Entrepreneur Annette Crone is the inventive mind behind X-Static – the world’s first anti-static hairbrush – and the founder of parent company ForBabs. With more than 30 years of experience in business development, sales, marketing, and leadership, Annette has helped successfully launch a variety of products including founding her own medical spa in 2004, and now creating her own line of problem solving brushes for both pets and people!
During periods of extended business travel, Crone continuously battled hair static and fly-aways. This led her to try every available solution, including an old-school hair “hack”: smoothing a dryer sheet over frazzled strands. “I just wasn’t satisfied with any option out there,” she explains. “Dryer sheets felt sterile and awkward, hair static sheets felt far too wet – I knew there had to be a simpler, more effective alternative.” Unable to find the solution she needed, Crone set out to create it for herself.
Today, Crone has developed a more accessible, easy-to-use, and hygienic solution: the X-Static hairbrush designed to banish frizz and fight fly-aways on all hair types, including color-treated styles. Made in the USA by her parent company ForBabs – lovingly named after Crone’s mother, Barbara – the X-Static’s refillable brush heads feature 12 tear-and-toss anti-static sheets that give an instant beauty boost to wet or dry hair.
Having raised three daughters in San Diego, California, Crone brings a lifetime of experience to the task of developing effective hairstyling tools. Firmly believing that life is about taking risks and pushing beyond your comfort zone, she established ForBabs to bring creative ideas to life and help support women-owned businesses like hers.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“juggling two different interests. So I have a 32 year career in sales and marketing at a fabulous tech company. And then you come up with this idea and you want to run with it but I am a VP of sales and marketing and I take my job seriously and my career seriously. So balancing the time was probably one of the most challenging things that I had to overcome. And having the confidence that I can do both”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
The Infinite Game: How Great Businesses Achieve Long-lasting Success Book by Simon SinekFavourite Quote:
- “slow and steady wins the race”
- “progress in life is not measured by security but by growth. And growth means taking occasional risks. You will never get anywhere interesting by always doing the safe thing”
Recommended Online Resources:
Google LLC – is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“there is never a perfect time to move forward. You just have to take one step in front of the other and keep yourself going. So, if you are waiting for that perfect time to do something, I don’t know that there is ever perfect time. So just one step at a time gets you there”…[Listen for More]
More About Annette Crone:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” Chris Grosser
Other Quotes From the Chat with Annette Crone:
- “in the beginning I wished there were ways to shortcut the learning curve. And now that I am five years in, I am happy that I didn’t find those shortcuts because what you learn along the way… The journey is more important than the destination they say. So, everything that you learn from not having shortcuts I think are some of the most important lessons”
- “we all have a different idea of what success looks like… I think it’s too individual. So, I know that for myself what success looks like is that I try… If you get knocked down eight times you get up nine. So, I think that to be successful think that many people believe that success they related to money and I don’t believe that money buys happiness. Now I want this to take off and I want to make a lot of money but that won’t be my final indication of whether or not I was successful or not.”
- “You are playing for the short-term or are you planning for the long haul. So, I try to always think that not all decisions need to be made for the long call but most of the very important ones you need to determine how you are going to run your business and if you are playing for the long haul ”
- “I really believe that slow and steady is how I’ve been able to get to where I am in that I have learned so much. And when you speed things up sometimes you don’t learn the lessons along the way”
- “think about before there were all these online resources how did people do things? And what were the advantages in the way that they did them before?”
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