Sheila Ann Wright, 43
Inventor
Talkatoo
Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
The engineer says the stakes are higher in Detroit: "If you fail in Silicon Valley, you're a rock star. If you fail here, you're a failure."
When Sheila Wright left her engineering job at Chrysler to stay home with her two children, she had every reason to believe that she'd have no trouble going back to work when they reached school age.
She had spent a career designing side-crash protection for cars, but just as Wright was ready to jump back into a job, Chrysler was cutting them.
Being home those few years, however, kicked-started her engineer's imagination. She had experienced the tears of children being dropped off at school, and leaving notes in their lunch. So she created a tiny recording device, which she named the Talkatoo, that could capture her voice and be played back by a small child.
After Amazon tapped the device as a "top holiday gift pick" for 2010, Wright geared up for a holiday inventory of 15,000 units, at $16.99 each.
Her advice for new-product inventors: Hang in there. "It's going to take you twice as long and cost twice as much money as you think."
NEXT: Seize opportunity
