Eye candy delafield7/5/2023 ![]() She transformed Eye Candy’s 700-square-foot storage space into a dynamic children’s optical boutique, sending a collection of paperwork, holiday goods and POP materials to an off-site storage facility. (Both shops are on Milwaukee Street in downtown Delafield, a popular shopping destination with colonial-style architecture.) Hornbeck initially considered creating a separate children’s eyewear store elsewhere in Delafield, but she ultimately made the calculated decision to open Eye Candy Kids within her existing space to minimize start-up expenses. I wanted to become the solution, not part of the problem.” “There was a major need for quality children’s eyewear,” Hornbeck says, “and I couldn’t let it go on like that. “When I’d get asked about children’s eyewear, I wouldn’t even know who to recommend.”Īnd with that, her ambitions of opening a children’s eyewear shop took on added importance. “I learned just how underserved the children’s market was,” Hornbeck says. “If I was going to do children’s, I was going to do it right.”īut Hornbeck paid attention as a swelling number of customers inquired about children’s eyewear. “I focused on the higher-end adult market and didn’t want to spread myself too thin by addressing children’s as well,” she says. Initially, Hornbeck peddled luxury eyewear to adults, though she maintained long-term interest in the idea of a children’s shop. When Hornbeck secured the funding and a location, Eye Candy took flight. She took an entrepreneurship class at a local community college assembled a comprehensive business plan detailing her vision, marketing and financials and shopped the proposal to local banks. Inspired and empowered by her husband, Tracy, Hornbeck pushed fears aside. ![]() “I realized that if I wanted to do it my way, I needed to do it myself.” I thought we could do more and be more as eyewear businesses,” Hornbeck says. “I worked for some great people, but a lot of them were content to keep the status quo. “I’m literally living the dream,” Hornbeck says.Īfter hopscotching the country for three decades working at eyewear shops and private practices, Hornbeck returned to Wisconsin, her childhood home, and opened Eye Candy in downtown Delafield in 2007. In 2014, seven years after launching Eye Candy in Delafield, WI, Hornbeck opened Eye Candy Kids, a toddler, tween and teen-focused eyewear boutique, expanding the brand’s presence in this affluent, 7,000-resident Milwaukee suburb peppered with independent shops and lakeside homes. PAULA HORNBECK CAN SCRATCH this one off her bucket list. OWNERS: Paula Hornbeck FOUNDED: 2014 DESIGNERS: Creative Business Interiors URL: EMPLOYEES: 4 AREA: 700 square feet TOP BRANDS: Miraflex, Etnia Barcelona, Liberty Sport, Lafont and Matisse FACEBOOK: /eck ![]()
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