A Tale of Two Wives Who Knew Each Other in College

TennisBone

It was a Friday evening, eight years ago. Mark Huettner had an inspiration so profound that the next morning he went out to his garage workshop and made the centerpiece of the TennisBone proto-type on a wood lathe.

Could he have known he was onto a product that would make $1 million in revenue its first year? Sure, it was a good idea, one of those that dazzles you with its simplicity and well-foundedness. Mark glued two tennis balls onto the ends of the centerpiece. Later in the day when he threw it for his dog, “she absolutely loved it.”

“At that moment,” says Huettner, “I felt that this toy could easily sell in the marketplace.”

“Mark and I met through our wives, who went to college together,” according to John Florance. “Mark was the creative spark, and I had some of the background necessary to get the company off the ground.”

Mark Huettner also had a connection with one of the founders of PETsMART. And soon thereabouts, John Florance serendipitously met a plastics engineer sitting next to him on a plane. According to John, “The technology for our first patent was discovered almost completely by accident.” Good fortune favors a prepared mind, as they say.

TennisBone earned the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association 1998 Best New Dog Product, and was named one of the “30 bright ideas” in Fortune Small Business magazine. From a classic home-inventor scenario was built a company who survived classic growing pains and cash flow stresses to achieve home-run sales their first year.

But don’t we all have a few BinkyBalls in our closets…?

 

The Binkyball and Beyond

Imagine throwing your child a miniature, hollow, rubber replica of a Play Station that squeeked. “Go nuts!” you might say, as you toss it into the corner next to a half-chewed, rawhide Barbie.

This silly scenario illustrates the different approach of Happy Dog, who say clearly on their website “We frown on pet owners who leave their pets alone and expect them to entertain themselves. The joy of pet ownership is the closeness that is developed when owners and pets play together.”

So what about the BinkyBall (see picture), the pacifier tennis ball?

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