Tess Rogers created idea for hats while on vacation
Published in the Jan. 7 – 23, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Robert Airoldi
Photo by Marty Cheek
Hytail Ponytail Hats owner Tess Rogers and Manager of People and Things John Arthur Catanzaro in their home office.
There are advantages and disadvantages to operating a business out of your home. Just ask Tess Rogers, owner of Hytail Ponytail Hats. The advantages are many. It keeps costs down, the commute is fantastic and she’s home when her 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son get home from school.
The one disadvantage: “I have thousands of hats in my house,” she said with a laugh.
Rogers started Hytail three years ago due to her own frustration. There are hats out there that don’t accommodate women’s long hair so on vacation she cut up a throwaway hat her husband had and made it into the first iteration of a Hytail hat. When she got home she decided she’d like the hat to actually create the Hytail.
Thus was born the women’s Hytail Ponytail hat.
“It is patent approved with a high arch and a two-inch band that lifts the pony tail up,” she said. “The two create the ponytail. I can wear it all day long and it won’t give me a headache, it won’t give me hat head and it doesn’t give me a ponytail crimp and it protects me from the sun. It’s fashion meets function. That’s Hytail.”
What makes her hats different from other women’s hats is that hers is designed with a high arch and the two-inch comfort band lifts the hair and creates the ponytail, lifting the hair off the neck.
Raised in Brea, Rogers attended Chico State University, majoring in organizational communication with business minor. For 16 years she has run Tess Rogers and Associates, a Silicon Vally recruiting organization working with high-tech clients. It’s that business that helped get Hytail off the ground. Now, her hats are sold throughout the world. They come in three colors, black, white and pink; three styles, Painter cap , baseball cap and cotton twill cap; and range in price from $19.99 to $24.99.
She sells the hats primarily to wholesalers, attends trade shows and many of her customers hear about the hats and seek her out.
“We have an online infomercial and people have sought us out,” she said. “We’ve also been featured in Women’s World magazine and were the editor’s pick in Blush magazine.”
Her hats are also in the pro shops at Cordevalle, Pebble Beach and Monterey Golf Resort, but they have a hard time selling with a traditional display. Shoppers need to be educated about the hat, so she’s excited about a new product display she’ll soon have that will display the hats better.
Rogers also joined the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce and said that has helped spread the word.
“There’s a lot of advantages to being a Chamber member,” she said. “First and foremost is networking opportunities. The chamber really champions our business. We get involved in mixers which are a really good way to meet other potential future customers and also just networking in general and being supportive of each others businesses.”
Rogers said she enjoys living and working in Morgan Hill.
“It’s a very supportive community not only to my family but our business too,” she said. “We have been immersing ourselves into this wonderful community.”
