Rebecca Floyd has launched a startup making dolls without perfect plastic smiles. Photos by Michael Thompson.
HENRICO, Va. — Smiles are nice, but a Henrico entrepreneur is betting frowns make for a better business plan.
Last month, Rebecca Floyd launched Frowny Faces, a company that makes and sells frowning dolls.
While shopping in toy stores for her nephew, Floyd noticed the abundance of dolls smiling at her from the shelves.
“We just realized that toys are really freaky,” said Floyd, a former photographer and book designer. “When you’re not having a good day, you don’t want to stare at a Barbie doll with a big smile on its face.”
Floyd’s idea to bring a little more realism to the world of children’s toys has led to the production of 500 unique Frowny Faces dolls made by hand at a studio in her Henrico home.
She’s sold 100 so far and said she’s gotten a good response from children in focus groups for the discontented dolls.
“They haven’t seen sad dolls before,” Floyd said. “The children will hug them and say they want to make the doll happy or, ‘I know how he feels.’
Floyd said a sad doll can act as a source of empathy for kids going through a tough time. Or Floyd put it on the Frowny Faces website, “While there’s certainly nothing wrong with being happy, I wanted my child to know that it’s okay to feel sad too.”
Find out where to buy her realistic dolls, and continue reading on RichmondBizSense.com.
