Going big with bibs

Sometimes frustration is the mother of invention.

Take it from Mission’s Nicole Garza, a designer and rising mompreneur who’s the creative force behind Mally Bibs, a leather bib company.

Garza was feeding her 10-month-old daughter when a loaded spoonful missed its mark. The blob landed on little Malia’s shoe.“That’s the trouble with cloth bibs,” she thought, images of soiled bibs piled up in her laundry coming to mind. “Use them once and they never look new again.”

As Garza wiped the blob, she glanced at the clean, unstained shoe leather and realized: “That’s what bibs need to be made of.”

Garza, who had been trying to find a way to work from home, thought, “Maybe I can make a business out of this.”

She immediately began sourcing a leather supplier on the Internet, and soon after devising her first prototype, headed straight into product development. She hired a sewer while she concentrated on the designs.

That was June 2005. Three years, dozens of designs, and thousands of satisfied customers later, Garza’s home-based business has taken a significant next step: In June, Mally Bibs moved into a warehouse in Abbotsford and hired a half-dozen staff members.

She’s making the move now in large part because of advice gleaned from other successful B.C. businesswomen though the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs e-series program.

For six months, she hustled to Vancouver every Monday to soak up advice from guest lecturers on everything from human resources to marketing to finances. “That’s been a huge help,” she said last month, just days after graduation.

The most valuable part of the experience, apart from networking, was learning to have confidence in her own judgement and abilities.

Program director Kim Appleton says candidates are selected on the basis that they have potential to expand. “They’re planning to go big,” she says.

For the moment Garza is focused on getting settled in the new workplace, and hopes to continue growing her business at a steady rate and boost online sales through a new website.

Garza, a former interior designer at Ikea – a brand synonymous with utility and design – has learned the opinions of even her littlest customers matter. “If a bib looks boring,” she says, “children rip them off right away.”

Her bibs come in two adjustable sizes and close with a magnet clasp, which little hands find easier to tie than a snap or Velcro close. “That was always our cue: when our daughter put on her bib, we knew she was hungry,” Garza says.

Mally Bibs currently ships to 500 retail outlets across North America, most of them boutiques.

The company recently signed with a UK distributor, and this July will start selling an exclusive line of bibs to U.S. department store, Target. If the line sells well, it will be expanded to 1,600 Target stores.

Being a mom came in handy when landing that deal, Garza says: “They were looking specifically for products invented by parents.”