There are two groups of people I find interesting, actually three groups, writers, entrepreneurs, and everyone else so when I “met” Kara Lennox, Harlequin Author and Inventor of Memo-Pause, a functional yet fashionable notepad, I knew I’d have to drain her brain.
How did she get the idea for Memo-Pause?
“Whenever I'm under a lot of stress, I can't seem to remember anything without writing it down. So I tied a notebook around my neck. That way I can jot down a phone number or an item for my shopping list, and later can actually find it.
The notebook was functional, but ugly. At lunch one day, my stylish friend Becky told me I should "tart it up." "Make it pretty," she said. "You could hang it from a beaded necklace, and even have a different color notebook for every outfit. I might even wear one if it was pretty enough." She even suggested I could make the notebook/necklaces and sell them to other forgetful women. We decided to call this mythical product Memo-Pause, and we laughed until iced tea came out our noses. (If you're a woman of a certain age, you probably get the joke.)
I blogged about this incident simply because it was amusing, but I received an outpouring of interest from my blog readers--lots of comments and e-mails from people I didn't even know, saying that if such a product were available, they would buy it. That is what pushed me from the "thinking about it" stage to actually building a prototype. Once I started wearing it around, everyone wanted one. So I decided, what the heck, and I went into production. The venture just mushroomed from there.”
Yeah for grassroots marketing! Build a good enough product, show it off, and the sales will come.
To take a peek at samples (gorgeous), go to http://www.memo-pause.com/ . Note: If you have your eye on one, order sooner rather than later. The designs switch up with available material.