Your watch tells you the time. It may even tell you the date. But does it inspire you?
Clinical psychologist Brenda Ellner advised patients to write down their goals and aspirations on a note card and read it four to five times a day.
The tactic worked therapeutically, but her patients grew to dislike the cards and wished she'd come up with another device that could accomplish the same purpose.
That led her to start HourPower, a marketer of watches containing a secret chamber for inserting inspirational messages, photographs and the like.
“I started thinking about it. Walking the beach one day, it became clear that it had to be in a watch because it was an indispensable item,” says Ellner, president of the Cleveland-based firm. “On the outside you could see the time and on the inside you [could have space for] a message.”
Today, HourPower (www.hourpowerwatches.com) has a base of more than 20,000 customers who come from the Internet, jewelry stores, corporations and some nonprofit agencies, says Ellner, who no longer sees patients.
“This has become a full-time position,” she says.
HourPower is using search, press releases and word of mouth to promote the business.
“We're just moving into podcasts and all the kind of guerrilla tactics a small company can use,” she says.
