop up infants who couldn't sit up on their own. Brown came up with a C-shaped pillow in one night.

Seventeen years later, the basic design hasn't changed.

"It's just the perfect pillow for just about everything," says Judy Nolte, editor of American Baby, whose readers have named Boppy the most invaluable product for new moms four consecutive years. "I think that mothers are very wise to select it as their favorite product. It fills a need that nobody realized was there."

In fact, Boppy's fans love it because it does a job it never was intended for: It helps support babies while breast-feeding, a job that can be taxing on exhausted new moms' backs, arms and other areas.

"Now it's almost embarrassing to admit, but when people started using it for breast-feeding, I was like, 'Oh, yeah. Of course,'" Brown, 51, says.

Brown, who lives in Golden, a suburb of Denver, had dreamed of opening her own business since she was a child. She would write up mini-business plans, only to talk herself out of the idea by proving how the business would not work or was overly ambitious. She began a career in advertising sales but still daydreamed about opening her own business. Then, while on maternity leave with her second child, she found out that she had been passed up for a promotion. She decided it was time to go but stuck around until she was fully vested in the company's profit-sharing plan.

With $25,000 from the profit-sharing and $7,000 from an investor, Brown took Boppy to a children's clothing trade show in New York in 1991 and sold it to about 50 children's stores. Within the first year, she finagled a spot in One Step Ahead, a catalog that has launched many baby products into the mainstream.

But money quickly ran out. So Brown applied for and got a loan from the non-profit Colorado Enterprise Fund. She says she needed money to take Boppy to the International Juvenile Products Show in Dallas. Without the loan, the company would have failed.

Ceyl Prinster, executive director of the fund, remembers being struck by how down-to-earth Brown is. Prinster says she trusted that Brown's ability to think both creatively and analytically would help propel Boppy to greater heights. "A lot of entrepreneurs are very idealistic and think they can keep going on vision alone," Prinster says. "She had a good idea of what it would take to get this product to the next level."

Now, the privately held Boppy Co., known until recently as Camp Kazoo, has annual sales of $15 million to $25 million through such retailers as Babies R Us, Pottery Barn Kids and Burlington Coat Factory. Brown says Wal-Mart has approached her about selling the product in its stores, but she wants to keep a more upscale feel to it and is trying to resist selling the $25 to $35 pillows at bargain prices.

Prinster says one of Brown's strengths is "being able to know where her weaknesses are, and shoring that up with other people."

She also has solicited advice from people who have been through the business-development process. "The most common piece of advice you get is to diversify," Brown says. "That advice isn't always good."

To diversify, the company started selling TransferMations, an iron-on stencil that would allow parents to paint murals on nursery walls by simply coloring between the lines. Parents liked it, but it became a logistical mess. The company was suddenly dealing with an entirely new distribution chain, selling to craft stores rather than to baby-product retailers. And customers began asking if the company was going to start selling paint to go along with the patterns, which would have posed a new set of problems.

"When I look back, that energy may have been much better spent on the core product," Brown says. "You have to analyze the advice you get."

Boppy now has expanded its product line by making other kinds of pillows, ones that have toys attached that babies can play with and others that help pregnant moms sleep and sit more comfortably.

The company is in the early stages of licensing the Boppy brand name to other products, such as baby clothes or toys.

Brown also is dabbling in the advice business herself. She's self-published a book, Start Your Own Baby Products Business, in which she advises prospective entrepreneurs to focus and resist the urge to underprice. The book is dotted with pictures of happy moms, dads and babies with their Boppies.

Pat Edson, a consultant who sits on the Boppy board, says Brown "has zero ego, and that is just a beautiful thing to see in today's world. That gives her a competitive advantage. ... Her lack of ego allows her to surround herself with really strong thinkers and makes sure she gets the best information."

Brown says one of her weaknesses is picking fabrics: "It seems like every one I like sells poorly." So Brown listens to her creative director, advisers and customers. The company's newest materials include soft pastel velvet, gingham and vintage alphabet patterns.

While Brown has developed a loyal following for her product, she's also developed a loyal following among her employees. At Boppy, 20 of 23 employees are women, and more than half are moms. Brown gives them flexibility to work when their children are in school, skipping lunch to make the day shorter. A room in the colorful office space is set aside for mothers to nurse or pump breast milk during their day.

"The people who work with her and around her are brutally loyal," Edson says. "That helps her retain talent and helps her attract high talent as well."

Creating an office that people love to come to was one of Brown's goals.

"No matter how hard I am working, I can still go to soccer," Brown says. "That made my life so much more livable. I've gotten so much outside validation that this is the kind of place people want to be."

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