When the first wave of news about the potential danger that BPA posed to plastic baby bottles hit the media last summer,the three partners at Adiri thought they had lost a golden moment.

While their baby bottle was BPA free -- it was still in the last stages of the design process and not ready for consumers.

When The New York Times featured the company on the cover of its business section last November --- just several months after the product did hit the shelves--- the three women again thought they were doomed.

While the publicity was great they didn't have enough products to fill orders. On top of that, of the 10,000 products that had been shipped from their manufacturer, about 50% were flawed. A tough lesson that required changing the production to a laser drill to correct "flow issues" and implementing a tough quality assurance program to test for product problems before they are shipped.

When the business took off faster than the women anticipated, they didn't have cash flow to hire employees. With no admin assistance,the three partners Jennifer Morrill, the company's CEO , Beth Shvodian, Adiri President,and Sarah Eisner, vice president of marketing, have been doing everything themselves for the past two years.

"The timing of your call is interesting," Jennifer Morrill said during our phone conversation on Saturday, " this is the inflection point right now." Turns out last summer's interest in BPAs was just a warm-up to last month.

" We've hit the jackpot of media frenzy on BPA," said Sarah Eisner." The news about our BPA -free baby bottle is coming at the exact time when we are winning medical design awards--the product has won six awards including one from the UK which had 15,000 entries. They were in the top five. From BPAFreeKids

Adiri is indeed as close as it gets to Mother Nature. Moms all around are discovering how helpful this design is in transitioning their little ones from breast to bottle. Finally the ladies at Adiri are being recognized for what they have done.

Adiri has been recognized and awarded the Medical Design Excellence Award for 2008, and the Red Dot Design Award for 2008.

As the person in charge of marketing the product, Eisner, who blogged at Silicon Valley Moms and was a member of Maya's Mom(Adiri and Maya's mom were in the same office building until very recently) relied on the blogging community to kickstart her marketing efforts. Through her blogging Sarah met the woman who writes Celebrity-Baby. She gave this endorsement right before the product launched.

This week, Adiri is releasing their "must have" simple, soft and safe polycarbonate-free bottle. With an easy to use and dishwasher safe Fill Twist and Feed system, the only nipple truly shaped like a mother's breast, soft polycarbonate-free materials, a unique petal-shaped vent that helps reduce colic, and a hip couture look (the Nurser is even being featured in a design exhibition at the Museum for California Art in Pasadena), the Natural Nurser enables the ultimate bottlefeeding experience.

The Adiri Natural Nurser is dishwasher safe and comes in three stages and couture colors: white for newborn to 3 months; periwinkle blue for 3-6 months; and orange for 6 months+. The Nurser has a unique co-molded nipple and bottle body which allows for simple filling and feeding and requires no additional parts. No more lost nipple rings ! How's that for a hip bottle description?

 

That post was followed up by the news that Jennifer Lopez was an Adiri user.

In December, Jennifer Lopez went on a huge shopping spree for her upcoming new additions (rumor has it that she's expecting twins), at LA's Petit Tresor. She got doubles of a lot of items, like a few double strollers and including 10 Adiri™ Natural Nurser™ Ultimate Baby Bottles. After using the Adiri™ Natural Nursers the past few weeks, I can see why! I love these bottles because of the bottle's unique breast and nipple shape (especially perfect for a newborn), the bottles are polycarbonate-free and bisphenol-A free and best of all, my newborn Allegra loves them.

Sarah says while making the front page of The New York Times business section was great, it is blog sites like Celebrity Babies that dramatically increase the traffic on their site. It was also through Sarah's blogging community that she met Liz Gumbinner from Cool Mom Picks --Liz was also a presenter at this year's BlogHer Business Conference

Confession: I used to think nipple confusion was a myth invented by lactivists to keep kids on the boob. And then my second girl came along and, holy sleepless night, Batman, she would not take a bottle, no way no how.

I asked - no, begged - friends, family, strangers on the street for any help and a few benevolent, wonderful souls me towards the Adiri Natural Nurser Ultimate Bottle. My lifesaver!

This super innovative bottle looks and feels enough like a boob to get you kicked off a United Flight when you whip it out. It's supple, soft, and absolutely Bisphenol A-free so no worries using a microwave, bottle warmer, or giving it a spin in the dishwasher. Plus - Hooray for fewer parts to wash. It's just one piece plus the screw-on base which even has some gas-reducing thingie built-into it.

There are three sizes but my 4 month-old was fine with the fast flow orange one. Get a bunch (if they're not on backorder). Whether you've got a kid with nipple issues or you just want a better, easier, safer bottle.

Even if the kid's still on the boob, there's infinite value in sharing feeding duties at night. Trust me. -Liz

Pre-release scoop: This week, Adiri will be announcing that is is teaming with MomsRising.org to donate a 1,000 Adiri Baby Bottles to low income moms receiving care from organizations that serve low-income families across the US. Some of the organizations involve includeHomeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco, CA, The House of Ruth in Washington D.C., La Maestra in San Diego, CA, and Union Mission in Savannah, GA.

Today, the three women and their baby bottle are in talks with venture capitalists for "serious money." They want to approach some of the biggest retailers and they plan to double their staff this month. They have already topped a million dollars in sales and Jennifer Morrill says their conservative estimates have them reaching 2.5 to 3 million in sales in 2008.

This is even more remarkable when you get the back story of Adiri. In January Jennifer Morrill told the story to Jessica Harris who's program From Scratch airs on a few NPR stations.

Morrill never intended to run this business. She was a lawyer working for Yahoo.

Her dad invented the first iteration of the Adiri bottle. But his version required training to learn how to use and it never achieved consumer success.

Morrill says that the only time she used it was when her dad came over for the visit." It was like the crystal penguin you get as a wedding gift --you only display it when they come over to visit."

Morrill, who described her father as someone who didn't believe in listening to his customers. She says he wanted to distribute a video on how to use the bottle.

Morrill told him,"Dad, a mom isn't going to take the time to watch a video. I didn't even watch the video on how to use my child's card seat. You have to make it simpler and his answer to me was--she needs to watch the video."

Morill's dad died unexpectedly in 2005 and left her the business and a life insurance policy. She tried to sell the business but no one was interested. So she took the money he left her from the life insurance policy and contacted the folks at Whipsaw Design. She says without the life insurance policy she would never have moved forward because she would not have been willing to invest her savings in the product.

Her dad's product had BPA in the base of the bottle. It was Morrill's husband who advocated strongly to make the product BPA -free. " He had us stop using Nalgene bottles a long time ago for health and environmental reasons and said let's look carefully at these plastics you are putting in a baby's mouth." Morrill said when she started talking to manufacturers they pushed back and told her the material with BPAs were cheaper and more durable. She stood her ground.

" It's one of the more visionary things I did right at the beginning because its turned out to be a huge selling point and caused our sales to go through the roof." On the horizon there are product accessories and new products are being discussed.

"I used to think of this as a little home hobby product--this bottle shaped like a breast. Now I'm constantly talking to potential hires with the most impressive resumes. I'm about to have a dream team." The business has completely changed her life.

"It is she says, "an adventure"--a gift from a father who was difficult and in her words "bullheaded.

"I've been forced to become a different person--to take personal risks," said Morrill. " I'm much more sure of myself--that is a gift."

Image Credits: NYTimes, Whipsaw

Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness