Joy ManganoWhen Joy Mangano was a kid, she loved tinkering with common household items, trying to make them work better, as well as coming up with her own inventions. At a young age she invented a dog collar that would protect against fleas, and was florescent in color, allowing animals to be seen easier at night. Unfortunately, before she could get her collar on the market, another person had taken her chance. However, she didn't let this phase her, and she made a promise to herself that the next idea she invented would get on the market before anyone else.
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Joy was a divorced single mother of three, who worked in airline reservations, as well as being a waitress in oder to make ends meet. She became frustrated with having to clean up after her 3 kids, and was inspired to invent a mop that was super absorbent, and self wringing, so that you wouldn't have to touch the dirty mop with your hands, and machine washable. She called it The Miracle Mop.
After making her idea come to life, she was able to sell a few mops due to self advertising with the help of her kids. Things really started looking up for her when she was given the opportunity to sell her mops on QVC. However, in the mop's first appearance, it did not sell very well at all, and QVC had plans to return Joy's stock back to her. Joy did not accept this, and claimed the lack of sales was not because of the product, but because the channel was not representing it correctly. She told QVC if they let her on to promote her own product it would sell, and if not, she would take her stock back. An executive of QVC saw potential in Joy and agreed to let her on air for 20 minutes. The phones went crazy, and she was able to sell 18,000 mops in those 20 minutes. 10 years later she had sold 200 million dollars worth of Miracle Mops. She persevered through her setbacks, and achieved her goals.