FRANKLIN, Mass — Underwear... That gives parents peace of mind! A local mom felt overwhelmed taking her two young children on a trip to see family by herself. So she found a solution to keep track of her kids and turned it into a business!
Clarissa Guyton is one of nine siblings.
“I remember, you know, going to the beach and go to these places, always seeing her like have to like, oh, where are my nine kids all the time,” said Clarissa Guyton, the CEO of Treasure Trace, when talking about her mother. “As a mother now, I’m just like, ‘Oh my God.’”
Clarissa has two young kids of her own and knows how hard it is to keep them in view every second when going to parks and crowded areas. There are options out there — like leashes or wristbands — but she was afraid her kids would somehow break free of them.
“We were talking about a way that we can kind of keep a tracker on them in the way that’s very comfortable for them and that we can kind of know that it’s going to be on their body,” said Guyton. “They’re not going to take it off, rip it off. Someone else is not going to take it off of them.”
Clarissa and her husband came up with the idea of putting a GPS tracker — in their children’s underwear.
“It just kind of lays flat right inside the underwear,” explained Clarissa.
With a master’s in electrical engineering, Clarissa relied on the help of her mother — who has business and fashion degrees — to develop Treasure Trace underwear. Each pair has a patented pocket tucked inside that fits most GPS tracking devices, like an Airtag.
“You just flip it in and then you would fold it right, right side up like this,” said Guyton. “So what that does is it’s got kind of trifold to it. So if your child is going to reach down in there, they can’t actually just take it out and it doesn’t just kind of fall out. Right. But it still is going to lay flat for them.”
For example, say your child gets home from school and wants to go out in the neighborhood and play with their friends. Meantime, you can stay at home and track them on your phone with their Treasure Trace underwear. So even though you can’t see your child from your window, you’ll know exactly where they are.
“My hope is that, you know, it can kind of bring some peace of mind to families,” said Guyton.
Clarissa says it also gives young children some freedom to roam without their parent being glued to their side. As a first-time entrepreneur, she says it’s been a learning process. She’s been getting help through Amazon’s black business accelerator program and also encouragement from moms in the community to make her vision — a reality.
“I think we all should more people should try, you know, go after ideas because, I mean, a lot of times, you know, people say, oh, I had that idea,” said Guyton. “And then you see it later, you’re like, oh, yeah, I should have done that. You know, I could have done that. I think people should go for it. It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun.”
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