http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/220047/250/Open-for-Business–Hem-Eze

Tampa, Florida — Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, employing half of U.S. Workers and creating more jobs in the last 17 years than the big companies.
That’s why we want to highlight our local small businesses and the owners who are making it through these tough times.
They are what we call, ‘Open for Business’.
Here’s Debra Weisser’s story:
Like most inventions, Debra Weisser’s big idea started with a big problem.
“I had just bought a pair of pants and they were too long and I wanted to wear them that night, I was at a traffic light and I thought of the idea and it was one of those big moments,” Weisser told 10 News.
Weisser has a background in sales, but creating a product to be sold was a whole new realm for her.
“You have to figure out how to mock the product up and then the next step would be to get your patent attorney, so I took it to my patent attorney and she loved the idea,” she explained.
There are other hemming tapes on the market, but Weisser wanted hers to be different, something with a more crisp, professional look.
She found a company in California to manufacture the oval shaped double-sided tape.
She demonstrated how her product works, “You can just lay it on your pants and then pull the sides off on the other side and fold it over and it actually puts a crease in your pants, so it looks professional, like you bought them that way.”
After a lot of market research, her work wasn’t over. She still had to find a place to package and ship her product.
She found it at the MacDonald Training Center at home in Tampa, an organization that provides light manufacturing and packaging for companies, while providing paid training for the developmentally disabled in our community.
Click: MacDonald Training Center: Helping Businesses and people
“They do everything. They put the product together, they do the counting, putting it together and they also ship it out to the customers,” She, Weisser.
In the last three years, she’s taken Hem-Eze from Tampa to fashion trade shows, the Home Shopping Network, to the shelves of Walgreens, and other retailers.
And she’s still looking to expand, she’s just not ready to share her new ideas quite yet.
She is encouraging other women to think about taking their own ideas and turning it into a money making business.

“I would really like to say that women get these ideas all the time because we’ve been, you have a problem and kind of fix it anyway you can and they should pay attention to that and make it a business, I think it’s great for business,” said Weisser.