Update: I Landed A Deal On Shark Tank And Grew Revenue 1100% In The Last 3 Years

Dahlia Rizk

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Published: December 8th, 2022

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Dahlia Rizk

Founder, Buckle Me Baby Coats

$200K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Buckle Me Baby Coats

bucklemecoats.com

from Massachussets

started January 2017

$200,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Dahlia recommends to grow your business!

Want more updates on Buckle Me Baby Coats? Check out these stories:

1. How A Single Mom Designed A $50,000/Month Car Seat-Friendly Kids Coat (2019) ➜

This is a follow up story for Buckle Me Baby Coats. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 5 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

I'm Dahlia Rizk, the founder, and inventor of Buckle Me Baby Coats, a line of coats that keeps children safely buckled in car seats. I have an undergraduate degree in Economics and a master's in Mental Health Counseling.

Before creating Buckle Me Baby Coats, I founded and grew Choices Counseling of Londonderry a multi-clinician mental health private practice where I specialize in PTSD. In my clinical practice, I recognize the anxiety many new parents experience trying to keep their children safe, and know my new line of jackets for children can help alleviate some of this worry.

As a single working parent raising kids in snowy New Hampshire, I understood the dangers of using traditional coats in the car seat but also knew that keeping up with the rules was hard.

I felt I was being forced to choose between my child's safety and warmth while also choosing between my convenience and peace of mind, but I didn't want to.

So I redesigned the wheel - I mean the coat and created an easy-to-use (super cute) coat that gives parents peace of mind and keeps kids warmly, and safely buckled all at the same time.

In five short years, the coats have been awarded a FedEx Small Business Grant, a Nationwide Insurance prize, and have been featured on Shark Tank. More importantly, though is the tens of thousands of parents we have helped with easy winter safety.

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Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

Buckle Me Baby Coats has grown by 1100% since our last Starter Story!

We have expanded from one style of coat to four styles: Toast, Toasty, Toastier, and Toastiest, along with a snowsuit for our littlest customers. The different styles help parents from warmer to colder climates and with coats ranging from 59.99-149.99 for all budgets too! This year we launched a line of Car Seat Blankies ™ called Buckle Me Baby Blankies ™ to meet the needs of parents who prefer not using coats at all!

We had a 3-year partnership with buybuyBaby that began after Starter Story but ended this year. Retail is struggling, but we have found other retail partners in Canada where the winter season is longer and are currently selling out mid-season with Snugglebugz, West Coast Kids, Mere Helene, Dearborn Baby, Jump Baby, Love Me Do, Reclaim, Nest and Sprout.

Keeping customers happy remains central to the Buckle Me Baby Coats foundation. I have had a trade-up program since the beginning of the company and last year we partnered with Swoondle to make trading up even more accessible to parents. Parents can trade up gently used Buckle Me Baby Coats for a $20 refund on their new coat when they send it directly back to BMBC or a $15 refund when they send it back with a prepaid mailer to Swoondle. Coats sent to Buckle Me Baby Coats are donated to local New England children in need and Coats sent to Swoondle are resold through Swoondle.

Since our last feature in Starter Story Buckle Me Baby Coats was featured on Shark Tank Season 12 Episode 7 where I made a deal with Daymond who has been helping me expand my retail presence. We also joined the Tory Burch Fellowship this year where I'm able to access Tory Burch insiders for information on how to meet my customer's needs better while continuing to grow and scale my business efficiently.

Buckle Me Baby Coats is consistently featured in the news - which always brings significant bumps in website traffic but is also wonderful simply from being able to educate parents on car seat dangers and best practices. Here are a few of our most recent features:

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

While direct-to-consumer remains 80% off Buckle Me Baby Coat’s revenue, like most businesses, paid media has become difficult with IOs changes. Unlike most businesses, we still have a wonderful, engaged audience on both Instagram and Facebook but to stay with the times we have expanded our marketing efforts into Tiktok which has been very enjoyable! If you are not on Tiktok yet - I highly recommend it!

As a seasonal company, it continues to be difficult to hire full-time help, so I still do most things myself, but I do hire agencies for social media buying and email marketing. Email marketing has been a great outlet for Buckle Me Baby Coats, both in educating consumers on car seat dangers and best practices and also in converting customers directly rather than relying on ads.

You’ll have late nights burning the candle at both ends and tons of doubts. That's normal.

This summer marked five years since I started the business and I had been feeling burned out. It was becoming harder and harder to get through tasks I would in the past fly through. A Shark Tank Alumni organized a Shark Tank reunion in September, and connecting with other entrepreneurs, learning, and helping each other was exactly what I needed to step back from my business for a few days, come up with new ideas and strategies and return to the good fight with renewed energy!

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

The Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship has taught me a lot and came at the exact time I needed it. As I mentioned above, I have been struggling with burnout over the summer, and the fellowship begins each meeting not with our successes but with how we are feeling in the day or moment - an activity I usually overlook in my quest to get as many kids riding safely in the winter.

Learning to pause and check in with myself while also seeing how many other entrepreneurs feel exactly how I do has been very freeing. I have been taking more time for myself and seeing that my business doesn't suffer from the breaks.

I have started to explore life outside of the coats, and doing so has opened more doors and more energy to explore opportunities as they present themselves.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

My day one goal hasn't changed.

I won't accept warm winter jackets as a childhood danger parents should worry about.

I believe all children's coats should be designed for the car seat and that is my long and short-term goal.

What’s the best thing you read in the last year?

I would be making this up. I haven't had time to read - thanks Tiktok. My favorite book has Never Split the Difference - it has changed how I negotiate everything.

Learning how to read what the other side needs and leaning into their No instead of chasing a yes has led to stronger vendor relationships, better pricing, and overall better deals for Buckle Me Baby Coats.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

Every person on the street has a great idea.

What separates an idea from a product on the market is that products on the market have founders behind them who passionately pursued getting the product on a shelf.

In the beginning, it's normal to want validation for your idea, but what happens is that your family and friends will not understand - that's completely normal. You’ll have late nights burning the candle at both ends and tons of doubts. That's also normal.

Before you start take a deep look at your finances and calculate how you'll bring your idea to life without jeopardizing what you already have. Don't mortgage your home. Take a second job if you have to. Apply for every grant and pitch contest you can find. Once you have relationships with vendors negotiate terms. Then stick to your goals and take all the opportunities.

Say yes to everything you can - you never know what pans out.

Your biggest hurdle will always be your doubts. Good luck!