Donna Hougland
Inventor of Flowspoon.
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Website: | http://www.flowspoon.com/ |
| Industries: | Food and Drink, Health, Retail |
| Next step: | I will choose an investor or equity partner based on their appreciation for my paced execution. I'm poised to act with full amplitude upon reaching an agreement with an individual or company w/ experience & integrity.
My goals: • Protect the proprietary innovation of my product. • Leverage the potential intl value of my product. • Become the sole and then the leading company to provide a transitional weening spoon. • Become an enduring and ensconced brand.* * http://bit.ly/Kleenex1 |
| Location: | Portland, OR |
| Interested in: | Brainstorming, Finding business partners, Finding cofounders, Finding mentors, Finding team mates, Getting press, Giving back, Meeting new people, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Raising money, Receiving feedback, Recruiting for my startup |
| Tags: | baby |
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Knuble, Portland |
| Position: | Founder |
| Time period: | October 2008 - Present |
| Description: | The product: The Flowspoon, designed to help babies transition from liquid to semisolid food.
How it works: Food placed on the spoon is sucked through a hole at the end. What stage? About 5,000 packaged Flowspoons are being stored in the founder's dining room. They're being sold on Amazon.com and on her Web site. Retail price: $7.99 The founder: Donna Hougland, 48, was born in Southern California and held her first job in a day-care center in Aspen, Colo. When that center closed in 1981 she took care of three babies at one of the mothers' homes. Since then she's worked for 20 years as a professional nanny, and counts Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon among her former employers. Employees: Just Hougland. She works as a nanny two days a week and spends the rest her time running the company. Where she works: In her Southwest Portland studio apartment, using her kitchen table as an office desk. The idea source: While taking care of a 6-month-old baby who got frustrated trying to suck baby cereal off a spoon, Hougland used clear packaging tape to make a spoon with a hole at its tip. "It worked like magic", she said. Realizing she had an idea that could be commercialized, she spent six years searching for a designer who agreed that the spoon could be made as one piece. She found Jeff Miller, director of Development Works in Portland, who helped her design the mold and arranged to have to Flowspoon manufactured in China. The name: Knubie, comes from newbie, representing both a person new to an endeavor (Hougland) and a young child (users of the company's product). Hougland added a K because she thought the result seemed Scandinavian. The money: Hougland's father invested $10,000 to develop two pending patents. Hougland used personal savings and loans to raise another $15,000 to create the mold design and have the first 5,000 Flowspoon made and packaged. Her dream: To sell world-wide and move production to the United States, employing Americans. Her fear: That the slow pace of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office will delay sales in foreign countries. Web site: flowspoon.com |
PUBLICATIONS
| Patents: | pending |
Donna's Startups (1)
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Flowspoon
Flowspoon is the only baby spoon designed to effortlessly transition baby from bottle or breast feeding to spoon feeding. Flowspoon minimizes the introduction of air that may aggravate reflux.
Donna's Contacts (2)
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Dan Steketee
Entrepeneur with 13+ years of strategic and tactical consulting experience in the financial services, start-up and technology industries (BPM, Business Intelligence, KPI's,, Vendor Management, etc) .
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