ELLAROO PART I

Success Through Play™ had the pleasure to speak with Vesta Hartman Garcia, owner of Ellaroo.


What was the inspiration behind creating your company: "Ellaroo" and how did you come up with the name?

Ellaroo was created in response to my needs as a retailer, when I owned Peppermint.com (one of the first retailers to focus solely on babywearing). I was having trouble sourcing high quality baby carriers in the styles that my customers were asking for. So I made them! We have since sold Peppermint.com, in order to focus on manufacturing. As for the name, our daughter's name is Ella and we combined that with Roo, as in kangaroo.

Can you tell us about the owners of Ellaroo?

Ellaroo is a privately-held family business, owned by Vesta Hartman Garcia and Jan Garcia Bosschaerts. Jan's background is in business and law, in his previous life in Mexico. Vesta's background, strangely enough, is in neurobiology. But with the experienced gained retailing and personally using baby carriers, Jan and Vesta have found a very comfortable business niche.

What does Ellaroo think are the main benefits of "Wearing your Baby"?

• Bonding - parents and newborns, adoptive parents and new babies, working parents at the end of the day, grandparents and little ones.

• Comfort - settling babies to sleep, comforting sick children, grounding babies in hectic public settings, nursing babies when and where they need it most.

• Convenience - pop baby in a carrier and do what you need to do, have no fear of stairs or subways, baby can participate in activities at adult eye level, who needs a stroller?

• Ergonomics (with well-designed carriers) - keep baby close to your center of gravity, there are designs for people with neck/shoulder/back problems, baby buckets are terrible for the parent's back.

What do you attribute the success of your company to?

Two things:

1. Ellaroo is a company committed to sustainability, from the fabrics we use to our business practices. I think that people appreciate supporting businesses that care what happens upstream and downstream from the point of sale. Consumers can make a difference in their purchasing decisions, but businesses have a chance to make an even greater impact because of the scale of our spending power.

2. Ellaroo focuses fully on the success of our customers, our retailers. We do everything we can to support them in serving their customers, from making 100% guaranteed quality products to not competing with them in the retail marketplace (we don't sell direct to consumers). Babywearing is like breastfeeding: you're most successful when you have a support network. Our retailers are our support network.

Stay tuned for Ellaroo Part II