Name: CBM, known online as HatTrixx
Location: Pikeville, Tenn.
Products: CapChrome, the company's only product, is an attachment designed to add style to any hat. It's a plastic molded U-shaped trim piece, with either a gold or chrome finish, that adheres around the rim of a baseball hat's bill.
Age: The company was founded on March 1
Startup investment/annual sales: Two brothers and a cousin founded the company with $5,000. While they've been in business less than a year, they have sold about 1,000 pieces so far.
Target market: The owners originally thought that the product would be most popular with urban teenagers, but found that the 20- to 35-year-old rural buyers were the most reliable. They have had success with tractor pulls and dirt track racing events, where they set up tables.
Biggest hurdle: "Trying to get people to wear the product has been the toughest thing," co-founder Timothy L. Burks said. While people understand the concept, he said, it's so unique and new that they don't know what it will look like until they put it on.
Biggest reward: Burks said the biggest reward is when someone comes up to him and compliments his product.
Challenges in the future: The biggest challenge so far has been creating an effective marketing campaign, Burks said. While he says people are willing to buy the product once they see it, it's takes a lot of work to get to that point.
Lesson learned: The team learned the importance of product packaging, and had to go through several iterations to get the right size box with the right design that would fit in-store displays.
Five-year goal: The company's five-year-goal is to have a supply line of distributors who are marketing the product, to be able to wholesale CapChrome and have retail outlets do the selling.