FuzziBunz on Shark Tank

Tereson Dupuy, the woman who created FuzziBunz, was on the show Shark Tank this past Friday. I had never seen the show before, but I knew she was going to be on so I watched it. Basically, an entrepreneur makes a presentation in front of a panel of investors and hopes that one of them likes the product enough to invest. Tereson was asking for $500,000 in exchange for a percentage of her profits. None of the Sharks bit because she had made some bad business decisions and was involved in legal battles surrounding her patent.

That's right! Dupuy was granted a patent for her pocket diapers in 2003. And because I'm a nerd, I looked up the patent and read it. You can read it here. Granted I'm no patent attorney (actually I *am* a lawyer, I just don't practice) but I do find it interesting and I did take a class on the subject... er... 13 years ago. Anyway, so I read the patent and it does look like there are a lot of people out there selling diapers that infringe on her patent. The problem with a patent is that you have to sue people to enforce it and that can cost more money than it's worth to pursue. Perhaps Dupuy has reached the point where if she doesn't sue, she will be put out of business. I can see why none of the sharks would want to invest in a company that's likely to spend all the invested money on legal fees.

On the show, Dupuy mentioned that she made a bad manufacturing decision when she chose a factory in China. Apparently the factory sold her FuzziBunz pattern to a woman who is now mass producing the diapers and stealing what Dupuy claims is 70% of her business. I'm not sure how she came up with this number, but I am curious who she is talking about.

There are two companies that sell similar pocket diapers from China - Alva and Sun Baby. Both of these diapers can be bought for $5-$10 a diaper and are extremely popular among the cloth diapering community. I plan on buying some of each because I'm curious about them so you can look out for those reviews when I get a chance to try them out. It's possible she's talking about one of these companies, but they are different enough (they use snaps instead of leg elastic for the one size functionality) that they would never be confused for a FB diaper and on Shark Tank she claimed that even she couldn't tell the difference between her diaper and this other diaper that copied her design. The diaper in question might be Charlie Banana.

A few years ago Dupuy was threatening retailers that if they sold Charlie Banana diapers then they could not sell FuzziBunz. She later issued an apology to Gaelle Wizenberg, a former employee who was largely instrumental in the decision to move the manufacturing to China, but the apology reads like a legal form letter. There are certain phrases in there that scream "a lawyer made me write this". I suspect that she stands by her original letter, not the apology. Perhaps she was threatened with legal action and forced to write that retraction. You can read them both here.

P.S. I have never even heard of Charlie Banana diapers until now and I hardly believe that they are stealing 70% of the FuzziBunz profits. That's why I think her 70% comes not just from Charlie Banana, but the Chinese Cheapies like Alva and Sun Baby. If she wins even one lawsuit enforcing her patent, that sets a dangerous precedent for the other mass producers of pocket diapers. I just looked at the Charlie Banana website and they do look just like FuzziBunz. If this woman really did steal her diapers, I feel really bad for Tereson Dupuy - who I'm sure has learned her lesson and now makes all her employees sign non-compete agreements.

I said it before in an earlier post, but I'll repeat it here. FuzziBunz has excellent customer service. When I received my first order of FB, one of them had a hole in the outside PUL layer. I contacted them about this issue and they immediately sent me a replacement, no questions asked and they did not ask me to return the defective one. The fit of FB was also great for both of my twins. Neither one is a chunk, my kids all have skinny legs, and they both wore the size medium from 1.5 years to potty training (which was 3yrs for my daughter and 4yrs for my son). My son is tiny though, so please don't expect that the average 4 year old could fit into any cloth diaper, let alone a medium.

They have a really cute "build your own" diaper where you can personalize a FB. I might just have to get one for Eden; that princess print is calling out to me. I love that they are hand made in the USA and I see that Dupuy has another patent pending on a "No-Repel Fleece System". I support FuzziBunz and hope that others do as well. They continue to be my favorite sized pocket diaper (and I say that only because I have never tried the one-size version). Good luck, Tereson, I hope that justice prevails.

Wearing My Baby

With twins, it wasn't really practical to wear them as much as I wanted to. Usually it was only when my husband and I were out together - he would wear one in a Bjorn (I know, awful crotch danglers, but we didn't know any better and he actually thought it was comfortable) and I would wear the other in my Beco Butterfly.

Now that I have "just one baby" the entire world of babywearing is opening up before me. My cousin recommended a ring sling for a newborn and gave me a beautiful Sakura Bloom ring sling. I washed it right away (cold wash, hang dry) and watched about 20 YouTube videos while I waited for it to dry. The problem with the YouTube videos is that none of the babies were actually newborns. I couldn't find a video that showed me how to support my newborn's wobbly head. My cousin came to the rescue and suggested that I put her against my chest and tighten the sling so that she is upright. So I did this and here is the result. Eden is about 5 lbs in this photo, she was one month old: