74 PROFESSIONAL WOMANS MULTICULTURAL MAGAZINE WWW.PROFESSIONALWOMANMAG.COM
SUPPLIER DIVERSITY
M
y name is Dr. Jacqueline Darna. Im a proud Peruvian-American woman, mother of two, a naturopathic physician (formerly practicing anes- thesia) turned entrepreneur and the medical inventor of NoMo Bands. Im just a doctor that never took a business or a marketing class before I became an entrepreneur.
Going from Big Pains to Big-Box Store Gains
By Dr. Jacqueline Darna
sessions), and the NoMo Nausea Band was born. This one band could have saved my dreams of a large fam- ily, and, from then on, I vowed to help women seek relief when they need it most, so pregnancy sickness did not determine how many children they have or didnt have. My mission is simple: better health and wellness naturally. Thats the NoMo Bands way! I invented and patented the 3:1 essential oil infused pressure wristband that stops nausea, migraines and sleep problems in seconds. Clinically proven, used in hos- pitals in 12 countries and sold in over 20,000 big box stores, NoMo Nausea, NoMo Migraine and NoMo Sleepless Nights help people of all ages enjoy cruis- ing, a family fun car trip, comfortable pregnancy, a headache free day and a great nights sleep all on their wrists. The NoMo family [of employees] is 27 strong and growing, mostly consisting of sales representa- tives. We ship globally across the country as NoMo Bands are 100 percent made in the USA.
Building My Business - Right!
Being a bootstrapped company, I learned what not to do quickly as I was using my own money to try a variety of marketing tactics. I learned that business is the business of people, not products or services. I am WBENC (Womens Business Enterprise National Council), WOSB (Women-Owned Small Business) and MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) certified. I was attending a medical conference in Las Vegas over five years ago and happened to stumble upon the WBENC conference happening downstairs. I had just created the idea for my product and was working on packaging, so I decided to check it out. I felt so wel- comed by the women I met and their companies. So many women were willing to help introduce me to the game changers in the business with connections in manufacturing, retail and much more. I immediately ran home and started the certification process. After being certified for less than one year, I attended the national conference and enrolled in their pitch com- petition. Im the pitch queen! Michael Byron, who is the retired supplier diversity and global procure- ment officer for IBM, was my mentor when I won WBENC's first ever PepsiCo Pitch Competition. And that's how I got into my first big retailer - CVS. NoMo Bands are now in Walmart, Meijer, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), Bed Bath & Beyond, BuyBuy Baby, on Amazon, CVS, Safe Harbor, SuperValu, Zulily and more. As for the medical branch of my products, our Med Plus line for medical facilities, we are determined to expand into other countries around the world for hospital and emergency use in surgery, labor and delivery and chemotherapy radiation. We are actively seeking dis- tributors within the medical space outside of the U.S. Ive also pitched at NMSDC (National Minority Supplier Diversity Council), the HSN (Home Shopping Network) American Dreams Pitch Competition and for Kevin Harringtons Shark Tank pitch event, The Big Pitch. I won all three of those. The more people I can help stop their nausea, vom- iting, headaches, migraines and sleep problems, the
How I Got Started
After delivering our second child via emergency C-section, I threw up for three days straight. In between the continuous vomiting, I would bark orders for the anti-nausea medication that I gave my patients as an anesthesia provider. No medications worked, and I could not be discharged from the hospital until I stopped, so they recommended placing me into an anesthesia-induced coma. Instead, I decided to try some Eastern medicine practices. I found that acupressure on the P6 point of the wrist and holding peppermint to that same point helped ease the nausea and vomiting. I was amazed how much better the combination made me feel. The only inconvenience I had was with the pepper- mint leaves, which I kept accidentally dropping on the ground, so I would tape the leaves together on my wrist. I was discharged soon after the vomiting stopped but had my tubes tied due to the violent reac- tion to childbirth. On the car ride home, I went online to try to buy a product like what I had made out of the tape and leaves, but no one had ever combined essential oil and acupressure into a wristband. My provisional patent was filed days later (in between breastfeeding
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