Butler grad owns hula hoop company
SUMMIT TWP — Liz Capuano envisions that moment in the future when people will ask how she supported herself through college.
“I sold hula hoops,” the 21-year-old enthusiast-turned-entrepreneur said.
Capuano owns innercirclehoops — a home-based, custom hula hoop company, selling countrywide on Etsy, a website for handmade or vintage items.
Capuano's business, which started in October 2011, sells about 15 hoops a month. But sales have increased significantly in recent months, and Capuano says she is on track to triple business this year.
Hooping, she said, is popular because “it's positive mentally and physically.” Capuano says hooping is blissful and can help bring someone out of a depression. And it builds core muscle strength and it burns about 300 calories per 30 minutes of activity.
Capuano started hooping after it caught her eye at a 2010 music festival. She quickly learned that the right type of hoops can be spendy.
To hoop well, you don't want the type of product sold at toy stores, she says.
Capuano fashions her wares by hand from plastic tubing she buys at hardware stores and glittery tape.
The size and weight of a hoop should be customized to the person's skill level, with heavier and bigger hoops going to novices. Smaller, lighter hoops are for pros. The colors of a hoop are customized, but just for “personality,” Capuano says.
Capuano sells her hoops for $15 to $30, and people all over the country are buying them, sometimes in bulk for classes or parties.
The profit margin on the hoops is slim, Capuano acknowledges, but she's keeping with her goal to make the hoops affordable to everyone who wants to give the hobby a try.
One fun part of the business, Capuano said, is when customers give her feedback about the hoops.
“They'll tell me things like, 'I took it on vacation,'” she said.
Capuano does not make the type of hoops that can be lit on fire, but she does use those when she occasionally hoops with the Sirkus Dayz performance group. In 2012, she was among a handful of women from Butler County to donate hoops to Children's Hospital for World Hoop Day.
“That was really cool,” she said.
Capuano, a 2011 Butler High School graduate, is majoring in photography at Butler County Community College and hopes to soon be certified to teach hoop dancing and yoga. Her dream is to own a studio that combines all these passions.
“I want to do it all,” she said.
