3:16 | Play Now | What does New Zealand have in common with Southern California?  Beaches and fair-skinned children.  The hat that helps kids in one part of the world turns out to help kids everywhere.

Santa Monica: In this episode of the television show we take you inside a California business that is making children's hats for Talbots, Nordstrom, Children's Wear Digest and dozens of others. Now they make hundreds of items for retailers (mostly small children's specialty retailers) all around the world.

Flap Happy was founded in 1987 because Laurie Snyder was afraid her very fair-skinned, freckled-faced baby boy would get seriously burned by the California sun. Laurie created a hat by enlarging the brim of a traditional baseball cap and by adding flaps. Other mothers saw the hat and wanted one for their own child. That was the beginning of this special business.

Yet, Laurie had to look beyond banks to make her darling hats.

There really  are no business start-up bank loans.  Every founder who wins money from a banker to get going had personal assets to use as collateral.  Or, they might have been lucky to convince a friend or family member to co-sign on a loan. 

Meet Laurie Snyder. Meet her Mom, her Dad, her husband, her sister, her "model" child and her other children, too. This is the team that sacrificed to build the business.