{"id":18335,"date":"2019-05-28T14:11:40","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T21:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futuresharks.com\/?p=18335"},"modified":"2020-06-27T16:17:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T23:17:04","slug":"staywellcopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futuresharks.com\/staywellcopper\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcia Reece Co-Founder of StayWell Copper Shares Her Entrepreneurial Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this series, we interview the world’s most interesting entrepreneurs. Today, we caught up with Marcia Reece from StayWell Copper<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) Please tell our audience about your entrepreneurial journey so far. Bring us up to date!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a wild ride\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve spent my career creating new products and bringing them to the marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember Sidewalk Chalk \u2013 the most colorful and popular outdoor toy for generations now? And, oh yeah…the stuff that came in those buckets?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I am the lady who invented it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This little ole farm girl from Iowa created a children\u2019s toy sensation that took the world by storm (but the idea to make it a commercial product came from my sweet, creative son when he was three years old).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AND\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…almost cost me my life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let me back up in the story\u2026 it didn\u2019t start there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I learned how to make a product kids loved and moms wanted, and how to work with our national retailers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was before the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was before Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was before eBay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was even before the fax machine had been invented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, this was before we had computers in our homes or offices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, when I was building my toy company my travels took me all over the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I actually had three separate manufacturing facilities in China, and two plants outside Denver, Colo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My toy company had grown incredibly, and I was offered a buyout from the world\u2019s largest toy company, which I accepted (and everyone said HURRAH!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life was going well, and I was on top of the world<\/strong>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until I fell off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get to the point where this huge company noticed me, I had stressed my body to the max.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working endless 20+<\/sup>-hour days while still being a wife and mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very bad diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stretching my mental and physical limits more than humans should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something had to give, and that first \u201csomething\u201d was my 24-year marriage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next to go was my health, and I ended up in a Chicago hospital where I contracted a hospital-acquired MRSA staph infection in the lowest part of my back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever had one of those moment when you say, \u201cENOUGH!!!\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that happened for me as my doctor told me there was nothing left to kill the MRSA staph infection raging inside my body. He informed me, if I was willing, there was one experimental treatment he wanted to try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After I finally healed, I became obsessed with helping people avoid suffering as I had. I spent the next few years working with a chemical company in North Carolina commercialize its product that kept clean surfaces clean for extended periods of time.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was great for industrial America, but it didn\u2019t answer my need to provide an everyday solution to a problem we all have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that opportunity came in the form of Diana French and the combined efforts we made to work on our StayWell Copper Product line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diana and I had become friends in the early 1980s as we both were bringing our first consumer products to market; hers was a company called Class Case and mine was Our Kids Sidewalk Chalk. We met at an Always Buy Colorado trade show and became fast friends, both invigorated by the challenges of providing good products filling the needs of everyday people just like us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) How did you come up with the idea for StayWell Copper?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diana had begun some pretty amazing research on natural ways to kill germs, and she had discovered the ancient secret of copper. We combined her ancient knowledge with what I had learned at the North Carolina chemical company, and we had our idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years later and hundreds of tests, trials, and prototypes and we concluded\u2026YES, antimicrobial copper is nature\u2019s favorite and magical germ killer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) What are the biggest problems StayWell Copper will solve and how will it make <\/strong>people healthier?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We embrace antimicrobial copper because of its ability to kill bacteria and other microbes on touch, helping to reduce deadly infections and common colds, and kill odors.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next few years we spent our time working with a focus group of hundreds of people just like you to help them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n