We were lucky to catch up with Alene DAlesio recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alene, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?
Vacations are a must for me. What else are we working for? Creating memories and having experiences with our family and friends is so important. I feel like it gives me something to look forward to and something to think about when i return. I feel like it also makes me a harder worker. Work hard. Play hard.
Alene, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a mom of 4 daughters, a board certified pediatric dentist and an entrepreneur at heart. I was fortunate enough to use my mom background and my dental background to develop and patent products to help kids get off a pacifier and sippy cup. I am most proud of the fact that my daughters get to see what hard work and determination are. They get to see that giving back to the community is so important and also how important it is to do what you love!
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Starting a business and trying to find the correct contacts in each company to pitch your idea was extremely difficult. Email addresses to most companies had the @companyname.com, so I would try to guess what the first part of the email name would be, such as [email protected]. Well, I googled the president of the company and looked him up online and found out he liked to surf, so I included that in the email and guess what he emailed me back! He got me in contact with the right people to pitch my idea because he told me my email caught his attention. I’m not suggesting doing this on a routine basis, but have fun and get creative when you feel your up against a brick wall!
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
My first product, I licensed to Fridababy, which is an incredible feeling to walk into Target and see a product you made to help families sitting on the shelves at Target! During the process of this first product, I learned so much, so when I was developing my second product to help kids get off a sippy cup, I wanted to see if I could do it on my own-which guess what-you can do anything if you put your mind to it! I had to find someone to make my prototype and find a manufacturer…how in the world was I going to do that? I just would talk about my products to anyone who would listen. Randomly one of the moms that our kids go to gymnastics together-has an entire family owned business that manufactures cups! She got me in contact with the right people that manufacture and then helped me with shipping. When the large palettes of 10,000 boxes arrived, I rented a large U-haul and loaded them onto the U-haul and drove home. It was quite the experience learning about the manufacturing process, testing process, labels to place on the cups to say if they are top-rack diswasher safe, BPA free, etc. I would say the biggest lesson I learned is do not be afraid to ask questions. I never was and I feel like the product came out how I intended it to.
Contact Info:
Instagram: @stickwithmecup
Image Credits
Fridababy