Since I covered Robin Tacchetti’s baby playmat invention, The Biddy Belly, last summer for Bethesda Magazine (“Shop Talk,” July/August 2011) the Rockville entrepreneur may have hit the big time with a possible partnership and $100,000 investment from Daymond John of ABC’s Shark Tank.
A physical therapist, Tacchetti created the Biddy Belly in late 2010 to help infants play on their stomachs (“tummy time”) and develop muscle strength as well as avoid the flat spots on their heads that come from spending so much time sleeping on their backs.
She says she’d sent her idea in to a “million” talk shows hoping for nibble. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago she got a big bite from Anderson Cooper’s daytime TV talk show, who was hosting the Sharks on a Friday segment.
“I’d reached out to them and within two hours I had a call from an assistant producer who interviewed me while I was taking my daughter to preschool,” says Tacchetti. Finally, after waiting by the computer for a follow-up email, the call came on a Wednesday at 5 p.m. during her kids’ soccer game. They asked her if she could be on a train to New York the next day to do the show in the morning of Friday, March 2.
Tacchetti made her case in front of the four-person Shark panel and John offered her an offer on the spot. The deal—a 50 percent partnership with him and an $100,000 investment—is contingent on BuyBuy Baby picking up the product. Tacchetti says she should hear soon.
Meanwhile, the Biddy Belly is available locally for $39.99 at Great Beginnings in Gaithersburg, Child’s Play in Rockville and online at www.biddybelly.com and www.amazon.com. And, if it does make it into BuyBuy Baby, there is one in Rockville at Congressional Plaza.
Click here for a clip of her March 2 appearance on the show.
