This Entrepreneur Left Silicon Valley to Make Monster Repellent

When her 7-year-old son, Nico, woke up with nightmares and wouldn't go back to sleep, because he was afraid of monsters, Hewlett-Packard executive Stephanie Corey had a flash of inspiration.

She made a label and put it on a bottle of lavender spray, and told Nico it was zombie repellent.

It worked. Nighttime was saved.

"As a mother of three children, the only time I get to myself is after they go to bed," said the 38-year-old woman, who used to split time between Aptos and Redwood City to be near her office.

"If they weren't going to bed, it was tough."

After her son sprayed the repellent, specifically designed for zombies, he slept through the night for the first time in three weeks.

Thus was born a business, Miss Stephanie's Potions. She found a company in Michigan that makes vegan, child-friendly, scents, including root beer, lemonade and cherry. She designed labels for sprays specifically for closet monsters, sprays to make monsters behave, for fairy dust, and for—take your pick—vampires, werewolves or zombies.

She added clothes and bath soaps that she started selling, first through a friend's store in Boulder, CO, and then locally at children's and tourist stores, including the Baby Shoppe in Santa Cruz and Outside In and Forget Me Not in Aptos. She sold out her first batches in two weeks.

Pediatricians across the country began contacting her for product through her website.

Corey is one of what Atlantic magazine calls the "e-conomy," a new class of entrepreneurs, engineers and contractors who have given up on the corporate gold watch and are starting businesses from home.

For 11 years, she was senior director and chief of staff for the general counsel at HP, one of the biggest information technology firms in the world. 

She gave up the very lucrative job to make a go of it on her own. What she lost in income, she gained in flexibility and time with her family. Her husband, Brent, is a firefighter and physician's assistant in San Francisco and Watsonville.

"What I enjoyed most about my job was helping people," said Corey. "I was helping the general counsel, but I realized I wanted to help more people. I never really saw myself as the corporate type."

Surprisingly, she was helped every step of the way by people she had met through HP.

One of her artists was a receptionist she saw doodling; her website designer worked for a lawyer she met on the job; the first store she reached in Colorado, Art Mart, was owned by a person who used to work in her same job at another technology company, NetApp Storage.

"It's pretty scary giving up the corporate paycheck," she said. "But all the people I met through corporate America really helped."

She launched the company in February. Although she saw some similar products on the web, she thought she could do it better by making a larger line of clothes, toys and monster-safe items.

and she's enjoying her new life.

"I always wanted to try my own business. I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit."