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"  Heather English, 40 Boulder, CO Company: English Retreads   How She Did It Eleven years ago, Heather English, a vegan, was looking for a new handbag that was stylish and eco-friendly\u2014one that wasn&amp;#039;t made of leather but still had a classic design and quality construction. But nothing she saw quite fit the bill. A few months later, she went tubing on a local creek. &amp;quot;The inner tube looked like leather, and it was very strong,&amp;quot; says Heather. &amp;quot;I thought, &amp;#039;I could make a really cool handbag out of this.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;   But she had no clue how. Her only thought: Maybe someone at the hardware store could help. &amp;quot;I told the clerks what I wanted to do. They sold me a hand riveter and showed me how to use it. I went home, cut pieces out of an inner tube, riveted it together and wore it everywhere.&amp;quot; People asked her about her bag nonstop. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s when I realized there might be a market for this.&amp;quot;   Heather sketched a few designs and asked a tech-savvy friend to create a website. Then she started making bags to order, doing everything herself: collecting used inner tubes from a local truck stop (to be as &amp;quot;green&amp;quot; as possible), washing them, putting the purses together, marketing them by word of mouth. And she did it all while working full-time as an accounts manager at an online survey company. Her costs were minimal\u2014a few dollars per bag for the rivets and gas to drive to the truck stops\u2014but so were her sales.   Everything changed after a friend told her she should take her bags to a wholesale accessories trade show in New York City. She did, and came back with orders for 200 bags. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s when it went from a pet project to a real business,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I got a small loan from a family member to help pay for materials\u2014then worked my fingers to the bone making handbags for the next few months.&amp;quot; Realizing she needed help, Heather hired her first employee and researched better ways to make the purses, such as investing in time-saving tools like a die cutter and a pneumatic riveter to cut the bags and piece them together.   She also sought advice from an uncle who owned his own company, and took a business-planning class offered by the chamber of commerce. &amp;quot;The best thing I learned was to accept help from others,&amp;quot; says Heather. Today, her handbags, which cost $10 to $160, are sold online and in 150 stores nationwide, with sales of $300,000 and climbing. To learn more, visit EnglishRetreads.com.   Click here to go back to the main story page. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/work-money/tips/a5873/business-idea-eco-friendly-hand-bags-123302/>