Companies on the Move: Casauri Handbags

Creating style for the tech-savvy

Black laptop cases, albeit popular, are just not Emily and Helena McHugh's style. Instead of conforming to the rest of the tech-savvy world by sticking with basic black, this pair of sisters decided in 1999 that the time had come for a more stylish laptop bag – so they designed on themselves.

At the time, Emily McHugh needed one more class – Managing New Business Ventures – to complete her master's degree in business at Columbia University. To finish the course, she had to write a business plan for a new enterprise. In search of a good topic, McHugh realized that most of her classmates used the same black laptop cases for their laptops. Emily, on the other hand, toted around a more stylish case that Helena McHugh had made for her.

"People were always complimenting Helena's bag, so I developed a plan for a company that would make laptop and Palm Pilot cases, and custom logo handbags," says McHugh, who today is founder and creative director for East Orange, N.J.-based Casauri. After earning an "A" on her business plan, McHugh took her idea a step further and began researching the possibility of turning the plan into a real company. As part of her research, McHugh visited the Newark, N.J. SCORE chapter and met with counselors to discuss the business start-up process, setting priorities, obtaining financing and fine-tuning business plans.

One year into her new venture, Emily met SCORE Counselor Stephanie Farrar, an instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. "It was wonderful to work with someone directly involved with the fashion industry," says McHugh. "She offered many ideas on the creative side, and encouraged me to attend seminars and other meetings where she would introduce me to her industry contacts."

Of course, taking a college paper and turning it into a thriving business requires a lot of sweat equity, pavement pounding and door banging, particularly in the competitive fashion industry. McHugh says that while her sister hunkered down to create product samples she was out knocking on buyers' doors, convincing them that both women and men would be interested in a laptop bag that went beyond basic black.

"I went out there and showed it to stores to gauge interest and potential, then went back to the drawing board again and again to address recommended changes and tweaks to the design," recalls McHugh, who calls all product samples "works in progress." By targeting stores where she thought the product would sell best – and by taking those constructive suggestions to heart – McHugh says it wasn't long before the orders started pouring in.

The realization that stores and their buyers want multi-faceted, extendable product lines also helped, says McHugh. "It all starts with a single business vision," she adds, "but successful product marketing also requires an entire concept, which means more products and styles to fill the consumers' recurring need for your creations."

It also means taking the production out of Helena McHugh's attic and sending it overseas to a mass manufacturer who handles the large orders from stores like Flight 001 at Henri Bendel, MoMA’s Design Store and Sony Style. "Helena makes the patterns and we collaborate on the design and create a sample," says McHugh. "Then, we sent them overseas to manufacturers, who come back with a production-ready product."

Finding the right overseas partners took time, says McHugh, who relied on references and word-of-mouth recommendations to lead her to one that could handle Casauri's line. Setting customer pricing that covered the manufacturing, design and marketing costs while allowing the McHughs to earn a profit was also tricky, she adds.

"I kept profitability in mind at all times, even though it took a while to achieve," says McHugh, who focuses on removing inefficiencies from the company's system while gaining efficiencies in other areas (for example, by using a universal shoulder strap for all bags instead of a separate strap for each color). Keeping costs in check and prices at the right level have been ongoing challenges, she adds.

"If you don't get that formula right, the rest is in vain," says McHugh. "We did it by testing introductory prices to see what the market will bear, then letting the market tell us where the pricing should be."

To get the word out about Casauri, McHugh used advertising, public relations and press coverage. "PR is the sales engine of a business – it's how people know you exist, and it doesn’t cost anything but time," say McHugh, who wrote letters to editors, met with them at networking events and wrote articles of interest to those magazines that her potential customers were reading. Through an aggressive follow-up campaign, she was able to get her firm's products onto the pages of magazines like In-Style, USA Today and U.S. News & World Report.

Casauri has also made good use of the Web, which McHugh calls "the centrifugal force" of the company. "It's a key part of our strategy because it allows people to see and buy our products," says McHugh. "It's also the central operating system of entire business, where we handle all of our accounting and operational activity."

Two years after the initial light bulb went on above McHugh's head in that college classroom, all of those elements were in place and she and Helena were ready to debut their line of designer laptop and palm computer cases in time for the start of the December 2001 holiday shopping season. At the time, neither realized that they were on the verge of creating a style revolution. In an industry segment where style and fashion have played little part, the McHugh sisters have injected renewed vitality that has made their line of Casauri laptop carrying cases highly sought after "must-have" fashion accessories.

Perhaps it's because Casauri appeals to the style-conscious, tech-savvy individual who seeks accessories that are expressive. The company's cases are attractive to both men and women alike, but hold special allure for women, who once were relegated to purchasing black, masculine cases. "Even people who don't own a laptop carry Casauri cases for their multi-functional appeal and attractive appearance," says McHugh, who points to fashion models, art directors and photographers as just a few of the professionals who carry Casauri cases for their presentation portfolios.