Handbag maven looks to grow after Marvel-ous start

By Jon Cook

(Reuters) - A highly competitive industry, a failed startup on her resume and the worst recession in a generation didn't deter Jane Saidenberg from launching her handbag business.

A year later her Jane Marvel (www.janemarvel.com) line of "lifestyle" bags is going gangbusters, landing on the shelves of more than 300 stores from Alabama to Wyoming and racking up sales of $1 million along the way.

"I was in the entertainment business for many years, but I sort of had this inner crafty weirdness and I would do weird things like sew stuff until 3 or 4 in the morning," says Saidenberg, who is married to successful music producer Andy Marvel, who has penned hits for Celine Dion and Jessica Simpson. "My husband has been a great supporter. Our pillow talk has changed over the years from newlywed pillow talk to, ‘so how are sales today Honey?'"

Saidenberg's first entrepreneurial foray was designing stylish laminated canvas storage boxes for baby toys and clothing, which later morphed into diaper bags and lunchboxes. Saidenberg, whose two sons were both still young at the time, was ultimately unable to make the profit margins work in her favor and was forced to shelve the business.

Instead of walking away altogether, Saidenberg took an exploratory trip to China in April 2007 to see if there was a way she could keep her dream alive. What she found was a factory where she could drastically lower her production costs and the inspiration to make a line of handbags for adult women.

"At the time handbags had gotten really expensive, so I thought if I can make this beautiful bag overseas and it only costs me this certain amount of money, I could actually retail a bag that was not a tremendous amount of money and certainly a lot less than what other people were selling their bags for," says Saidenberg, whose vegan-friendly bags (non-leather and made without any animal products or bi-products) are priced with the budgets of average working mothers in mind, ranging from $38-$145. "It's the kind of item you could walk into any apparel store and say that's not going to kill my credit card or take food out of my children's mouths."

By contrast, the iconic Louis Vuitton label markets a canvas bag collection that retails from $550 to $2,500.

The first prototypes for Jane Marvel were done by Christmas that year and instead of taking them around to stores, Saidenberg first tried selling them herself at a wholesale trade show in Atlanta in early 2008. Renting the space and setting up her booth cost roughly $6,000, but the validation she got was worth much more.

"It was really gratifying and gave me the impetus and confidence to forward," says Saidenberg, who took more than 100 orders and decided to go bigger with her handbags. "That's when I said ‘OK, this is the amount of money I need to finance a production run."

Her first run cost $200,000, which Saidenberg mostly funded with a home-equity loan that "was just sort of idling for when we needed it and here it was."

Jane Marvel started shipping inventory last May and brought in its first revenues later that month. Since then it's been a whirlwind for Saidenberg, with her bags being showcased on Oprah and in every top fashion magazine.

Her line has expanded to 25 items, including overnight bags, carry-on bags, computer bags, "basically bags for all the different needs women have."

After having passed the $1-million milestone in sales earlier this year, Saidenberg is looking to expand the business beyond boutiques and specialty stores, to large national chain stores and possibly get into college campus apparel shops.

THE PITCH

Completely self-financed to this point, Saidenberg is seeking investors to provide an additional $500,000-$750,000 to take on bigger clients and fund a much larger production run. She is also looking at moving the business out of her home and into a new downtown Manhattan location.