Former Tennessee women's basketball player Michelle Marciniak and Susan Walvius were talking about the comfort and feel of a pair of athletic shorts. Walvius, then the coach at South Carolina, said, "I'd love to sleep in this stuff."
Marciniak, a Gamecocks assistant coach, replied: "Let's do it."
Well, that was easy.
"A lot of people have great ideas,'' Marciniak said. "But it takes that next step. How do you do that? How do you bring it to life?"
That's not so easy, especially for two women who were coaches, not entrepreneurs.
Marciniak, the MVP of the Final Four in 1996, described the time and effort involved with creating substance out of their aformentioned conversation in 2007 as "enormous." The return on their investment is turning out to be pretty big as well.
Their company, SHEEX, Inc., produces bedding crafted from performance athletic fabrics and engineered to enhance the quality of people's sleep. The company has partnered with the National Sleep Foundation and is now available in 853 Bed Bath & Beyond stores nationwide.
Walvius and Marciniak no longer are coach and assistant coach. Instead, they're business partners who have learned to complement each other in their shared venture.
"Michelle is probably more like Pat Summitt,'' said Walvius, referring to Tennessee's coach, "in your face, no tolerance at all. I talk people through things.
"... I'm a processor. She relies on her instincts, and they're good instincts."
Marciniak related the personal investment to her Tennessee hoops career and the demands of playing for an ambitious program.
"You have those days when you walk away from practice and you think, 'I don't know if I can do this anymore.' " she said. "You always get up the next day and you always show up at practice. You lace 'em up. You don't quit."
For Marciniak and Walvius, such determination has equated to making another phone call, making a new contact or revisiting someone in search of expertise.
For example, Marciniak described the search for their chosen fabric as if they were searching for a missing person.
"Any fabric out there is not proprietary,'' she said. "But it's kind of a secret world. It's like "I'm not helping you with anything.' "
The manufacturing side of their enterprise wasn't so cloistered but it was no less frustrating. They rejected countless samples, some with garish gold trim, before finding the right factory.
Athletes constitute an obvious clientele, since they can relate best to the fabric's breathe-ability and temperature control and will grasp for any edge in their performance. Several professionals offer their endorsements on the company's website.
Using the word "performance" in relation to their bedding in a recent online blog opened another market - men interested in a better sexual experience. They initiated a sudden online run on the product.
"It cracked us up,'' Marciniak said. "Our blackberries were buzzing for two days. Jay Leno would have a field day with this."
Better sleep is the main idea, along with becoming the best company. A line of sleepwear is in the works to go with their bedding. Marciniak, the entrepreneur, still sounded very much like a former player and coach in saying: "We're not trying to win a couple of games. We're playing for a championship."
沒有留言:
張貼留言