No Guts, No Glory

Hers was a simple idea. Babies loved it. Adults weren't so sure.

Tenacity, Toys and a Talent for Teaching

How did a high school English and art teacher, with no business experience, create a multimillion-dollar company? There was never a master plan, insists Julie Aigner-Clark, 39, whose phenomenally popular Baby Einstein line of videos and books for infants and toddlers is known to millions of parents around the world. She credits her success to common sense -- and tenacity.

When her daughter Aspen was born in 1994, Clark says she knew she wanted to stay home with her. "She became my world. I wanted to play with her and read to her and do the things I knew intuitively were good for my child. At the same time, I realized I missed what I had focused on so much -- literature and art -- and I thought, It would be so great if my child loved this as much as I do."

But Clark found educational products geared only for older children. Aspen loved looking at things, and Clark loved classical music. Common sense connected the dots.

Friends didn't have high expectations for her idea. Retailers thought it would be a passing fad. But it made sense to Clark. "I knew that if my baby liked this, other babies would as well."

She launched The Baby Einstein Company in 1997, and shot the first video in the basement of her Atlanta home, using Aspen's most prized stuffed animals and toys as props. Manning the borrowed camera was Clark's husband, Bill.

The Clarks financed the project with $15,000 from their savings. "It may not sound like a lot of money, but I wasn't working. I remember my parents shaking their heads and saying, 'Oh, my God, Julie, what are you doing? This is so expensive.'" Part of Clark's drive to succeed came from her determination not to lose the family's savings. The personal gamble was also huge. "I was a teacher, not an entrepreneur."

Realizing she needed a distributor, Clark set her sights on The Right Start, a company that sold slightly upscale products for babies. It had about 40 stores nationwide, a huge mail-order business and customers like herself -- educated moms who wanted to invest in their children's future.

Clark hopped on a plane, headed to the Toy Fair, an annual trade show in New York City. She couldn't afford a display booth and The Right Start hadn't rented one, so she started scanning the crowd of some 20,000 attendees. The next day, Clark saw a group with The Right Start name tags. "I was so excited that I charged up to these women and said, 'Please, you have to have this product in your store.' I probably terrified them, but I got a woman named Wendy to take my video."

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• Courage Under Ire
• I had a choice -- cave in to the bully or do what I loved.
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• The Problem-Solver
• She was too naive to know her idea couldn't work. The fear came after she succeeded.
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• Against the Odds
• He was just another dropout -- until he got the measles and a goal.
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