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Partners making splash in bath toys market
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 As
business partners go, Rebecca Finell, 30, and Ryan Fernandez, 31,
are a match made in heaven - or at least church, where they met
in 2004 when their children began playing together.
Fernandez, then a sales and marketing executive at Intel Corp.,
was looking for a business venture and needed a product to market.
Finell, a student in Arizona State University's industrial design
program, had a product to launch but no marketing expertise.
A year earlier as her junior studio project at ASU, Finell had
developed the Frog Pod - a bright green, frog-shaped, wall-mounted
device for scooping, rinsing, draining and storing bath toys. The
Frog Pod won the 2004 Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association
Student Design Competition. advertisement
When they met, Finell and Fernandez were each about a week away
from inking deals that would have taken them in different directions,
but with the blessing of their families they instead co-founded
Boon Inc., a Tempe-based company that creates children's products
with a sophisticated sense of style.
Such products are a boon to parents, explained Finell, who designed
the Frog Pod in part because she had a hard time finding both fun
and functional "things that I would want to put in my house."
"It all happened very quickly," said Finell, Boon's design
principal. "But each of us knew the skill set we were looking
for, and we knew we'd found it."
Chief executive officer Fernandez said they "could never have
foreseen" the dynamic working relationship they've cultivated.
The pair spent $500,000 to start up Boon and begin manufacturing
the Frog Pod, which so far has been sold nationwide at 300 specialty
stores and even internationally via 40 online retailers. They took
the Frog Pod to the 2005 Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association
trade show, where it won the Innovation Award and caught the eye
of buyers from Target. "That was our coming-out party,"
Fernandez said.
Indeed, Target executives were so taken with the Frog Pod that
they not only procured the product for sale at the retail giant's
1,400 U.S. stores, but they asked Boon Inc. to design a line of
children's bath products to go with it.
As a result, the Frog Pod and another Boon item, the Potty Bench,
both make their debut April 15 at Target, where they'll be positioned
at several of the store's highly prized end caps.
Three more Boon products-a tub-faucet cover, a tub-side seat for
parents and a high chair-will join the first two on shelves at Target
and other stores (including Babies "R" Us) by the end
of the year.
Finell and Fernandez said that Boon Inc. will turn a profit at
the end of the first quarter this year, and that the company's projected
sales for 2006 are $7 million to $10 million. Their long-term goal
is to have 40 products developed by 2011.
Of course, they've cleared a few hurdles as they've hurtled briskly
along Boon's fast track toward success: They made a "very stressful"
trip to China, where they moved manufacturing operations from one
factory to another. And when the Small Business Administration loan
process fizzled out on them, they managed to secure a $1.2 million
conventional loan and another $300,000 investment to continue developing
new products.
In May, Boon Inc. will again attend the Juvenile Products Manufacturers
Association trade show, where Finell and Fernandez said they hope
to make a standout second impression.
"We're ready to blow some people's socks off again,"
Fernandez said. "We're not a one-product company anymore."
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/tempe/articles/0405tr-boon0405Z10.html
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