Featured Business - Big Beautiful Dolls, Inc.
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Description: We are the manufacturers of the first plus-size
dolls representing 62% of the women who are size 14 and up. My partner
and I are parents and we run our business from home. I live in New Jersey
and she lives in Texas. The Business Corner By Audrey Bell Determination
Pays Eventually, So Don't Quit! Hello everyone. I want to share a story
with you about being determined and staying the course. Every week I write
about business, and bringing you tips on ways to start and run a business.
Most of you know that Milestone Publishing is my business. What you probably
don't know is that I have another business that I started 3 years ago.
It is Big Beautiful Dolls, Inc. I had an idea for a plus-size doll to represent
62% of the women who are a size 14 and up. I came up with this idea back
in 1999. Besides the labor pains when I was having my daughter, this was
the most painful project I have ever ventured into. My partner and I had
no clue how to manufacture a doll, so we did a lot of research and we found
out how to do it. The next problem we had was trying to find money to get
started, and let me tell you this. This was the most discouraging thing
I had ever had to do. So many people will disappoint you when you are starting
a business. Finally two friends and a family member gave us some money
to get started. Now we had the money to develop our prototype. The next
huge challenge was to get the manufacturing done. During this process we
made so many mistakes. We tried every way that we could to raise the money
for the dolls. We sent letters to family and friends asking them to pre
purchase the dolls and we received only three orders. We developed an investment
opportunity for people to get in on this with us and people sent letters
of interest, but never invested. I spent the summer of 2000 on Wall Street
in meetings trying to find investors, but because we had no knowledge of
the industry and we had just opened up a market for fat dolls that had
never been open before, they were afraid that the dolls would not sell.
So we could not get money from them either. Well by now we were totally
discouraged and just wanted to call it quits, but we had to much invested,
so we could not quit. In June 2001 I started Milestone Publishing because
I love books and to write so I figured that I would write a couple of books
and self-publish them to raise the money to get the dolls manufactured,
but guess what happened September of 2001? We got money to do manufacturing.
The dolls were produced and sent to us January 2002. After 2 and a half
years of struggling the dolls are finally taking off. People have been
buying them from our website and our 800 number. We have had so many people
who want to sell the dolls, so we set up a selling program. Our black doll
Dasia has been nominated for the Dolls Of Excellence Award, which will
be held in Washington DC on August 24, 2002. I won an award back in March
from New Jersey Association Of Women Business Owners. We have been on TV
with the dolls and Monique from the Parkers had the dolls on TV on Entertainment
tonight a few weeks ago. My inspiration for writing this article came when
I received our first international order. A man from London ordered four
(4) of our black dolls Dasia and that was exciting for me to know that
our dolls are going to be traveling to London. My message to you is this.
We were struggling so much, that it was real easy for us to give up and
quit, but instead we remained determined to make this thing work. Let me
say this to you, the thought crossed our minds many times.
We thought about selling the company on many occasions, but we just
could not let it go, because no one had the VISIOIN that we had for this
doll company. We have made history 3 times by building this company.
1. We were the first ones to develop a line of PLUS SIZE dolls like
these. The dolls come in Black, White and Hispanic.
2. We are 100 % woman owned
3. We are African American Women
The struggle has been long and hard and I am sure it is not over yet.
We are just beginning to take off, but if we would have quit and gave up
we never would have made it this far. The thing that I am most happy about
is the fact that we have made history. When I have grandchildren one day,
and they are reading old books and magazines, they will read about how
their grandmother started this doll company when she was 32 and grew it
into a Multi-Million Dollar Empire. This is a legacy that I will leave
for them when I am dead and gone. My Challenge To You. I Challenge You
To Start A Business And Make It Work. It will be tough, but if it is something
that you believe in you can make it work. It will just take a lot of hard
work and determination. I hope you enjoyed this article. Until Next Week
Start Making History Today! Leave Your Children A Legacy Audrey Audrey
Bell is the mother of a 11 year old daughter. She runs both Milestone Publishing
and Big Beautiful Dolls, Inc from home. She is the author of From Welfare
To Work To Entrepreneur: Profiting From Your Passion. She is also the co-author
of Designing Your Own Doll: From Concept To Product. To contact her you
can write to: Big Beautiful Dolls or Milestone Publishing 70 Elm St. West
Orange, NJ 07052 or email her at ajbk34@aol.com or visit her websites www.bigbeautifuldollsinc.com
or www.milestonepublishinc.com.
Deb Nyberg, Webmistress
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