Birth of baby carrier came after new son arrived in '01
— -- Having a baby can be a life-changing experience for a woman. For Karin Frost, giving birth to her first child also spawned the start of a life-altering business.
Frost owns Ergo Baby Carrier, which produces a line of baby products — including backpacks, tote bags and diaper bags — all designed by Frost.
She was a 41-year-old first-time mom in 2001 when she felt compelled to develop a baby carrier for her newborn son.
She was disappointed with the baby slings and pouches on the market and wanted one that kept her son as close to her body as possible, while also being comfortable.
Today, Frost's company sells 10,000 to 12,000 Ergo Baby Carriers a month at a base price of $92.
What makes her product different, she said, is that the carrier lets the bulk of the baby's weight sit on the mother's hips. The carrier also is designed so the baby's weight doesn't put much pressure on its spine.
China connection
Frost, who lives on Maui, hand-sewed the first 50 carriers, but demand quickly exceeded her ability to produce the carriers that way.
Through family friend Jeff Henderson, owner of Hot Sails Maui, Frost found a manufacturer in China to mass-produce her product. She received her first "mass order" of 200 in January 2003. Production has soared since.
Her products also have gone global. Frost recently set up a subsidiary in Germany and has distributors in Canada, Australia and South Korea.
In May, Parenting magazine's 20th anniversary issue named the Ergo Baby Carrier as one of its top 20 products of the past 20 years. The magazine based its ratings on feedback from hundreds of "mom testers" who evaluated a slew of baby items.
Frost said the Internet and timing had a lot to do with the success of her company.
"It's a parenting revolution where a lot of us are just experiencing the same needs," she said.
Many parents heard of the Ergo Baby Carrier through Internet forums and other chat rooms.
If at first …
But Frost's success didn't come easily. Her first attempt to run a business on Maui failed.
When she first visited the island in the mid-1990s, she stayed for a while and worked at odd jobs, lived in a Volkswagen van, showered at the beach and "just kind of juggled life."
She loved the lifestyle so much that she returned to her Wisconsin home, sold her house and belongings and moved to Maui permanently in November 1997.
Frost put her master's degree in clothing design to work and came out with two lines of clothing, which she admitted "weren't very successful."
"It was a rude awakening," she said. "Here in Hawaii, we have a very specialized and odd market that I didn't realize until I got full-blown into it."
Frost was preparing to move again, this time to Costa Rica, when she met her partner, Lee Lopez, at a swap meet. They eventually had a son, Keala Kaj.
Frost, who turns 47 in November, is a great believer in the Continuum Concept made popular by author Jean Liedloff. The idea is that to achieve optimal development of a child, a mother needs to keep her baby as close to her body as possible.
She still can carry her son in the Ergo Baby Carrier, and he's close to 50 pounds.
Next month, her company will launch a baby carrier made of organic material.
She hopes to expand into Asia soon. Having started out looking for a carrier to meet her needs, Frost said she still can't believe how well her business has done.
"Oh, my God," she said. "This company is just beyond my wildest dreams. I could never have envisioned this. I'm constantly blown away."