Stacey Kohler, Founder & CEO of Kiddy Crawler, was a new grandmother. And she was on a mission to find the Crawligator for her new granddaughter. Stacey remembered the Crawligator from her childhood and how it helped kids develop mobility and core strength.
She found an old one on ebay, and bought it. But that lead her to wonder what happened to this amazing toy. It turns out, it ended up in the dust bin, sort of like the toys in the movie Toy Story. Stacey revived the toy, found a way to manufacture it to today’s standards, and is rapidly growing her company.
Her story is one of persistence, determination, taking one step at a time, and asking for and finding help in many places. She shares her story on The Savvy Entrepreneur, and offers plenty of lessons learned for others starting out.
It’s a wonderful story, with a completely relatable founder, and one helping kids’ development.
Read a transcript of our interview below, or go here if you’d like to listen to the original interview!
Doris Nagel 0:42
Good morning everybody, and welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur show!
If you’re an entrepreneur, or a small businessperson, this show is for you!
I’m Doris Nagel, your host for the next hour.
I’m a serial entrepreneur. And I have bombed spectacularly, quite frankly, at many of my entrepreneurial ventures. But I’ve also counseled other entrepreneurs, both as a business consultant and as a SCORE mentor & subject matter expert, over the years.
I have made lots of mistakes, and I have seen lots of other people’s mistakes.
The goals of the show are to help other entrepreneurs not make some of those same mistakes. I also hope it will inspire you, because there are so many amazing entrepreneurs out there who are willing to share their stories.
And with me this week is one of those. Her name is Stacy Kohler. She’s the CEO and Founder of a company called Kiddie Crawler. It’s a local Chicago area business, and she’s here with me today to share the story of how she started and has grown that business.
She revived the Crawligator after 50 years of extinction. And she started the business as a new grandmother. Now this isn’t her first go around as an entrepreneur. She also invented something called the Sandbagger, which was featured on the cover of Government Product News, and because of that, she’s been written about in Entrepreneur and Crain’s Chicago Business, among other publications.
Her latest business venture, the Crawligator for babies, has been featured in Adventures Digest, and appeared on ABC World News Tonight with David Mears’ “Made in America”.
Stacey, thanks so much for being on the show this week. Welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur!
Stacey Kohler 3:02
Thank you, Doris. I am honored to be here with you today.
Doris Nagel
I’m honored to have you, Stacey. Talk a little bit about your business. What is Kiddie Crawler and the Crawligator?
Stacey Kohler 3:17
Kiddie Crawler is a woman-owned early-stage startup. Kiddy Crawler offers an innovative way to make tummy time fun while promoting natural crawling movements. We design and manufacture a high-quality developmental toy called the Crawligator for infants that provides mobility.
Doris Nagel 3:42
What made you want to start this business? I know you had a business called The Sandbagger in the past, but that’s a construction-related business, which is pretty far from an infant developmental product!
Stacey Kohler 4:01
The Crawligator was a toy that I remembered as a child growing up in the 60s. It belonged to my niece, and you know, it was I really never saw her play with this thing. It was just one of those things on the kitchen floor that you’re always kicking out of the way.
But for some strange reason, this funny little yellow toy stuck in the back of my head all these years. I can’t remember any other toy, but for some reason the Crawligator never left my mind.
When I became a grandma five years ago, I noticed my granddaughter was getting this flat head and I knew what it was from. It made me think about the Crawligator. Today we have kids with what’s known as plagiocephaly, also known as flat head syndrome. It’s from babies spending too much time on their back.
So I started to look for the crawl alligator. And nobody knew what I was talking about. I could find used ones you know on ebay for $150. But I wondered where I could buy a Crawligator today?
Doris Nagel 5:21
Stacy, let me interrupt you for just a sec. Maybe you can describe the crawl Gator to people. I saw one of your video segments, and that was so helpful. But since this is audio only, it might be harder for listeners to imagine what you’re talking about. Describe what the Crawligator is and how it works.
Stacey Kohler 5:41
I would describe the Crawligator as like a skateboard for a baby. The baby lays on this skateboard on their tummy, and it’s on wheels, but the Crawligator has a contoured surface, so it allows the child to rest comfortably cradled on it, and it allows them to move their arms and legs in a crawling motion.
Doris Nagel
So kids can propel themselves around that. It holds them securely in place, but they can pull themselves around, which I’m assuming helps with mobility and helps build strength and things like that?
Stacey Kohler 6:29
Yes, it provides the ability to have independence in mobility, whereas children before didn’t have that. They’re now able to interact with their siblings, and it develops gross motor skills.
There’s so much I didn’t realize before I started this. I didn’t understand how important crawling is to children. When I started to do my research, I became aware of studies showing the importance of crawling and showing that increased developmental delays are now common. Crawling is very important to children and cognitive development.
Doris Nagel
So you remembered this toy from your childhood and found a vintage one on eBay. How did you start connecting the dots about what happened to this toy, and how did you go about trying to revive it?
Stacey Kohler 7:38
You know, it was three years of research and development. A lot of my time was just spent researching the patents. I researched the original Crawligator through the patent office, and I found the design patent. I actually even called the original inventor, who is still alive in California today. I thought maybe he had some Crawligator in a storage unit somewhere that I could maybe buy one.
Doris Nagel
What happened to it? If it was such a cool thing, why did it fall into the bin of neglect?
Stacey Kohler 8:28
It sounds like the movie Toy Story, right? Off to the waste pile.
It turns out the inventor of the Crawligator had a license agreement with Creative Playthings. Creative Playthings was the company that came out with wooden blocks that had the letters on one side and maybe a puzzle picture on the other. They were based out in New York.
Creative Playthings got bought out by CBS Toys, which was a branch of CBS Broadcasting. And CBS Broadcasting was not really into manufacturing, or the toy business. So the product got shelved.
And this was before there were safety standards. I’m sure that there were a few accidents with this product, because you could tell by the original design that there was a lot of risk of kids running over their hands. And I think parents were not paying attention , kids probably fell down the stairs on this.
Anyway, the product got shelved. And that was the end of the Crawligator as we know it from those days.
What I discovered was that the patent had run its course — it had expired, and the trademark “Crawligator” was abandoned. And I thought, since I wanted to revive an old brand, I decided that keeping the original name was important to me.
And then has proven to be a good decision, because I have heard from so many grandparents who remember the original Crawligator from when their kids were little, And now they’re buying the new Crawligator for their grandchildren.
Doris Nagel
So you had a sort of prototype – you found an example of one. And the patent had expired, and the trademark was abandoned.
So naively, you might say, “Well, it should be easy to get started.” But I’m pretty sure that’s not quite the case. Talk a little bit about some of the early roadblocks.
Stacey Kohler 11:02
Well, for one thing, I learned that laboratory testing now is mandatory. All infant products and toys need laboratory testing. When the original Crawligator came out, there were no safety standards.
So I had to create my own roadmap in an uncharted territory. I found an association called the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association. And this is the association for most of the manufacturers who make car seats, strollers.
I joined as a new startup member, because this organization offered benefits to help companies develop their products, and they also offer safety testing. So I took advantage of every offer they had for companies that joined as a new business.
They offered attorneys, safety experts, marketing, and they have an annual trade show where they launch new products. So I was able to get a quote from a product development company that would take your idea, get you prototyping, get you laboratory testing.
I didn’t go with them, but I used that proposal as a roadmap of what I needed to do what this product had to achieve, so it would be eligible for marketing.
Then there was laboratory testing itself. I learned which laboratories test juvenile products, and it turned out that Intertek Laboratory in Arlington Heights was one of these third-party testing laboratories for juvenile products.
Doris Nagel
That’s convenient – as Chicago suburbs go, that’s a hop skip and a jump, as we say here in the Midwest. That’s one of the great things about being in a big metropolitan area like Chicago is that some of those resources are not too far away.
Stacey Kohler 13:13
When you are startup and you don’t have money, you have to be resourceful. You have to figure out a way to get there.
The proposal that I received from that company to do everything was $65,000. So I look at it as though I’ve saved myself $65,000. Plus, I learned how to get there myself, right? I can’t do this myself. But I know how to get there. Now I knew what I had to do to bring this product to market.
The laboratory testing step was definitely a challenge. But I just wasn’t going to give up. They were going to test, and I had a prototype now, and I took it to the laboratory.
But they wanted to test it to the infant walker standard. And I told them that wasn’t right. Because wouldn’t pass — it’s not an infant walker, okay. They would test it and my prototype would break. And I’d have to take it back to the factory and glue it back together again.
So I went back to the laboratory. And then they said, well, let’s test it to the ride-on toy standard. But I told them, but this isn’t a really a ride on toy. And they would test it, and it would break, and I would take it back to the factory and they would put it back together again.
Finally, through this process, the laboratory has determined that they should test to another standard, and that there was no standard for a Crawligator. There really is nothing else like it on the market to test it to.
So they decided to test the Crawligator to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s children’s product safety standard. And I was pretty sure that we were going to pass this test.
In addition to going through all the testing, I also did a design review with the Intertek Laboratory. This is something that costs extra in addition to your laboratory testing, but I knew that they would make recommendations that I needed to make it better. They helped me implement a braking mechanism, and I went through several more stages of prototyping for that as well. Because I couldn’t afford to make a $65,000 mistake on my tooling.
So now, the Crawligator has a braking mechanism which is like a gripping pad. And again, this was something that I learned through my research of the infant walker standard. I had an infant Walker in front of me, and there was this little piece on it as a gripping pad, but I couldn’t find the language in the patent anywhere. So I’m like, “What is this? And what is it called?” And again, through my research, I found it. But seriously, I spent every day researching things like that.
Doris Nagel
Those are some great examples of how things that seem quite simple are steps that sometimes turn out to be very costly. And they can certainly take a lot more time and money more than you ever imagined. And that’s probably true of a lot of different products that entrepreneurs are hoping to bring to market.
How did you decide how and where to manufacture this? What was that process like?
Stacey Kohler 16:44
I took my old vintage Crawligator that I got off at eBay and I started to look for factories. I went to ones close by that I could go to, to sit down and say, “This is what I have. And this is what I want to do with it.” I did probably source one from China, and a couple in Wisconsin. And then I found a close little shop right in Palatine. It’s a very small shop that was willing to work with me. Because I had no idea what a CAD file was. And I’ve never been really in manufacturing. I didn’t know what custom injection molding was, but they were willing to work with me. And you know, thank God for them because I wouldn’t be here without them.
Doris Nagel
I don’t know much either. Except that I know that molds for injection molding can often be fairly expensive.
Stacey Kohler 17:43
Yes. It was a $65,000 investment just to do the tooling and the mold for the Crawligator. And that’s not including the wheels!
Doris Nagel
You’ve talked about the manufacturing process and the kinds of regulatory requirements and standards that you need to meet. But obviously there’s all sorts of things, like marketing and selling. How did you marshal all the bits and pieces that you needed?
Stacey Kohler 18:29
I think it’s just one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. And you know, like you said earlier, the time requirement to get this is twice as long as you ever thought it was going to be, I had no idea it was going to be three years of research and development and prototyping and laboratory testing just to get it to proof of concept, right? And then, it was another two years to even start to get create awareness. And I’m not even competing against an already existing Crawligator, so I have to create awareness and let people know that it’s out there. And that takes time.
Doris Nagel
Did you did you ever lose hope? I mean, here you’re a new grandmother, and you were thinking this would be great for your grandchild. But you didn’t expect that she would be headed for high school before you would have a something she could use! I’m joking of course, but…
Stacey Kohler 19:22
Yes. She’ll be driving by the time I get it tomorrow.
I had no idea that this was really going to be a five-year development project. That’s longer than a college education.
But I didn’t lose hope. You just have to stay focused and determined and know that you will get there. Right. And learning to be patient has been, I think my biggest obstacle because I just thought this was going to happen in 18 months, but it doesn’t work that way.
Doris Nagel
What about the sales and marketing side of things? After going through the whole prototyping and creating the mold and finding a manufacturer now, now you finally have a product but that’s only part of the battle. Now you’ve got to find ways to sell it. So talk about that piece of the journey.
Stacey Kohler 20:19
My first opportunity to show this product was to the Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapists annual conference. And I really went to this trade show because it was more like a continuing education conference. But there was also a consumer-based trade show. But I just went to this because it was the first opportunity. I scraped every dollar I had to buy the booth and loaded up the car and drove there. And it sold out just like that!
That was my proof-of-concept event. That gave me the affirmation that this was more than just a toy. I wasn’t even thinking about pediatric physical therapists as a market. But they and again, these are young girls are still finishing their education. But that just gave me the validation that there is a real need for this. So my next and this was like November of 2018. So the next opportunity I had tradeshow wise was, and again, I didn’t have a lot of money for marketing. So I’m looking for trade shows I’m looking, because that’s all I knew from my previous experience with the crawler with the sandbagger was I would read that trade shows talk to trade shows a year, I mean, two trade shows a month. So I went to this next show available was called the juvenile product manufacturers associations annual trade show in Orlando. And I thought, well, this is a great place to launch a new product. And I entered this new product category award, and it won the Innovation Award. And now I have people coming to my booth saying, you know, what is your export price list? Do you need a manufacturer? Or am I? And I wasn’t prepared for that? Oh, wow, what’s an export price list? You know? And yes, I am factures Rep. So it just kind of took off from there I you know, it got a lot of a created a lot of awareness now to other juvenile product manufacturers looking at new products,
Doris Nagel
What’s your sales strategy these days? You probably have a number of different options. For example, you could find manufacturers reps, you could find distributors, you could hire a bunch of salespeople. And I guess you could do e commerce. So how did you sort through that process?
Stacey Kohler 23:06
By trial and error. You know, at first, I thought I would love to have a manufacturer’s rep or a distributor but selling to them at a significant discount eats away at your margins very quickly. And I learned that selling direct to consumer is the best way to go.
It helps as well to create awareness by selling on your website. And that was my goal. So I had to turn this ship around from selling through distributors and wholesalers at a 40% discount to bringing that revenue stream back to my website and going direct to the consumer.
So I’ve been focusing on direct to consumer by building collaborative relationships with experts, like pediatric physical therapists, as well as just your regular digital ecommerce marketing, like Google Ads and selling on Amazon. We all know Amazon’s a necessary evil.
Doris Nagel
It’s hard making money because via Amazon because they make it very difficult. I’m thinking about doing a whole segment on selling on Amazon because as you say, for a lot of businesses, it’s a necessary evil.
Stacey Kohler
I’d love to contribute on that one.
Doris Nagel
Selling direct is a challenge. You get all the revenue, but then you have more the expenses around marketing and customer service and things like that.
Are most of your buyers like pediatricians and pediatric therapists, are they just consumers, like Grandma, or a new mom who thinks it’s a great idea?
Stacey Kohler 25:07
I would say that 80% of my sales are coming through moms, and 20% are through the pediatric physical therapists. And a lot of the direct-to-consumer sales who are grandparents remember the original Crawligator. And they also, I think, recognize the importance of crawling, whereas a new mom might look at what we call these containers like infant walkers and bouncy seat. And swing. They’re just things that they’re more for convenience, right? But crawling is so important. And people are worried if their kids aren’t going to crawl, they’re not meeting their gross motor milestones. So grandparents are a very big purchaser of the pie,
Doris Nagel
I could see that it’s a great to give someone who has an event, right? Most kids today have so many toys, it’s difficult to buy a gift that’s unique and interesting. But this one would be, so I can see why it’s appealing.
How is your business grown since it started?
Stacey Kohler 26:29
We really launched about 28 months ago, and we just sold to our 12th country last week. So we have like over 4000, early adopters who are using the crawl alligator. And just you know, two days ago, I heard from a gentleman who lives in Australia ordered a crawl Alligator, and he was willing to pay $85 in shipping. And that was the best rate available to ship to Australia for a crawl alligator. So, you know, until I’m selling to Australia through Amazon. And again, to do that you have to have product testing, safety Step Safety testing in those countries. So I have to, you know, go through this a third-party testing laboratory to meet whatever requirements are in the Australia marketplace.
Doris Nagel
I’m guessing that requires some tough strategic decision making. As you say, it’s great that somebody in Australia has found you and wants one. And you think, I’ll just stick it in and slap a FedEx label on it. But there’s a lot to it, I’m gathering. I suppose you have to really look at whether Australia is a place where you think you’re going to be able to sell more and recoup some of those initial investment?
Stacey Kohler 27:56
Right. So part of our global marketing strategy is to find wholesalers or distributors in these countries. But that takes time. But 12 months from now – hopefully — we’ll have a distributor in Europe, in Australia, and in Canada, so that we can make it more affordable for people to buy this and not have to pay those heavy shipping costs.
Doris Nagel
The timing is also difficult, because shipping costs have gone up everywhere because of COVID, and the supply chain has been – I don’t want to say decimated — but it’s been pretty battered and bruised in a lot of places. Have you suffered from it, too?
Stacey Kohler 28:43
Oh, yes. It was really bad last year [2020]. Now it seems like it’s getting a little bit better. But shipping internationally last year was taking almost up to three months for a person in the Netherlands to get their Crawligator. So we’ve looked at other shipping options, comparing UPS to FedEx to the post office. Like you said, by the time the Crawligator arrives, the kid will be driving! So that’s why it’s so important to find a distributor in these countries. It’s just the cost of expansion. It’s growing pains.
Doris Nagel
Stacey, you’ve talked about some of the roadblocks you faced as a as a businesswoman — the prototyping, manufacturing, the testing, sales and marketing.
Talk about some of the personal challenges. I know you are a new grandmother and that resonated with me. There’s a lot of us who have a few gray hairs or are long in the teeth, as they used to say and yet we’re still thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and starting businesses.
Did you feel like age ever held you back? And second, I know you went through a tough personal time, too. I think that people will probably love to hear about some of those sides of your journey as well.
Stacey Kohler 30:08
I think starting a new venture later in life actually kept me young. I’m having to learn new things. When I came out of high school, we didn’t even have computers. And so it is a little tough and a little challenging. And I’m kind of behind the ball when it comes to Facebook and social media. But it has kept me younger. I mean, would I have rather just retired?
I would rather stay active and learn new things. I always look as this as a challenge, an opportunity to embrace something new. And trying to do this on your own later in life without having the support of a spouse is very challenging, too. But it just gives fuels my desire to reach my goal. It inspires me to work that much harder.
Doris Nagel
if you’re willing, I think it would be interesting to share a little of your personal circumstance. You were involved in inventing the Sandbagger, and from my research, it seemed wildly successful. So that should have set you up for life, right?
Stacey Kohler 31:34
Right. The Sandbagger was easy back then, because I had support of a husband and I had secretarial support as well. So I was able to just get out there and sell and be on the road and go to every National Guard annual conference to help make the Sandbagger a legislative priority.
I was married 35 years, and on our 35th wedding anniversary, we got divorced. But I looked at that as something that actually gave me more motivation to want to work harder, stay focused, and just keep me on track. The Crawligator gave me something to stay focused on. And if you want to consider it as a distraction from what was really going on, then it was a great thing for me to just continue to push forward.
Doris Nagel
I love your story, because I think there’s an awful lot of folks who are older, who would like to still be contributors. And let’s face it, it is often difficult for people in their 50s and 60s to find meaningful work in companies. There is definitely age discrimination.
So I think there’s a lot of folks who are, who are older and have a lot of experience that would like to maybe follow their dream. I know a lot of people have thought about creating their own business and you reach a point in your life, maybe your 50s or 60s, where you say, “If not now, when?”
Similarly, I think there’s are a lot of women out there who are now struggling financially and are picking up the pieces of, of whatever bad things have happened in their life.
I find your story so inspiring.
Stacey Kohler 34:13
Well, thank you, Doris. And as for your comment about struggling financially, I always told myself, that not having money should not be an excuse for not doing this.
In fact, I see it as an advantage. When you don’t have money, you can’t make a mistake. When you don’t have money, you have to think outside the box and figure out how can I get this done without money.
I’ve worked on this project for three years, and every day, I start my day by asking, “What can I do today to move this project forward that doesn’t cost money?” Because I didn’t have money.
But I continue to stay focused. A lot of times, what I accomplished was just research: “Look what I discovered today. Look at what I learned about why the Crawligator is so important. Look at this great Association I found who offers these wonderful benefits.”
Doris Nagel
You’ve already given a couple of examples of how you were creative about it, but I’m sure there are others.
Share a story or two of how you maybe took a less traditional path or found a way to do something that just didn’t cost as much or maybe even was free.
Stacey Kohler 35:34
You’ll love this one! So, it’s the Friday before Christmas in 2019. I’d been struggling to grow this Crawligator toy. And I’m a little bummed out, because my Amazon sales weren’t what I was hoping they would be. And because of that, I really didn’t have money for the Facebook advertising I wanted to do.
So I thought, “What if I just go over to Bass Pro and stand in line. I’ll have Santa hold the Crawligator, and I’ll take a picture and I’ll post that on Facebook.”
So I get to Bass Pro, and of course, Santa is out to lunch. So I wait 20 minutes, and Santa comes back from lunch. And I get up there and I have Santa hold the Crawligator and I take my picture, and I think, “Mission accomplished!”
But then as I’m headed out to my car in the parking lot, my phone rings with a 201 area code. And I always answer my phone. I just said “Hello,” although I should’ve said, “Hello, this is the Crawligator.” Because on the phone was a voice saying, “This is so and so from ABC World News tonight. We just got your story from one of our viewers, and we would like to put you on tonight.”
And I’m thinking to myself, “Holy crap! Did he just say tonight??” Because it was already one o’clock in the afternoon, which means it’s two o’clock in New York. But I’m ecstatic, because it was World News Tonight with David Muir calling. And I love watching the Made in America segment, when the company gets together, and they hold up the little flag.
And so I was so excited I couldn’t even like think straight. I’m driving down the road and trying to call people, but nobody’s answering their phone!
Meanwhile, David Muir’s office is telling me what he would like me to do. He wanted me to make a B roll and a video at the factory showing them making the product! But when I get to the factory, everybody’s done home. It’s the Friday before Christmas. So I couldn’t fake it if I wanted to. There’s nobody there. Plus the factories in disarray because they were moving machinery around and it’s just a mess there.
So now people are coming back from lunch and I’m all excited. I’m like I’m walking in circles because I just can’t even think straight because I’m just so excited. I have no idea what a B roll is right? I don’t even have Dropbox on my phone. And the guys at the factory are looking at me like, “Go away!” and I just wanted to choke them because I’m like, “Don’t you understand this is World News Tonight with David Muir??”
But I was determined this was going to happen. So I just had to calm myself down and take a deep breath and just say you know you’re going to make this happen this is an opportunity of a lifetime This is a Christmas miracle. And whatever it takes, I’m going to make this happen. Minutes seemed like hours and so I’m like waiting for this Dropbox to download on my phone and I’m trying to just gather any video that I have shot on my phone or my iPad that I can send to this producer. And one of my mentors is saying. “Well geez, Stacey! Ask him to give you until Monday!”
But they said no, this was the last day that were running this segment. The last episode was all about those special Christmas gifts Made in America. And so that I mean the end even up until 15 minutes before they went live. That producer is still asking me questions like what’s the name of the little boy in the video? Did I know him? And I’m telling him, “No, I don’t know him, but I know his name is Paul.”
But then when it went live, my phone blew up, because I have my phone synced with my web site!
Doris Nagel
It’s like “Miracle on 34th Street!”
Stacey Kohler 39:32
It was! I swear, you could make a movie out of my whole story!
So my phone is blowing up constantly. From that little 30-second spot, I got 400 orders! And I would say majority of them came from grandparents.
And then it was just me in the factory. People didn’t expect to get their order by Christmas, right. Because nobody else was there at the factory. But I wanted to do the best I could to get them their orders. So up till two or three in the morning printing off packing slips and shipping labels, because I didn’t even have a label printer. I didn’t have the forethought to think what was going to happen when orders started rolling in. It just happened so fast that I didn’t have time to plan.
I was just in reactive mode, trying to get all the orders out. I would be up at the factory at five o’clock in the morning, taping labels and packing slips to these boxes to get them. And then I had to hire a friend with a pickup truck to get them to the post office because I didn’t have enough time to plan a scheduled pickup by the post office
And remember, this is now Saturday and Sunday right before Christmas. But what a great story, and a wonderful experience!
Doris Nagel
What’s been the hardest thing about starting up this business?
Stacey Kohler 40:59
Learning to be patient, and to ride those emotional highs and lows of entrepreneurship.
Because it can be a lonely journey. They always say that, but you don’t really realize it until you are in it. And you’re thinking, “Heck, if I had known it was going to take me this long…. Or if I had known it was going to take three times as much money as I thought….” I think I just thought this was going to happen all by itself. I thought I could do this on $2500 and it would just kind of take off.
Well, it doesn’t work that way. There’s a lot to it. For example, in the old days, we used to do direct mail marketing and go to trade shows. Well, now with COVID, there are no trade shows and direct mail marketing is long over. And it’s all about social media, right?
Doris Nagel
Right. That’s a very different world.
What’s been the best part about starting this business?
Stacey Kohler 41:55
I would say the emotional highs and lows. The best part is the rewarding feeling when I see that the Crawligator has made a difference in some kids lives. There are a lot of kids with developmental delays and special needs where they never had mobility before the Crawligator.
Doris Nagel
Do you ever get notes or videos from customers?
Stacey Kohler 42:44
Yes, I do get notes from customers. People are very protective of their video these days, so they’re not always willing to share that because of privacy concerns.
But I do get lots of notes. There are kids with cerebral palsy and what, what devices they’re using now look very uncomfortable, right? They almost are hard to watch. And then you see the child lay on the crawl alligator, they’re smiling because they now have mobility for the first time. They’re interacting with their siblings, so it supports independence that they didn’t have this before.
I ask pediatric physical therapists why we have these conditions today that we didn’t have 30 or 40 years ago? You know, now we have kids with low tone? How did this happen? Normally, they will grow out of it, but it’s a developmental delay. Low tone means they have low muscle tone. And when you watch these kids, they just don’t have the muscle strength to even crawl and they just sit there.
So the Crawligator will help them with independence, help build strength. You know, I heard from one pediatric physical therapist the other day, who told me she doesn’t use the Crawligator for crawling. I asked, “Well then, what are you doing with it?”
She told me that the Crawligator teaches the child to support their head. It helps them learning to build muscles in their neck and their core muscles. So it’s more about helping the child learn to turn their head from left to right for children with low tone, which in some cases is a genetic disorder. But I thought it very interesting that she wasn’t even using it for crawling.
Doris Nagel
Where do you find inspiration when you hit the inevitable roadblocks?
Stacey Kohler 44:35
I think it’s knowing the value that the Crawligator brings to children – it gives me validation. It gives me a sense of purpose, knowing that this really makes a difference in kids’ lives. And when I look around whatever everybody else is going through, my challenges or struggles are nothing compared to them.
So that’s really kind of what keeps me motivated and inspired to push forward even when times are tough. I feel like it’s a lonely road, but I’m just learning to get through these challenges and overcome these struggles. They will just make me stronger coming out the other side.
Doris Nagel
What’s next for your business? Where do you see it growing, and what it will look like three years from now if you’re successful?
Stacey Kohler 45:28
Three years from now, we’ll be selling around the world we’ll have distributors set up to ship to in 5, 6, or 7 countries. And hopefully I’ll be able to exit and retire comfortably.
Doris Nagel
That’s interesting. You ask a lot of entrepreneurs about their exit plan, and many don’t want to think about exits, because they are so enjoying the process of growing it. But you know, the reality for people of our age group, Stacey, is that’s something you have to think about it. I would argue, frankly, that even the 25-year-old building a business in his or her garage needs to think about an exit.
I always say you need to begin with the end in mind. You need to know where the bus is going. You will be making strategic decisions along the way about getting your bus where it wants to go.
So what would it actually look like for you?
Stacey Kohler 46:36
I’ve thought about that. And I think it’s going to be a very easy exit.
I like the way you use the bus as an analogy, because if you don’t know where you’re headed, you might miss your exit, right? And I used that analogy the other day. I thought, “I think I found a comfortable spot to park my bus.”
So my exit strategy is to build this to a multimillion-dollar company and sell it as a product line by out to one of the top 12 juvenile product manufacturers or toy companies.
Doris Nagel
I could see that too. And, given what you’ve accomplished in your life, and with developing the Crawligator, I have no doubt you’ll make that happen.
Looking back on your journey, what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs who are just starting out, especially women entrepreneurs?
Stacey Kohler 47:35
I would say find a couple of good mentors. I credit my mentors with where I’ve gotten, and I’m still working with my mentors, going on four years now. I sometimes wonder why do they continue to support me, but I think it’s because they appreciate my enthusiasm and my effort, right? If I wasn’t giving it 100%, they wouldn’t want to volunteer their time to me.
But it’s always good to have support, to surround yourself with great support network. And so I’ve been able to find great mentors. I’ll give SCORE a little plug there.
And reaching outside my network. I’m learning to network with other female entrepreneurs. As female entrepreneurs, we need to support each other. And I think we do this much better than men. And when it comes to networking, and supporting other female founders, we’re much more generous about sharing, whereas I think men often make things a competition.
Doris Nagel
It certainly is important for women to network. I just saw a study that said that the amount of venture capital that goes to women owned businesses has actually dropped in the past year from something like 2.9% to 2.3%. I guess that doesn’t sound like a big drop, but it still means less than 3% of venture capital goes to women. That’s appalling in today’s environment. It’s hard to fathom how that happens.
Stacey Kohler 49:29
I thought the same thing. If I were a man, I would have a whole different attitude toward this. But I think female founders like to network with other female founders, and they’re more willing to share and support each other, mentor each other. Maybe that’s just our nurturing character as women and mothers.
Doris Nagel
Stacey, if people are interested in the Crawligator, or maybe they want to tap into your story, or maybe they just are a fellow female entrepreneur, just looking for advice and bounce ideas off of what’s the best way to reach you, or to buy your product?
Stacey Kohler
I’d love to offer advice or any kind of information or insight to other female founders. You can always reach me through info@crawligator.com, or via Instagram.
Doris Nagel
And people can buy the product on your website, right?
Stacey Kohler
Yes, please buy the product on the website and not Amazon! The website is www.crawligator.com.
Doris Nagel
Stacey, thank you so much for being on the show this week. It was really a delight having you Your story is so inspiring. And I hope lots of folks found it inspirational as well.
Stacey Kohler
Thank you, Doris. The pleasure was all mine.
Doris Nagel
That’s our show for this week, folks. Thank you so much for listening.
You can find more helpful information resources on my website at my consulting website, globalocityservices com, or my new radio show site, www.thesavvyentrepreneur.org, where there’s a library of free blogs, tools, podcasts and other resources.
I’d love to hear from you. My door is always open for comments, questions, suggestions or just to shoot the breeze. Email me at dnagel@thesavvyentrepreneur.org. I promise you’ll always get an answer back.
Be sure to join me again next Saturday at 11am Central/noon Eastern time.
But until then, I’m Doris Nagel, wishing you happy entrepreneuring!
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