INVENTOR A SUCCESS WITH TOYS; WATERBABIES CHIEF FEATURED AT EXPO

Daniel Lauer is persistent.

The St. Louis toymaker who turned a $200 business investment into a multi-million dollar operation over a period of three years told his phenomenal "WaterBabies" story at the Southeast Missouri Trade Expo Tuesday.

A total of 170 people registered for the day-long expo, held at the Show Me Center on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

There were 48 exhibitors at the event, said Linda Cochran, economic development director at the university, noting the expo was designed to match buyers with sellers.

"The conference provides an opportunity for companies, and/or individuals, to display their products or ideas," said Cochran. "It also puts buyers from large companies into touch with other firms."

On hand for the one-day event were representatives from several large companies discussing "how and what to sell" to them. Also present were government represent~atives who explained procedures for becoming a government supplier.

Lauer knows what it's like trying to match buyers with sellers.

"In some instances, the concept for a new invention, or toy, is the easy part," he said. "Getting a toy company to produce and market the product is the hard part."

Lauer said he found that toy companies, like Mattel, Hasbro and Playmates, "get 400 letters a week from guys like me. But success can happen here. The WaterBabies Doll idea started in the Midwest and was nurtured from concept to reality here."

Lauer, a former banker turned inventor and entrepreneur, was speaker for the opening session of the expo.

At age 27, Lauer, who attended University of Missouri-Columbia two years and graduated from UM-St. Louis with a degree in business administration, was vice president of a St. Louis bank in 1987.

"I was doing well at the bank," he said. "I started there as a teller, and by October of '87 was a vice president. But, I had always dreamed of being corporate.

"I wanted to be an inventor, and I wanted to be president of my own company," he said. "I was particularly interested in the toy business. It's a fascination industry and if you can hit a home run you're in big."

The "home run" came about for Lauer with an initial investment of $200 that "put me in business."

"I was president of my own company, Lauer Toys, Inc.," he said. "I set aside 10 hours a week to run my company, while keeping my bank job to have some money rolling in."

Lauer's idea for a new toy was formed many years ago.

"I was from a big family," he said. "We didn't have a lot of money for toys, so my three sisters used to make dolls by filling balloons with water. They would paint faces on the balloons and dress them up.

"I remembered my sisters playing with their balloon dolls, and I had this concept of a waterbaby doll. My first rough prototype doll was a rubber glove filled with water, with a head stuck on it."

Lauer said he spent numerous hours studying toy companies.

"I didn't want to go through the problems of developing a toy which had already been tried in the past. I didn't want a repeat product."

Research revealed no record of a water-filled doll.

"I started writing toy companies," he said. "I was persistence. I wrote hundreds of letters and received hundreds of rejections."

Lauer quit his job at the bank in 1989.

"I decided to give myself a year to build my company," he said. "I went to a New York Toy Fair. I went to several toy fairs."

Unable to find a company to market his doll, he decided to market it himself. He raised $300,000 by selling stock in his company to local investors. He arranged to have the dolls manufactured.

"My first big break came in August of 1990," he said. "I talked a toy buyer for Venture Stores, a St. Louis discount chain, to take one of the dolls home to show his daughter and her friends.

"The girls loved it. Venture and a few other St. Louis chains decided to do a test sale," said Lauer. "I hoped to sell 5,000 dolls during the test period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

"More than 15,000 were sold," he said. "Now, toy companies started coming to me."

Lauer went with Playmates, Inc.

"Playmates had its a Ninja Turtle for boys, but did not have a toy for girls," he said.

More than two million dolls were sold in 1991, and Playmates, Inc. expects to sell four million WaterBabies in the U.S. this year. The line will also be sold in Europe and Japan.

Lauer is now working on his next toy, which is due for release in June.

He's not saying what it is. "But, it's a toy for boys," he said.