Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993 TAG: 9304080449
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ACCIDENTAL SUCCESS: WRONG DOOR LED TO RIGHT MOVE
Sometimes, you open the wrong door, and it turns out to be the right one. Brenda Dillon of Botetourt County found that out when she tried to find cardboard for a home craft project."It's an unusual story," she said. "It's like a fairy tale."
In June 1990, Dillon, her husband, David, and their five children moved into their home near Rainbow Forest. Her mother bought 17 sets of long, ruffled muslin curtains for the windows, and because they are so decorative, Dillon didn't want to spoil the look with blinds.
Although the neighboring houses aren't very close, Dillon said she felt "uncomfortable" at night with nothing on the windows. One night, while she was lying in bed, it occurred to her that putting a cardboard screen in the windows would be the perfect solution.
She had husband David, who works for a grocery chain, bring home a large piece of beige cardboard. Using a razor blade, she cut the outlines of a man in a top hat and a woman in a lace cap. When she was through, she had a row of the figures linked together by their hands and legs, like paper dolls. She then folded them up accordion-style, so that they could be compactly stored during the day when they weren't being used.
Dillon was so pleased with the results, she decided to make some for the rest of the windows, and for friends and family. She needed 300 sheets of cardboard, but when she contacted three local suppliers, they all told her she would have to buy an entire truckload.
But Dillon persisted in trying to buy a smaller amount. Finally, one supplier told her that they would sell her plain brown cardboard, and she could cover it with paper.
While she was looking for a paper supplier, she accidentally went into the wrong office and met just the right person. The woman - Dillon doesn't even remember her name - saw the prototype cutout that she was carrying and liked it.
The woman told Dillon she had grown up with Paul Higginbotham, vice president of Corrugated Container Corp., a local cardboard manufacturer, and that she would talk him into selling Dillon the cardboard she wanted.
Higginbotham agreed to see Dillon, but instead of selling her the cardboard, he offered to manufacture the shades for her.
"This was an unusual conception," Higginbotham said, but "we like working with small corporations. We like to grow with them." Dillon's product, he said, "is going to go over well."
Dillon applied for a patent and a copyright, and her company, BB Blinds was born. She named it for the nickname her nieces and nephews gave her. They have always called her "BB" she said, because they couldn't say "Brenda."
Dillon designed the shades in two sizes, 24-inch and 27-inch, and in two colors: white and beige. Another style has craft paper on one side that can be wallpapered or covered in fabric to match a room.
Dillon's business is spread all over her house. She keeps her samples in the living room, her files in the dining room, and of course, the product itself is in every window.
Although everyone who has seen the product seems to like it, it's hard to break into the market, Dillon said. Rather than selling to individuals, she is marketing the shades wholesale to specialty stores.
"There's no one place to go," she said. "So I sell a little here, a little there."
She has hired marketing representatives who have taken the product to trade shows, and have placed them in stores in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia. They are available at D&B Curtains, Cornerstone Country Collectibles and Morgan Discount Draperies.
Making the shades affordable is important to Dillon. She charges retailers $8.99 for each shade, and they mark the price up slightly.
Once she has sales figures from the specialty stores to show to retailers, she said, her representatives will try to market the product to chains such as Kmart and Wal-Mart.
For now, Dillon spends her time taking orders and shipping them from her home. Although she had the idea for the product last March, she said, the first samples went on sale in September, and she is not sure how well they are moving yet. But after 50 cases, she will have paid off her expenses and will start making a profit.
Once she is sure this design will sell, she said, she will start offering new styles and designs.
No one is more surprised by her success than Dillon herself. Some people, she said, dedicate their lives to marketing an idea. For her, "It just happened."
Nothing in her background prepared her to run a wholesale business, she said. Although she has always made things and drawing has been a hobby, she worked in banking before quitting to stay home and take care of her youngest - Olivia, 4.
"That lasted about a year and a half," she said.
She earned a Realtor's license and sold houses for two years. But when that business got so big that it took time away from her family, she quit selling. Soon afterward, she had the idea for the window shades.
"I have learned so much" about operating a business, she said, but in the end, "it was persistence" that made the idea a reality.
Brenda Dillon can be reached about BB Blinds by calling 977-0346.