How do you build a better lollipop?
By putting a spin on it, literally.That's what two Virginia couples did with their battery-powered Spin Pop, and they say that if sales remain strong - 15 million were sold last year at about $4 each - their revolving lollipop-toy could twirl them out of their day jobs with the U.S. Postal Service.
The inventors, Ann and Bill Schlotter and Ann and Tom Coleman, are living the dream of the amateur inventor.
They run a flourishing home-grown company, BAAT Enterprises Inc., that comes alive late at night and on weekends, when their entrepreneurial wits take flight.
Americans are known as an inventive breed. Last year 107,000 patents - about 65 percent of all the applications filed - were granted.
But fewer than 1 percent of inventions ever make it to market, said L. Ellen Yarnell, the producer of the Invention/New Product Exposition in Pittsburgh, a display of 1,500 new products held each spring.
But even those who do make it to market find that it takes years and considerable perseverance to raise funds for their products and find producers to make them and stores to sell them.
For the lollipop producers, moving from a sudden inspiration while trick-or-treating one Halloween to getting their candy onto the shelves of FAO Schwarz, Kmart, 7-Eleven, Woolworth Corp. and other stores, took longer than five years.
"Lucky is not the word for what we have done," said Mrs. Schlotter. "A lot of it has been persistence."
Besides the Spin Pop, the two couples have also created the Laser Pop, a candy toy that sells for about $4 and has registered sales of 8 million since going on the market a year ago.
"They are probably the richest mail carriers in the country," said John Osher, president of Cap Toys, which manufacturers and markets the products under a deal that gives the couples a total royalty of 5 percent on sales.
The inventors developed their candies on a shoestring. The Colemans and Schlotter are rural mail carriers. Schlotter's wife is the postmaster of a one-person post office in Garrisonville, Va.
The Spin Pop and Laser Pop have handles that hold batteries. The Spin Pop handle, which is reusable, holds the stick of a ball-shaped lollipop. At the flick of a switch, the candy rotates.
The Laser Pop handle acts like a flashlight, illuminating a 4-inch, sword-shaped candy on the end.
Besides producing and selling their own candies, the inventors are now starting to sign licensing deals to add to their offerings, such as a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers laser pop sword.
The candies are "very successful" and the toy industry "is particularly excited about them," according to David Leibowitz, a toy analyst and senior vice president and director of research for Republic New York Securities Corp.
Toy and candy experts say it is too soon to tell if the Spin and Laser pops will be long-term successes or short-lived fads. But they say that for the candies to have come this far is an accomplishment.