About a decade ago, Sherrill Mosee came down with the flu. Lying in bed, an idea kept nagging at her: There had to be a better handbag to meet the needs of busy women.
“I just said to myself as I was thinking about this idea that I didn't want to wake up one day and say, ‘I wish, I should've, I could've.’ I didn't want to have any regrets about this idea. And so I decided that I would just give it a try,” she said.
The idea wasn’t a new one to Mosee, who had begun to think about such a bag after launching her nonprofit, Family Care Solutions, in the late 1990s. Its goal was to help mothers in Pennsylvania afford childcare while they pursued higher education. Over the course of 14 years, the organization awarded over $3 million to more than 500 such women.
Not only was the work rewarding, but it provided her with the idea for another endeavor. Seeing the women she worked with toting around numerous bags – and experiencing it herself commuting in Philadelphia – she discovered a gap in the market.
“I'm taking the train in the city and I'm also carrying two or three bags – my purse, my laptop bag, my lunch,” Mosee said. “I just wanted one bag where I could separate and organize everything.”
Searching for such a bag proved futile and soon after that bout with the flu, she decided to take action, creating what would become MinkeeBlue. “When I couldn't find anything, I started thinking, is this something I can do?” The answer was yes.
An engineer by training – Mosee held multiple engineering roles at Lockheed Martin for nearly 12 years and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University – she decided to put those skills to use in a new way.
With no background in fashion, Mosee sought local resources, getting involved with SCORE and the Small Business Development Center at Temple University. During that time, she also began deconstructing and then reconstructing bags to build a prototype of what she envisioned. Her goal was to create organization and eliminate the need for women to lug multiple bags with them on a daily basis.
By 2014, she had formally launched MinkeeBlue and that same year was part of the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator’s cohort of designers. Already with a prototype in hand, Mosee set about refining her design and vision for the company.
Having worked with student mothers, her initial concept focused on a diaper bag that was friendly to parents on the go, but soon added a travel bag. Mosee ultimately decided to focus on the broader audience, creating everyday bags rather than her original diaper bag.
Recognizing she’d have to make hers stand out, she added what she calls a divider inside her bags. That design – Mosee has two utility patents – creates organized spaces within the bag so that items like shoes could be contained within the same bag as a laptop and other essentials, without them touching.
“Having that engineering degree and being a problem solver, I really tried to think about how I would make this divider and I actually went through a couple of iterations with that,” she said. “But the engineering degree helped me with the problem solving and understanding the structure of the bag and how much weight the divider can hold on top and still maintain the structure of the bag.”
Unlike many other tote bags on the market, which have 15 to 20 pieces to construct, Mosee’s bags require around 120 pieces to put together, she said.
Also important was keeping the bag fashionable. Today, Mosee’s bags – named for important women in her life – are available as totes, backpacks and crossbodies.
Her sales are currently direct to consumer, but after appearing on USA Network’s show “America’s Big Deal” last fall, she struck a $100,000 purchase order with Macy’s and anticipates sales launching later this year. She hopes to focus on more wholesale agreements going forward.
Who is your customer?
I actually surveyed my customers over the holidays in preparation for designing new stuff this year, and so a lot of my customers are, especially nowadays, nurses, flight attendants, professional people, attorneys, people who work for the government, teachers. So it’s people who are still going out, are still carrying things that they need for the day like their lunch and their laptop.
How much do your consumers influence your designs?
I love my customer feedback. They tell me what they like, what they don't like, what I can improve on and that's actually how I design my next bag. I look at what my customers are writing. I listen to what they are telling me. They send me emails and so most of the bags I'll add on some new features because they'll say what will work for them. The customers are great. What they really like is the whole functionality of the bag, to be able to carry your lunch in the same bag as your purse essentials and to be able to separate your items and not have to carry two or three bags.
Who are the bags named for?
These are the women in my life. My daughter, my sister, my mother, my college roommate. I named a bag after an intern that's very sweet.
Why “America’s Big Deal”?
Last year, I got an email and … so I looked at this opportunity and thought, this would be perfect because it was an opportunity to demonstrate the bag, which is always important for my product, and so I applied. It took a couple of months before everything went through, but then I got a call back. That was a blessing … because it's taken me to the next level. Appearing on this show and being able to present the product and introduce the product to America, that was awesome.
In what ways are you helping other women entrepreneurs?
I’m relaunching [my business StartUp with Sherill this] March as Innovate, Build, Launch because over the years I've just gotten so many emails from women who want to know how did I start MinkeeBlue, how did I find a manufacturer and those sorts of things, so I want to be able to do that. Also, I do a monthly presentation through SCORE. I love to be able to help other women through the experience that I've had and everything that I've learned to help them launch their business.
