Cyndi Prince is CEO of LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls

Camden entrepreneur wins SBA’s Home-Based Business Champion award

Thu, 04/17/2014 - 8:15am

    CAMDEN — Entrepreneur Cyndi Prince lives in a modest home in Camden with her husband and their young son. Downstairs it’s a typical family home full of warmth and love. Upstairs things are a little different. Prince is founder and CEO of LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls and she runs the company out of her upstairs office. She is also the most recent recipient of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Home-Based Business Champion Award for Maine and New England. She will receive the award June 17 in Portland.

    Prince said the LooHoo name came from a nickname she had during childhood.

    “My sister had suggested it as a name that’s kind of fun and catchy,” she said. “I wasn’t to into it at first, but then I realized it was a good name for something like this.”

    Looking to avoid softeners and dryer sheets, Prince said she discovered dryer balls just before her son was born.

    “Dryer sheets leave cloth diapers unable to absorb,” she said. “I wanted to avoid those types of products, so I was looking for something different. I ordered some wool dryer balls online, but they fell apart after a couple of months, so I decided to make my own version. My wool dryer ball is all wool right to the core. It’s wool that’s felted and that’s how they form that ball shape and it’s real dense and durable.”

    The dryer balls come in a variety of colors and Prince said that the color has nothing to do with the balls’ performance.

    “It’s aesthetics,” she said. “When I first started I just did natural colors because of course I thought that was what people would want. I quickly learned that people like some color, especially in their laundry. We try to change it throughout the season to incorporate new fun colors, but they all work the same.”

    A wool ball — what’s the science behind it? Prince was glad to explain.

    “You toss several of the balls in the dryer and it’s going to help separate your wet clothes better,” she said. “When you get more circulation, you’re going to get more air around those wet clothes. It helps reduce your dry time since you have a lot more efficient circulation in there. It also helps soften your clothes too because you have the friction of the balls against your clothes as they tumble around. One ball is not enough; you really need three to get the separation you need and that’s for a normal load, but if you have a large family and do massive loads you need as many as eight.”

    Prince’s business had its humble beginnings in 2010 and back then she made all the balls herself.

    “I started very small, and I only told friends and family about them,” she said. “I set up a small website and just took orders from there and now, today, we are in a little over 200 retail stores. We produce around 700 balls a week and usually every one of them is gone by the end of the week. I still sell online through the website. The retailers are across the United States and in Canada as well.”

    Seven-hundred dryer balls a week is a little much for Prince to handle all by herself, so Pieceworks Inc. in Montville fulfills her company’s needs. Pieceworks also began as a home-based business 16 years ago. They focus on manufacturing services for other companies.

    On receiving the SBA award, Prince said it’s a little surreal.

    “Having a home-based business, it’s not so much in the public’s eye,” she said. “Some of my neighbors didn’t even know what I did a year or so ago. The business is so under the radar, so to speak. I have orders going out of here all week and it’s hard to convey because it’s all online, but I’m very proud and it’s such an honor just to be recognized for something that you’ve worked so hard for.”

    Being a home-based business, Prince said it’s also hard sometimes to separate home and business and other parts of being a family.

    “I work at least eight hours a day, five days a week,” she said. “When it’s busy though, especially around Christmas, it’s a constant effort. The sales stay strong all year, but I find in the fall more people are buying them and then into the holiday season because they are a great gift, so people stock up on them. I always think summer is going to be slower because I think people are going to hang their clothes outside, but it turns out it’s still a constant flow of sales.”

    Prince said the dryer balls are definitely a step in the green direction, especially if someone is thinking of making a more healthy home. And wool dryer balls, it turns out, are popular items for children to take and play with, and dogs seem to have a special attraction to them. Prince solved the pet problem by coming out with a line of pet balls.

    “We started this last fall,” she said. “We had heard from so many customers that pets were stealing the LooHoos from the clean laundry that we decided to make some LooHoo pet balls. They are larger and denser and will hopefully last a little longer, and keep your pets away from the LooHoos in your dryer. So far people have liked them. I did a nice big test group of some local people with pets. I wanted to see if a big dog would tear them up, but they are real durable and washable too. Unfortunately, since it’s such a new product they are only available online.”


    Reach Chris Wolf at news@penbaypilot.com