Millionaire mom turns embarrassment into fortune
Steve Harvey highlighted a millionaire mom named Amy Creel on his talk show Monday. She's responsible for inventing the Teething Bling: jewelry made out of the same stuff as teething toys. Perfectly safe for babies to nom on. Turns out it was humiliation that led her to the idea.
"I was sitting in church, my younger daughter was a baby and I was wearing like a cheap necklace," Creel said. "She yanked it and the whole thing broke ... I was so mortified, I still blush, thinking about it."
What happened was played up by The Huffington Post, whose writer says some might call it a "God given" moment. But that doesn't mean Amy's journey was easy.
HuffPost writes, "Amy went to the internet and found the material she needed. Now it was just a matter of having prototypes made up from her sketches. A few more clicks and she found a list of companies that seemed to be the perfect fit -- if only they would talk with her."
Amy kept at it, and eventually found a manufacturer. She headed to trade shows with her product. Amy had ups-and-downs like any growing business, but support of mommy bloggers and more helped.
Head over to YouTube, for example, and you can find tons of moms reviewing Teething Bling, and no one seems to be complaining.
People tend to be fascinated with these moms-to-riches stories: Books have been written about moms who have turned ideas into dollar signs. Stephenie Meyer is one famous example; the stay-at-home mom wrote the "Twilight" saga. According to Meyers' bio, she had a dream and couldn't shake it, so she turned it into a novel.
And then there's Sara Blakely, the creator of Spanx. She turned into a billionaire mom. Yes, with a 'b.' "Women literally are incredibly emotionally impacted and moved by our brand," Blakely said.
Nowadays, Teething Bling is for sale through major outlets like WalMart, Buy Buy Baby and Amazon.
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