Your Name: Ashley Fox
Business Name: Infinity Headbands, a creator and manufacturer of headbands and hair accessories.
Type of Business: Children’s Goods & Services/Clothing & Accessories
Business Location: Florida, United States
Website www.infinityheadbands.com
Twitter @infinityheadban
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Infinity-Headbands/312553115435946?fref=ts
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/infinitybands/pins/
Reason for starting
My seven year old niece came up with a brilliant idea for an interchangeable fashion headband. After having missed several opportunities to develop great ideas into an actual product, my sister was not about to let that happen this time. She is very creative, but didn’t know much about marketing and sales – so she asked me to partner with her to make this product line a reality. While neither of us had any experience in product design/development, manufacturing, packaging, etc. we learned by doing. I saw every step of the way as a challenge to undertake and loved the fact that I was learning so much first hand. Meeting new people and making connections has always been a passion of mine and launching this business has allowed me to do that and continue to open new doors at every turn.
How do you define success?
I define success as reaching a goal that you’ve set while still maintaining balance and happiness in all areas of your life. I think that sometimes people can be so focused on achieving a goal in a certain area of their life that they neglect other areas and ultimately aren’t happy. For me, success would be having Infinity Headbands become a nationally known product/brand (loved and desired by girls who want to create their own style with fashion hair accessories) ~ all the while, not sacrificing the health and well-being of myself or my family.
Biggest Success
I believe our biggest success is yet to come! We take pride in every sale and especially when a retail store seeks us out to carry our product line. Because I am so passionate about this product and I want to let every girl who wears fashion hair accessories know about our line, I’ve enjoyed seeing the reach that media publications (newspapers, magazines) can have. Our largest sales jumps have occurred after articles have run and I consider those big successes. Ultimately we would like to have national coverage and get more people talking about us.
What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
Our top challenge has been finding automation for the cutting and sewing our ribbons. To date, this has all been done by hand. We have diligently searched for an American based facility capable of producing a quality product at a reasonable price. We continue to look, but have also been exploring options overseas.
Who is your most important role model?
I really look up to Lindsay Phillips. She is a local woman who took her idea and turned it into big business. She started with nothing and had to work tirelessly to get the word out about their product. Lindsay’s product SwitchFlops is similar to ours, in that it is more a concept (interchangeability) than a single product. Knowing first hand how difficult it can be to convey this idea to the consumer, I admire her tenacity and perseverance to keep going even when it was tough.