From Startup Journal:
Caryl Parker is a weekend tennis enthusiast in San Mateo, Calif., who spent 16 years calling on customers for International Business Machines Corp. Eventually that stopped being fun, and it was incompatible with raising four children, so she left the work force for nearly a decade. But she wanted to get back, so last year she launched a tennis-equipment company in her dining room.
Ms. Parker targeted a tiny but lucrative market: the sticky “overgrips” that some tennis players wrap around their racket handles. Overgrips cost a few cents to make, yet they retail for about $2 each. Full of naïve optimism about her prospects, Ms. Parker hoped to turn a drab-looking product into a fashion accessory that might catch the public’s fancy.
Getting started, the 48-year-old Ms. Parker made plenty of blunders. A Taiwanese supplier sold her thousands of overgrips that were too slippery. Her monthly cellphone bill rocketed to $900 because she didn’t switch to a suitable calling plan. And her piecework assembly crew — her husband and four kids — briefly threatened to strike in a pay dispute.
Then, this past spring, everything clicked. Her Hawaiian-print overgrips became a surprise hit at dozens of tennis shops around the country. A new partner helped fix production snags. Now Ms. Parker’s company, HipGrips, is ringing up sales of at least $15,000 a month, while operating expenses are just half that amount.
