Tereson Dupuy: making entrepreneurial dreams come true

Friday September 19, 2014 , 5 min Read

Tereson_Dupuy — When Tereson Dupuy discovered that the chemicals in disposable diapers were irritating her newborn son’s nappy rash, she realised there was a serious gap in the market and serious need for dermatologically friendly nappies. Starting out by sewing nappies in her bedroom, Tereson is now a successful and innovative business woman who has taken her diaper business FuzziBunz from strength to strength before selling it on and starting her latest venture – the ‘Make It Happen’ workshop helping new entrepreneurs believe in their businesses and setting them on the path to success.

With her father being an entrepreneur, Tereson was shown a strong work ethic from a young age. “I was taught to treat people with respect, go above and beyond and always operate with integrity” and it is these traits that have carried her so far and helped her grow FuzziBunz up to the successful business it is.

“I think people are made up of certain things from a very innate and spiritual perspective and although my experiences in life have played a part in who I am or what makes me tick, I think it is just my nature to have the drive, determination and creativity to make my dreams a reality. My need to “make a difference” in the world comes simply from my sense of purpose I have for my life,” says Tereson.

And that she most certainly did. After creating the modern cloth diaper, she has changed the lives of parents and babies across the world with both economic and environmentally friendly diapers keeping babies happy and more importantly healthy. It is this that Tereson holds as her biggest achievement.

However, having started a business from scratch, Tereson is no stranger to how challenging and hard the entrepreneur life can be, but having been so successful with it has inspired her to help others who endeavour on the same business start-up path as she did. With the biggest struggle she faced being underfunding and a lack of support, Tereson also discovered that being a woman in the business industry came with its difficulties as well. Having previously worked in the male dominant oil field, this is where she discovered there can be business related gender equality.

OSL-PineappleFizz — “There have been many challenges being a woman in business, some of them were not being taken seriously, especially in the male run oil field town in which I conducted business, so that limited how much business support I could get locally. Doing business globally also presented some problems, such as with our manufacturer in Turkey. I am a strong and assertive woman and that did not go over well and I feel definitely had a big impact on that business relationship.”

Yet it is this confident and assertive persona that has kept Tereson going and made her who she is today. After years of hard work and dedication building up FuzziBunz to a hugely successful company, Tereson decided it was time to move on to her next career path and sold FuzziBunz on in order to focus on helping other entrepreneurs set up their businesses.

“For over 5 years I had a vision to create a program or write a book that would walk would-be inventors through the process of taking their ideas from lightbulb moment to an actual business.”

Hence, the beginning of ‘Make It Happen’ a workshop e-book written by Tereson in order to give people step by step advice on how to avoid the drawbacks of starting a business, all learnt from experience, she is the perfect person to inspire and enlighten new start-ups. Tereson also provides a personal mentoring scheme with ‘Make It Happen’, something which she finds particularly special and rewarding. With her fruitful business past and experience behind her, Tereson is able to connect new clients with manufacturers and potential investors, and she explains that it is these things she needed when she was starting out which has made her so passionate about helping people now.

It is clear to see the passion Tereson has for making people’s dreams come true and refreshing to hear someone who took the risk of selling their successful business to do this. Her risk-taking most certainly paid off and what’s inspiring is just how happy Tereson is in her line of work, something which is a very valuable lesson for those who she now mentors to learn.

“I do think however a good Entrepreneur knows when it is time to walk away. Advice I had given to other up and coming entrepreneurs along my journey was that “when you stop having fun at what you are doing, find something else to do.” That is exactly what I did.”

Tereson’s next project within ‘Make It Happen’ is to re-edit and add a second version for start-ups and separately, investors to her e-book as well as offer more courses and support forums. Tereson is also in the process of writing up her memoirs, having moved back to her birth city of New Orleans, a place she describes as her “first love”, it is sure to inspire her to write brilliant things. All of this while being a mother to her three kids aged 19, 15 and 12, Tereson sure will be kept busy but it is this lifestyle that has led to her achievements so far, and will most definitely lead to what she promises will be a must read memoir full of drama and adventure!