Ficklets

This guest post is courtesy of  Ros Guerrero who invented Ficklets, a great way to dress up a child’s eyeglasses so they look hip and cool and not geeky. Prescription eyeglasses are expensive. Ficklets give tired, old eyeglasses a quick, affordable update.

Who knew my “couch potato” idea would go this far. Ficklets was inspired by my 14 year old special needs daughter, Gem, who’s worn glasses since she was 6 years old. The concept was born while I was literally sitting on the couch watching my favorite TV show when Gem walked into the kitchen. As she stood behind the breakfast counter, I turned to look at her and the only part of her I could see were her eyeglasses. As I stared at her glasses, it got me thinking – Wow, time to add some color and life to your tired, old glasses. This I believe was my “a-ha” moment.

The first idea was to simply add adhesive decals, but decided I wanted something more versatile to mix and match with her outfits (hey, a girl’s gotta have options, right?) and thought an interchangeable charm would be the way to go. I later developed a working charm and had Gem wear it to school for the first time. With much delight, Gem brought home a note from her teacher saying Gem’s eyeglasses received so much attention from both her peers and many of the school staff. This was when I thought… hmm, I think I should run with this idea.

The next step was to come up with a name. After much thought, the word “fickle”, which means to “change often”, came to mind as it appropriately described how much fun Gem and I were having changing out her charms to coordinate with her outfits. As I worked to refine and expand my prototype designs, I deliberated more on the word fickle to come up with a made-up name, a tip I learned from Sara Blakely, the inventor of Spanx. After a few sleepless nights and several scribbled pages, the name “Ficklets” was born. We launched our website and filed patent in spring 2007 [by the way, we were granted a patent  in September 2009… Yay!!].

I would be remiss if I didn’t re-mention and give sole credit to my daughter for planting the entrepreneurial spirit in me. It’s been my mission to build a business that would not only create opportunities for Gem, giving her some sense of “normalcy”, but also a business that would provide for her to live a quality life long after I’m gone. In my quest to start a business, I’ve dabbled in various ventures over the years–real estate investor, co-owned both a window treatment design and nail salon business. It was by accident that I stumbled on the Ficklets idea and since then my business passion has soared like never before… I knew this was IT!

Visit Ficklets at  www.ficklets.com.