And when inventor Marcia Hauflaire came to Anthony’s firm with an idea for a flushable, stand-up urinal for potty training boys, Anthony knew he had found that idea.
“Marcia had patented her idea and came to us for help in product design and taking it to market,” Anthony said.
Anthony and his partners at their Chicago-based consulting firm, Design Integrity Inc., then laid out a proposal to take the product — called the Peter Potty — and its parent, Visionaire Products Inc., to the next level.
Eventually, Anthony and his partners bought out Hauflaire, and today the company has several product lines, including the urinal and a potty seat, that are carried in smaller retail chains, Internet stores and catalogs.
This year, the company expects to land a major test market with a national retailer, Anthony said.
How did they get there?
In this case, growth was a necessity, both from their customers’ point of view, as well as retailers.
“It’s really hard to sell a one-product company to retailers,” Anthony said, noting the competitive world of retail shelf space that is typically dominated by a few major players.
At the same time, he saw that the age of American kids becoming trained was creeping up to beyond 3 years old, and he knew demand was growing for training help.
So the company focused on building the product line and secured a round of financing and a credit line from JPMorgan Chase aimed at taking the one-off product to the national level.
“When we talked to the bank, we focused on talking about the brand, not just the one product, and the mission to appeal to children and their parents that potty training can be done earlier and with less mess.”
When it comes to financing, most small companies get approved or rejected based on personal credit, but a solid business plan never hurts, said Kevin Watters, JPMorgan’s chief executive for business banking.
A carefully drafted business plan can show how a company envisions its growth path and how it will manage multiple streams of income without overreaching, he said.
Anthony said his partners’ enthusiasm for the category ultimately swayed both bankers and retailers.
“We were all at the age of having kids, and we all truly believed in this product,” he said. “After that, it was just a matter of showing retailers that the product would move and not just cannibalize other similar products.”
