[00:00:01] Speaker A: Want to protect your business. The time is near. You've given it heart. Now get it in gear. It's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm Richard Gerhardt, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. Not an attorney, but I work at Gearhart law doing the marketing, and I have my own startups.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Welcome to passage to profit, everyone. The road to entrepreneurship, where we talk with startups, small businesses, and discuss the intellectual property that helps them flourish.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Now, we actually have two guests who formed a company together, a mother daughter company, which I think is so very cool. Barbara and Danielle Gomez.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: I don't know. Can we imagine our daughter working with us on a company?
[00:00:48] Speaker C: She barely eats dinner with us.
So, Barbara and Danielle Gomez, if you have fingernails, you need this product. So please tell us about your product.
[00:00:59] Speaker D: Okay, well, thank you so much. It's exciting to be back. I thought of my product, like, 40 years ago, or I saw a need for my product. My mother, at a very young age, had a very aggressive breast cancer, and she's a cancer survivor. She lived to be 93, but the mastectomy and all of her surgeries left her with a very lymphedema arm and a very compromised immune system. So her arm could not get a pin prick, a bug bite, a scratch, or she would be on antibiotics, intravenous antibiotics, for six weeks. So we had a problem with her nails, and the only way we could take care of her nails were to file them. And because the arm had very dry skin, she would get lots of hangnails, but we would just file them off. And the file worked great, but it was a horrible. They weren't round, they didn't fit around the cuticles. So back then, I would say, I'm going to invent something. And all these years, we looked and looked for something. So finally, I had my children, and they would come with the hangnails, and we'd file them. Then I had my grandchildren, and I told, actually, I have two daughters that we are in business with. Danielle is here with me. We decided to make this and to patent it, and it is to the right curve, so when you go to file your cuticle or your hangnail, you don't cut into the nail. It's wonderful for children. And also, I was having friends come to me who would have breast cancer, and their doctors would say, do not go to get a manicurist because they'll cut your cuticles. So they said, what do we do? I'd say, well, come over. I'll file them down for you. So that's how cuticle begone has been invented. And our hope is to get everybody to stop cutting those hang nails and cuticle nails and to use cuticle be gone. But the one thing that you also should know is that a lot of states, New York being one, make it illegal for your cuticles to be cut in beauty salons. So that just shows you another thing, how dangerous it is and how great the infection rate is.
[00:03:22] Speaker E: Okay, so I don't have a cuticle be gone, but I have a cuticle pusher. And you know where I keep it? I keep it in the shower, so I can do it every day. Now, my question for you is, cuticle be gone.
[00:03:35] Speaker F: Waterproof.
[00:03:35] Speaker E: Can I buy one and keep it on my little rack in the shower?
[00:03:40] Speaker D: Cuticle begone is completely waterproof. It can be sterilized. When it's in salons, it can be sterilized. What I do is I keep mine by my bedside, and then I just wash it off. And I take mine to my manicurist, because even though they're not supposed to do it, they pull out those scissors and they want to cut. And also, it was created. We came up with our prototype, but I had it made by a company that makes medical tools.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: Kenya had a commentary question.
[00:04:13] Speaker D: Well, I did.
[00:04:13] Speaker G: I had for Richard and for you. So you did the patent?
[00:04:16] Speaker B: We did, yes. As a matter of fact, it's been issued. And we have international patents, we have trademarks. And, yeah, it's an amazing tool, and it's inventive, which is how we were able to get patents on it.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:04:29] Speaker G: And just going back to your story, I love when products are invented from personal stories or struggles.
[00:04:35] Speaker E: Right.
[00:04:35] Speaker G: So you took something that was an unfortunate situation, and you created a solution for people, which I think is remarkable. So, in terms of other products, you may expand into, like in the beauty market. Have you thought about that a little bit?
[00:04:50] Speaker D: Yes, we have. And I do want to just say the cuticle begon has four different tips. You just screw them on two sides so it really fits into any corner on the nail. But, yes, we do have a nail polish. Sage oil is a very good oil for your nail. So we're trying to come up with a good organic sage oil and maybe coconut or almond oil.
[00:05:16] Speaker F: We're developing a line of dry oils, all natural, all organic, that are going to come out soon that will add to our product line.
[00:05:25] Speaker H: Julie Livingston, how are you telling your story.
[00:05:28] Speaker D: We do have Facebook. We have Instagram and TikTok. But I've learned a lot today.
[00:05:34] Speaker H: You're looking to attract retailers, distributors. I'm imagining those people are on LinkedIn. I think you should start by telling your personal story about how you develop this product.
[00:05:46] Speaker D: I agree. It's powerful. Thank you.
[00:05:48] Speaker H: It really is. Even creating maybe a little video using if you don't have video of your mother, but maybe some still shots that you could animate and string together to show people what her needs were.
[00:05:59] Speaker D: Oh, that's a great idea.
[00:06:00] Speaker H: I mean, you want to reach hospitals, hospital gift stores, I would imagine, right?
[00:06:05] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:06:06] Speaker H: Cancer centers.
[00:06:07] Speaker D: Yes. Especially people with breast cancer. I have three friends who have had breast cancer, and they are not allowed to bring scissors near their fingernails.
[00:06:17] Speaker H: Yeah, you've got a lot of great content. I think you got to get it out there and small, little bite sized pieces. But I think you have such a wonderful story to tell.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: I love the idea of bringing the whole mom and hospital setting. And that video that you have on your website of how to use it is really great.
[00:06:37] Speaker H: So my other question is, how do you sell it into retail stores? Do you have a display? It seems that it would need some kind of a graphic or some signage to explain what the product is, how it's different from some of the other Sally Hansen or Revlon kind of tools that are already out there.
[00:06:55] Speaker D: Well, we do have in our packaging how to use it, and there is a QR code where you can go in and it will explain.
[00:07:04] Speaker H: But a retailer, retailers will probably want you to have some kind of signage, maybe even a know whether it's a plexi holder or a box that you can house the product in so that it can stand out in their store.
[00:07:19] Speaker F: Also, our tagline is stop cutting your cuticles for a more beautiful nail. We have lots of signage. We're doing trade shows. We have displays, a really well developed website and Shopify account and social media.
[00:07:36] Speaker H: That's great.
[00:07:37] Speaker F: But now we are starting LinkedIn for a CEO.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: Well, maybe you should start a podcast.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Maybe you could. The Cuticle podcast.
[00:07:45] Speaker F: The Cuticle podcast.
[00:07:47] Speaker H: I have to put my publicist hat on again. I think that you also ought to pitch this product to some of the beauty and fashion lifestyle magazines because they all do beauty product roundups. And I think it has such a great story.
[00:08:03] Speaker F: And I just want to add how inspired we are by my mom, who she had a very successful career as a ballerina and dancer before she retired to raise her family, then decided to start her own company and both my other sister, myself, and my brother, who's a little bit involved with this. We all also have our own businesses, so to see my mom come and start doing something like this is just incredible.
[00:08:30] Speaker D: That's wonderful.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: So your plans for the future?
[00:08:33] Speaker F: Most important to our company, is to create a product that's sustainable and healthy for both people that use it and won't impact the environment in a negative way. So every product that we design is meant to be reusable. Our nail dry oil that's coming out will be in glass bottles. It's all organic, all natural. So it might take us a little longer to add products to our line, but we're staying true to our core values when we do.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Excellent. So how can people buy your product?
[00:09:05] Speaker D: We are on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and we go under cuticle. The word cuticle, just the letter b and the last word be gone.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: Okay, cuticle, hopefully gone.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: Yeah, hopefully. We're adding more.
[00:09:20] Speaker G: Any chances you'll get on Amazon?
[00:09:22] Speaker F: That's what we're working on. So we're talking to a few retailers because it is a little bit complicated to start your own store. So we're learning the hoops that we have to jump through to get on.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Before we go, I'd like to thank the passage to profit team, Noah Fleischman, our producer Alicia Morrissey, our program director. Our podcast can be found tomorrow anywhere you find your podcast. Just look for the passage to profit.
[00:09:46] Speaker I: Show and you can find us on Instagram and threads at passage to profit show and Twitter. Or if you're even more up to date, x at passage to profit and on our YouTube channel. Please also join us on our new Facebook group search for passage to profit show Listener community a new community space for our listeners and guests where you can post questions that you would like answered on the show and interact with the passage to profit team.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs and can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care, everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
