Name: Sarah Burns
Business Name: Tag a Towel, LLC
Year Established: 2010
Twitter @TagaTowel

Launching Mom Profile

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your business. I’m a mom of two, married to my highschool sweetheart, living in gorgeous Maui, Hawaii. I’m super passionate about social media and small businesses, especially the mom business owner. I love the community that being a mom and being a business owner comes with. I keep busy with lifestyle/travel blogging, product creating and social media implementing.

2. What inspired you to begin your business and how did you get started? Life with a family of four sharing one bathroom was my biggest inspiration. There’s nothing like grabbing a wet towel after a nice shower to get your inventing wheels turning. Add to that my ever growing laundry pile and I was a mom on a mission to get something to make reusing our towels safer and easier.

I had my “aha!” idea one morning and by night’s end I had done a quick patent search, drew my idea and named it. And that’s how Tag a Towel was born.

3. Who (or what) has been your biggest source of support? From idea to product took me a looooong time. Four years to be exact. There were a lot of life changes during that time (I had a one year old, I got a job with a new startup, my husband changed careers), but I never did let the idea go.

I quickly found support in the mompreneur community and sort of claimed my stake that “I was a mompreneur.” I think once you claim it, you gotta make it happen. The thought of humiliation can get you to do many things.

Over those four years I’d take baby steps to keep it going. There were plenty of times that I felt I needed to shelf the idea, but my own conscience wouldn’t let me. I was determined to get these suckers to market. There was something in me that ached for it. So I just kept pushing forward.

4. How do you strike a balance between your personal life (life as a mom) and maintaining a successful business? I do best when I compartmentalize my weeks and days. I have days that are business focused, when my daughter is in preschool, and days when she’s home that we do arts and crafts and explore. I try to be off when the kids are out school and some nights I stay up late to work when the house is quiet.

If I try and be “mom” while “working”, neither gets the love they need. Instead, I spend quality, focused time with the kids and family, and it actually makes me a better blogger and business owner.

Like many momprenurs, I do have a hard time turning off the ever growing to-do list that runs through my head like a ticker tape. I recently started using a journal to write down thoughts as they pop in my head. It’s so much better than running to the computer and being sucked into Internet land.

I have an amazing husband who’s job lends itself well to tag teaming kid duties so that the other can focus on their business.

5. Where do you see your business three years from now?  I see Tag a Towels being sold in a multitude of fun designs to coordinate with any bathroom decor. And look at that, Pottery Barn Kids even has Tag a Towels that coordinate with their cute bathroom sets. I see them offered to guests at major hotel chains, helping guests conserve safely while helping hotels cut laundry costs.
I see a flourishing business with a dedicated small team working on fun hip products to help families live healthier, safer and more eco-friendly lives.

6. How do you define success?
Success to me is living the lifestyle I want to live. That means living on a remote island, spending time with my family, picking my kids up from school, traveling. If I can feed my entrepreneurial spirit and passion and have it also allow me to live the lifesyle I dream of, then I have been successful.