What A Doll GetSetClub.com sells dolls with realistic bodies and careers.
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Jennifer Baker's line of dolls is meant to do more thanentertain children. The 35-year-old former toy company costumedesigner wants her products to change the way girls think aboutthemselves and their possibilities. Her five dolls have realisticbodies, proportioned like healthy, athletic young women, and theplay sets that accompany them allow girls to imagine themselves infive careers: scientist, journalist, banker, artist and beautysalon owner.
"Growing up, I saw how meaningful my mother's job as ateacher was to her," says Baker, who lives and works inPhiladelphia. "Work can provide a lot of personalgratification. It's important to teach children that work isexciting. This idea is missing from a lot of children'sproducts."
Baker initially proposed the line of dolls in 1994 while workingfor Tyco Toys, but industry executives were unwilling to take arisk on a product they viewed as too unconventional. Baker felt sopassionately about her idea, however, that she decided to producethe dolls herself. "In its advertisements, the toy industryshows girls combing a doll's hair and cradling it, but I knewfrom my own experience that's not how kids play withdolls," says Baker, a tomboy who liked to take her dolls on"camping trips," build furniture for them and use them as"surgery" subjects. "I wanted to help kids play withdolls the way they really want to."
Between 1994 and 1996, Baker invested some $30,000 of her ownfunds to secure a patent, buy office equipment and travel to HongKong to find a manufacturer. In 1998, as GetSetClub.com officiallylaunched, she secured a $250,000 SBA loan, allowing her to createprototypes and begin marketing the dolls, which now are sold on theGetSetClub Web site and through other sites featuringchildren's products.
Baker, who estimates 2000 sales at $500,000, admits the venturehas not been child's play. Tight financial circumstances andstiff competition from another major toy manufacturer have resultedin slow growth for the company. But Baker says she hasn't comethis far to give up. She will soon be unveiling sports-relatedaccessories for the dolls-to include hiking, camping andsnowboarding gear-and the GetSetClub site will become moreinteractive, providing children with information on how to dovarious activities with the dolls, such as make furniture andcreate accessories. Maybe Baker should also add a very determinedtoy-designer doll to her lineup.
Pamela Rohland, a writer in Bernville, Pennsylvania, isanxiously awaiting the development of a freelance writerdoll.
