Hot Flash Brings Cool Invention

By MARY SHEDDEN mshedden@tampatrib.com

Published: Feb 8, 2006

TREASURE ISLAND - The latest "aha!" moment in Juli Urken's eclectic career wasn't a moment of glee.

She was hot. Sweating-like-a-banshee hot.

She was uncomfortable. Kick-the-sheets-off-the-bed-in-a-fit-of-rage uncomfortable.

At that moment, the Treasure Island executive wasn't thinking about making money: Her mind only knew she was a hip, with-it baby boomer in the throws of a menopausal hot flash. And she didn't like it.

Gripe sessions with a girlfriend led to the epiphany: Crawl into bed with a torso-size ice pack. It sounded nice, and better yet, it made a night's sleep possible.

Urken's self-described "can-do-anything" attitude transformed her misery into a capital venture. Her ice pack companion - now branded as a CoolSistas Chill Pack - has 50 prototypes, and Urken is on a mission to sell relief to menopausal pals, $35 at a time.

"Like most boomer women, I feel empowered," she said of her and a female partner's decision to invest their savings to start the Web-based company, coolsistas.com, in mid-January. "I do feel competent about my [entrepreneurial] skills. It's risk taking, but I feel I can do it."

A New Revolution

Urken's decision, teamed with the realization that aging products for baby boomers can be lucrative, is part of the generation's latest revolution. They are not finding products they want and, as a result, are creating companies and marketing to their peers: an estimated 78.2 million Americans who start hitting the milestone age of 60 this year.

"Fifty-plus is the new sweet spot in the American marketplace," said Chuck Underwood, president of Cincinnati-based marketing and workplace consulting firm The Generational Imperative.

Boomers such as Urken are among the entrepreneurs most likely to start new ventures, according to a study by national outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Its survey of 3,000 job seekers found that more than 86 percent of the people who started their own business were older than 40.

The interest in boomers as a market is nothing new, but the businesses targeting the demographic are more likely to be run by people who themselves were born in the boomer years: from 1946 to 1964.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers back this up: The number of 55-to-64-year-old self-employed workers or entrepreneurs increased 29 percent from 2000 to 2005. Other age groups saw the number of self-employed entrepreneurs drop or remain nearly stagnant during that period, the bureau reported.

What makes baby boomers different from their predecessors are their core values. Boomers were raised during a "wondrous time to be a child" and established attitudes of unlimited opportunity, "unsinkable" optimism and a sense they would be forever young, Underwood said.

Underwood said an estimated 42 percent of U.S. households are supervised by boomers, meaning their hopes, desires and dreams directly influence what products make it to the marketplace.

"Boomers will go to their death feeling there is opportunity around the corner," he said.

Boomer financial potential can be seen most clearly by comparing the generation's size - 78.2 million - with that of Generation X, the 59 million adults born from 1965 to 1981.

Urken, who also works as creative director at St. Petersburg's Raymond James Financial, knows there's a huge number of women like her who are scrambling for solutions to hot flashes - the uncomfortable side effect of the hormonal changes of menopause.

Urken, 51, spent years desperately trying the saturated hot-flash market's countless herbal, medicinal and hormone-based therapies. CoolSistas emerged simply because she never found what she wanted.

Besides, in true boomer spirit, she said this venture is less financially risky than a two-year sabbatical she took in the early 1990s to write a suspense novel.

Doug Bachtel, a University of Georgia consumer science professor and demographer, said the idea of inventing a product that serves you and those like you is a classic American Dream. The difference these days is that boomers who do it have a massive group of friends to whom they can pitch their ideas.

"The only difference is that there are a whole lot more people out there to buy it," he said.

A Shift In Products

Madison Avenue always has adored the demographic, but a Super Bowl commercial featuring rock 'n' roll and boomer icon Paul McCartney hawking Fidelity Investments shows how marketing is looking toward more traditionally senior scenarios.

"It's the natural progression as this group ages," Bachtel said.

Key industries affected by the aging boomers include financial services, real estate and lifestyle products ranging from fitness opportunities to medical and surgical options that make boomers feel and act younger.

Aging issues are affecting industries beyond those hoping to keep folks forever young. For example, an Atlanta law firm has renamed and refocused all its energies on elder law. And Bachtel said he is seeing a surge in corporate funeral homes anticipating the so-called "golden age of dying" two to three decades from now.

"A huge, disproportionate number of these [boomers] have discretionary income to buy," Bachtel said.

Urken and her Atlanta area business partner know their peers won't blink twice at spending $35 for her chill pack tucked in a terry cloth pocket.

Women wanting to stay vibrant and active will seek out alternatives such as CoolSistas, said LaRhonda Whitmire, a 45-year-old Atlanta area resident who pitched the chill pack idea.

"I guess we're not willing to throw in the towel at a certain age," Whitmire said.

Bachtel said getting into business may be easier for boomers than for younger entrepreneurs. Boomers' maturity likely will help them get noticed by banks that see the advantage of lending money to people with financial standing. It doesn't hurt that entrepreneurs are peers with the bankers deciding whether to tender a loan, he said.

AT A GLANCE

COMPANY: CoolSistas Chill Pack - aimed at menopausal women to give a cool night's sleep

ESTABLISHED: January

OWNERS: Juli Urken, of Treasure Island; LaRhonda Whitmire, of suburban Atlanta

COOL IDEA: "There are plenty of boomer women who will to buy into this," Urken said.

HOT STUFF: Urken enrolled in the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce's Entrepreneurial Academy to educate herself about starting a business.

WEB SITE: www.coolsistas.com