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May 29, 2006

Diaper delivery | A chat with Jennifer Moore Temple, owner of Buzzie Bee Diapers in Rockland.

By Whit Richardson
Founded: October 2005
Employees: One
Startup costs: $18,000
Projected revenues, year one: $16,000
Projected revenues, year two: $22,000
Contact: 542-0505
22 Masonic St., Rockland 04841
www.buzziebee.com

Tell me about Buzzie Bee Diapers.
We are a cloth diaper service and supply company. There hasn't actually been a diaper service in Rockland for about 10 years. We offer pickup and delivery of freshly laundered cloth diapers. I pick up the diapers once a week. I go all the way down to Damariscotta and up to Belfast. I pick up their diapers, I drop off their clean ones, and the dirty diapers come back here and are laundered, sanitized and brought back on a weekly basis.

Why cloth diapers?
My husband and me, part of our philosophy on life is to do things intentionally, and with the intent to keep the world a better place for our children. One of the biggest benefits of using cloth diapers, besides the environmental one, is that babies tend to potty train a good six to 10 months sooner. So for people who don't like changing diapers it'd be great to be done with it a year earlier.

What prompted you to start your business?
I worked for MBNA when we first moved here a couple years ago, and then they closed the Rockland site. I have a background in social service and theater, so I was working at MBNA for the excellent benefits, not because I have a career in banking. But when they closed we had the advantage of a severance and some business counseling and some time to really plan.

Was it difficult to launch the business?
I actually took a [business development] class with [the Maine Centers for] Women, Work and Community, so I had a lot of support from my classmates, the instructor and from the organization as far as writing the business plan. I was really fortunate in that I didn't have to apply for a loan, so I didn't have to make this idea convincible for anyone other than my own family.

Who are your customers, and are they the type of families you expected?
Originally, from my market research I thought my main customers were going to be families with possibly one stay-at-home parent or a parent that worked out of the home, but with enough income to afford [the service]. But actually it's turning out my families are more families that are living off the grid. So it's been a different clientele than I originally thought it would be. Right now I have a dozen families and a couple babies that we are waiting to be born. The goal is to have 20 families by the end of the first year.

How much does the diaper service cost?
It's a flat rate and that way families will know what they are spending. And that way we're pretty comparable, if not less expensive, than disposable diapers. But we charge for the pre-folds ˆ— that's the cotton part that lines the diaper. That's as many as the baby needs at $18 a week; and then the price goes up from there, so the family that also rents the [diaper] covers, that's $30 a week.

What's you competition like?
There's no other diaper service in the midcoast area. The closest one is in Portland. But I certainly have competition. There are families that wash their own cloth diapers. But obviously, my biggest competition is a disposable diaper.

How do you market your business?
All the nurses, midwives, pediatricians and two of the hospitals in the area have my information. But my biggest source of customers, so far, has been word of mouth.

What are your plans for growth?
Ideally, I'd like to see this come to the point where it could be franchised out or I could just act as a consultant for other people. I've had a lot of inquiries from people all over ˆ— from Portsmouth, from Vermont, from North Carolina ˆ— who have found the website, or somehow figured out that I'm starting up a small-scale diaper service, and have wanted to recreate the model. So I'd like to see a lot of Buzzie Bees out there, but I don't want to run them all.

New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to wrichardson@mainebiz.biz.

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