Moms’ tennis apparel scores on Web

By Douglas Sams
doug.sams@gwinnettdailypost.com

Gwinnett Daily Post/Craig Moore
Debra Pugel, left and Hilary O'Leary started selling tennis dresses out of the back of the minivan. Now they have been doing 98 percent of their sales from their Web site.

LAWRENCEVILLE — Hilary O’Leary and Debra Gomez-Pugel have turned a man’s botched attempt at laundry into one of the hottest tennis apparel businesses on the Web.
The founders of Ad In Tennis Apparel Co. have gone from stay-at-home moms to seasoned entrepreneurs whose business posted nearly $100,000 in sales last year — and has never lost a dime since it was launched nine years ago.
Enough Internet-browsers are visiting their site now to stack their tiny home-based firm against the larger online sporting apparel companies, such as Tennis Warehouse and Tennis Co.
And Gomez-Pugel said their Lawrenceville business generated all this success despite putting little energy into marketing. 
“We were sometimes working until 11 or 12 at night, so there was just no time left,” she said. “We’re starting to turn things up on the marketing side now.”
The whole venture started in 1995, when O’Leary wanted to try the hot new look on the suburban courts — the tennis dress. She bought one for $80, but barely had a chance to show it off before her husband made the mistake of throwing the dress in the dryer.
It came out two sizes smaller.
O’Leary, who knew how to sew, took the pattern, made another dress — and a business concept was born. Not long after, O’Leary and Gomez-Pugel were making dresses, driving to the tennis courts and selling their apparel out of the back of their minivan.
“They would come by after the matches, look at the stuff we had on the racks in the back of the van and say ‘That’s really cool. Can you make one for me?,” Gomez-Pugel said.
“It was the best thing we could do, selling those out of the van like that. We got so much information on what our customers liked.”
Now they do a lot of business not only from Gwinnett, but also from other parts of the United States and Europe. They are also expanding their product line by making dresses for teens. O’Leary and Gomez-Pugel hope girls’ high school tennis teams can become their next wave of customers.
And if the business keeps growing and they need to hire more employees, they won’t have far to look. “We can just get our husbands to come work for us,” O’Leary said.