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Wow… Calm Down Everyone!
September 23, 2010 6:20 pm | by

So I’ve been reading forums, facebook, twitter and emails all day. I’m grateful for all the wonderful people who have sent me supportive messages… God love you, really, you’re wonderful.

So, I’m going to step back a few months for this post and give you all a little back story.

When we launched the bumGenius 3s… it was no big deal… relatively pain free… accepted well by the industry and customers alike. The 3s were a functionality change, no big color splash… but a big assembly, pattern and production change. After the 3s came out, I promised myself that I was done with the 3s… the diaper was perfect, no need for any further revisions. Well, lesson learned. Never say never.

You said differently.
You wanted the option of snap closures.
You wanted it to accommodate older or larger babies.
You wanted replaceable elastic.

We run a production line in Colorado that now employs a lot of people full time.  bumGenius was launched on December 21, 2005. We’ve run non-stop production since the date, stopping only for holidays and weekends, constantly growing, constantly adjusting to what you want. To date, we have produced millions of diapers worldwide. Diapers… not pieces… not counting inserts or prefolds… just diapers or diaper covers.

We’re proud to be the largest cloth diaper company in North America (I make the statement based on feedback from our retailers… we’re their best selling product… unanimously), but most of you don’t know that we started our brands with cash and that today, unlike most of the competition, we don’t have disinterested investors telling us what to do. We are family-owned.  We’ve been approached multiple times by companies wanting to buy us. If the right number was on the check someday, we might say yes… but so far, that hasn’t happened. If you’re interested though, feel free to email me!

Now… many people are wondering what in the world took so long. Why now…? I’m going to explain why. Let me know if you have questions. I’ll be glad to clarify. We make our bumGenius One-Size Cloth Diapers in eight colors (today) and two closure types. That’s 16 SKUs. We make Flip covers in 8 colors and snap closures. Now we’re up to 24 SKUs. We made our bumGenius Elemental AIOs in eight colors and snap closures. That’s 32 SKUs. We make the bumGenius AIOs in four sizes, eight colors and one closure type. Now we’re up to 64 SKUs. We make Econobum now in four trim colors and one closure style. That’s 68 SKUs that we’re constantly running…. selling… packaging… quality controlling… oh and let’s not forget the complexities introduced by packaging!

Fabric production takes 6-8 weeks. Shipping and customs takes six weeks, each way. It can take up to twelve weeks to get everything off of the lines and then another six weeks to make it’s way to the United States, India, Europe, Australia or wherever that diaper is going to end up calling home.

We haven’t done prints previously because we’ve been running literally at full capacity ever since we hit the ground. We’re adjusting and adjusting and adjusting… always trying to have enough inventory of everything at all the right times. It was only recently that we felt like the time was right.

About the Author

Jenn is the founder of Cotton Babies & creator of bumGenius, Flip, and Econobum, worldwide leading cloth diaper brands. She has four children (Andrew, Oscar, Elsie and Louis) and holds an MBA from Washington University. When she's not working full time, she enjoys teaching business leaders how to implement sustainable economic & social change.

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