When Opportunity Knocks

I'm going to get a little ahead of myself here because this is a time sensitive issue. I'm a firm believer in the Universe providing for us what we need and when. In a way I could have never predicted, I was introduced to Amilya Antonetti (http://www.amilya.com/). For those of you who know her, you know why I was so excited. And for those of you who don't, well, you should! Smiling!

Amilya is the woman responsible for bringing the concept of "green" to household cleaners more than fifteen years ago. Go to her web site to read her story. What I want to share with you, is how Amilya has made it her mission to help people like me get our ideas off the ground without all the trials and tribulations that most have to go through just to realize they were given bad advice, or worse, taken for thousands of dollars needlessly.

I was fortunate enough to spend a day with Amilya and her team where I met Barb Luther, my patent attorney, and Bob Warden from QVC, just to name a few. In that single day, I got enough good, sound advice to take my idea and my kitchen table prototype and run like a mad woman. The day I spent with Amilya was in March of this year. In less than four months, I was patent pending, and in communication with two large manufactures of snow gloves. Both manufactures are creating real prototypes for me to review, and we are discussing how we want to do business. Do I want to strictly license the idea, or do Dave and I want to work with the company we chose to work with to promote the "mom invented" idea around the country? All of this came from one business day with Amilya!

Here's my question to you, do you want to spend your money trying this, and implementing that, or do you think enough of your idea to invest in the contacts you could make in a single day? What if I told you you could spend a weekend in this kind of company? It's a small investment to attend Amilya's Mind to Market weekend, and frankly, worth every penny and more! The weekend is $1295.00 and you will come away with everything you need to know to get your product to market. As a favor to me, for inviting you, you can do the whole weekend for $995! Yet again, another reason I love this group of people.

I haven't even told you the really good news (sounds like, "But wait! There's more!). There's an application process to attend. There won't be any two products or ideas the same, and if your product is not something that Amilya feels she can help you make happen, you won't ever spend a penny! Go to http://www.amilya.com/ for complete information on the M2M weekend in Oakland.

I don't believe there's a more ethical and honest person out there to help you. Okay, so now you know how I feel about Amilya. You can certainly make your own choices about how to invest in your product and yourself, but let me wrap up by telling you, I'm working the M2M weekend in Oakland on August 22, 23, and 24th. I'm working it as a volunteer because I want to give back to the group that sent me on my way via a shooting star with a sling-shot!

From Amilya:

Kathy,

Thanks for putting this out there! I enjoy working with you and I look forward to meeting anyone you send my way.

If you have any friends that think they have what it takes and have an idea that is ready to launch, than tell them to come meet me. I want to know who they are and what great things we can do together.

One idea can change the world…don’t keep it to yourself!

Hugs,
Amilya

Here's Why Golves Don't Fit Little Hands

For children (ages 1-6, possibly up to age 12) the placement of the thumb on existing kid's gloves is in the wrong place. It's apparent that manufacturers are making children’s gloves using the same pattern as adult gloves, only smaller. In fact, children’s hands are not simply smaller. They are different in that the space between the thumb and forefinger is not as long therefore, the thumb of the glove needs to be moved up toward the finger holes. You can easily see this when you put a glove on a child’s hand, they get their thumb in first and then their little fingers do not reach the proper placement through the finger holes. They usually go about half way, and the little finger does not get that far. This is of course, comes after the struggle to get their fingers in each hole at all, and we know because we struggled getting our little ones fingers in gloves because his fingers simply do not reach the holes!

The next big piece of this puzzle is that as parents, we can't see that our little one's fingers aren't reaching, so we keep trying to funnel them into those four little holes. Being able to completely open the back of the glove will do so many things!

• It will give our young children a visual, they can now see right where to put their fingers.
• With the thumb properly placed on the glove, their fingers will reach the holes they can see.
• Being able to open the back will alleviate the frustration of pulling the lining out of the glove when they take it off.
• We'll be able to properly clean the inside of the glove and also allow for sufficient air-flow for thorough drying.
• Finally, we will eliminate the emotional heartache that both parent and child feel when we have to struggle every single time we have to wear gloves (that one for me is worth the whole price of admission!).

Finally, we have opted to move the little finger on the glove down to properly fit a human hand. Most all snow gloves have all of our fingers entering the holes at the same time. Look at the the inside of your hand and tell me that your pinky finger is in a perfect line with your other three fingers. Likely not.

This idea was certainly born out of a need for toddlers, but the truth is everyone needs a cold weather glove that properly fits them. Men's hands and not all "big," and women's hands are not men's hands simply smaller. We plan to create real sizes in gloves for real human hands. The zipper in the back of the glove will provide for a more snug fit, thus being safer, more functional, and certainly more comfortable.

So, I now know why, and know from making my kitchen table prototype that the zipper will work, what do I do now?

Crazy Comparison

The gloves in the photo are a ladies large and a toddler extra small. They both measure 1 1/2 inches from thumb to forefinger entry. This is a picture of a toddler's glove on top of an adult ladies glove, showing this measurement is the same.

To read more, go to www.zipperbackgloves.com

Go to the Contact Us page (http://www.zipperbackgloves.com/Contact_Us.html) and send me your e-mail address. I'm building a database of interested parties as leverage to get our glvoes in the larger retail stores. I figure I have a better chance if I have a long list of people who want to buy1

I have an Idea!

Back in 2006, Dave and I were in Truckee, CA with Mason and wanted to share with him our love of the snow. We love to ski, sled, make snowmen, and just play. All I could find for Mason were mittens, but that seemed okay. It seemed okay until we got outside and within 5 minutes, he took them off. Thirty seconds later he was crying with cold hands.

What we found that day, little known to us at the time, is that little kids need functional gloves, not mittens. We also learned in the coming two years that there are no gloves that fit little kids hands. We thought Mason might be behind the curve since we couldn't get his fingers in the holes, and I certainly thought in 2006 and 2007, there had to be an innovative product in snow gear, specifically gloves, for little kids. In 2008, planning our annual trip to Truckee, the mom of one of Mason's friends informed me that her daughter hated the snow because they couldn't find gloves to fit her hands. She was 6 years old at the time! Certainly old enough to put a youth sized glove on. It was then that I recalled Dave struggling to get gloves on Mason's hands and at the time he said, "They should put a zipper in the back of these things." That recollection led to the invention of the WarmEase Zipperback Gloves for kids (http://www.zipperbackgloves.com/).

January 24, 2008 I embarked on the mission to first see if a zipper would make the hard turn on the back of a glove, and then to see if something like it existed. On my thrift store glove, with some duct tape, a zipper, a needle and thread, sitting and sewing at my kitchen table, I learned the zipper worked. Hours of Internet searches turned up nothing that a child could easily put on, certainly nothing with a zipper. This is how I invented the WarmEase Zipperback Glove.

Could it be that in 2008 a snow glove for kids doesn't exist? No. They do exist, but they don't fit. I discovered why they don't fit and I will explain that on Monday!

Wrapping Up July

Writing my entries for the month of July helped me to take an inventory of all the out of the box ways we can make our dollars stretch. I hope you got something out of it and more importantly, I hope you took some action and embraced a small change or two.

For August, we're going to change directions a little and I'm going to share with you my experience and education of bringing an idea to fruition, and a product to market. Please keep in mind, I'm not the mega success story yet, but rest assured, I will be.

I'll share with you my idea (actually, Dave and I have done this together, but for simplicity in writing, I'm writing this in the first person.), how I came up with it, why I finally chose to do something about it, and what I did. As I go through the steps, I'll also share all the great advice and mentoring I've received (some free, some not), and hopefully I can not only inspire you to get moving on your great idea, but share my resources as they're appropriate.

Of all my blog topics, I think this one will not only be interesting, worthy of sharing with your family and friends, but fun! Let's wind down the summer with something exciting and possibly your million dollar inspiration!

Use What You Already Have

This is one of those things I struggle to do. Use the stuff you have. I have a stash of body wash, shampoo, lotions, face creams, you name it. I probably could go months without having to buy health and beauty products.

Challenge yourself to take a quick inventory of the stuff you have in your bathroom cabinet, and then don't buy anything until you're completely out. It's not as easy as it sounds. You see the Sunday paper with the ads tempting you with buy one get one free, or 30% off the expensive drug store eye cream, it's easy to think you can't pass up the deal.

In reality, if you use the stuff you have until it's all gone, you will very likely save hundreds of dollars a year, and have less clutters around your house. This holds true for pantry items, cleaning supplies, and clothes! Yes, clothes, too.

Give it a try and you might find you like not having extra stuff everywhere. I'm fairly certain you'll like the extra cash in your wallet!

Recycle and Save!

There are many things you can recycle to others (like clothes your tired of), or use again yourself.

One suggestion came from our good friend Roberta, "Poor Man's Tupperware" as she calls it. It's the bowls that cottage cheese, sour cream, small yogurts, and sometimes sliced deli meats come in.

The one that deli meat comes in is Gladware, which I have now classified as "Middle Class Tupperware." The only thing I can see people having trouble with is knowing what's actually inside the bowl, that at a glance looks like cottage cheese. Don't let that stop you though, I can't tell what's in the actual (and expensive I might add) Tupperware I use!

I say, use the poor man's stuff for lunches, picnics, and when you need a really small container, that way, if you lose it or give it away, it's no big deal when you don't get it back! Recycle and Save!