Panty Pinata Party

SleepPhones Owner Helps Panty Pinata Entrepreneur

That's actually my baby in Heather's arms. Her baby is being floated around with her friends.

Through the local Small Business Development Center in Centre County, PA, I was introduced to Heather as a model for a small business that starts in a home. Heather's business is www.pantypinata.com. When we started 5 years ago with SleepPhones, I was sewing them and my husband soldered the speakers on the kitchen table. Then as we grew, we hired employees to sew. When we outgrew that, we contracted out to a local sewing company and retained our employees to do other tasks. We learned a lot through the process of growing organically, making large strides but not jumping too far ahead of ourselves.

Heather is a very talented, stylish, focused, and organized entrepreneur. She's a mommy too to a 9-month-old. She wanted to have a home-based business so she could stay home with her baby, just like me. But I think she's further ahead than where I was... Her website looks beautiful, she's got a great message, and she's got employees who know what they are doing and are vested in helping her succeed! All of that within a year — with pregnancy and a baby, which took me 2 years to accomplish working part-time.

I helped to advise her on how to organize her employees, paying piece rate, what that means, and defining a process for manufacturing. Now I feel like I'm learning from her on how to hire the right people and companies to help. She's very good at outsourcing defined needs, like having a contest for the pinata design, finding the right website designer, or hiring a yummy cateror for her party. I'm also impressed with her husband's support and investment. He built most of the woodwork you see in the picture below. My husband is great with helping me see the big picture, and he does all of our IT stuff.

You can see all of the almost finished products hanging in the background!

In any case, I'm writing this blog entry because Heather had a party tonight to celebrate everyone who has helped her get to her current pre-launch stage! She does have lots of product available now, so if you are reading this and want to buy, she's ready to sell her Panty Pinatas!

Lots of babies!

Pulling the strings on the pinata.

Picking up the goodies!