Child safety startup passes the test
Houdini products take off after starting with a $30 prototype.
Monday, December 19 2011 || News || BY Andrea Fox, Businessday.co.nz
The 36-year-old mother of two could have given up when a door was shut in her face when she was trying to launch her first product, Houdini Stop, a device to prevent babies and toddlers getting out of car seats.
But she did not accept what she was being told and today is selling that product around the world.
The Houdini story started four years ago when, desperate to stop her nimble then-two-year-old, Jessica, wriggling out of her car seat, Richardson headed for a Spotlight store and her sewing machine, eventually coming up with a device involving webbing and bracer clips.
It worked so well, she was soon supplying them to friends, and then started some serious market research.
So far so good for a $30 initial outlay. Then she had to prove the device, which worked on all types of car seats, would not hinder the seat performance and was not a choking hazard.
It was at that stage the Houdini business could have drowned. Richardson said she was "misled" by informants in New Zealand – she won't elaborate – and was told among other things, that crash testing would cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars".
But she "pushed and pushed" her case and discovered that independent crash testing could be done by Autoliv in Melbourne, Australia, for $3000.
Houdini Stop passed the testing and took off. She has sold about 60,000 devices so far, but next week will sign a contract to provide a retail outlet in Australia with 5000 devices a month. In New Zealand they retail for about $14.95 in baby stores, she says.
Through her website, Trade Me, eBay and distributors, she now sells across the Tasman, in Britain, Ireland, Poland, Spain and working on entering the Brazil market. A small number of sales are made in the US, but that is not a market she is keen to develop much more because of a slew of laws and regulations. The device also works on high chair and stroller straps.
Born in the Waikato, but raised on a West Coast dairy farm where her family had to be "very practical" and inventive, Richardson has invented another two products, Houdini Locks and Houdini Cosys.
The locks keep disposable nappies on, avoiding nasty surprises when toddlers manage to get them off, and enabling them to be used even when their sticky tags have failed. For help to launch this product, Richardson turned to her former workplace ES Plastics, of Pukete, where her old boss, Jeff Sharp, guided her on the prototype development and manufacturing.
Houdini Cosys, to be launched in the new year, keep cot blankets in place.
Richardson is largely a one-woman operation, contracting out sewing and packaging, but doing all the assemblies herself. At the moment she spends about three hours a day in her business but demand on her time is likely to lift with the signing of the Australian contract. She will need to employ outworkers.
The business now has cashflow and it is making a profit, so Richardson can pay herself a decent wage and has funds for advertising, she says.
Profits have been reinvested in the business in order to build stock levels.
Richardson says a mentor from New Zealand Business Mentors has saved her "a lot of time" in helping ensure things are done properly at the start, and she credits Opportunity Hamilton for its support.
Her five-year business plan involved launching a new product each year so is on track. Her next big target market is Britain and she aims to get her product into Mothercare stores in Auckland and overseas.
Her message to budding entrepreneurs?
"Don't give up when someone says `no' to you. If you believe in your product, push forward. I had a door shut in my face, but I did."
Richardson expects to sell her business within a few years, but has no ambition as yet of being a serial entrepreneur.
