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What is HoopDee?
HoopDee makes NFC-enabled silicone bands — HoopDee Hoops — that snap onto any standard baby bottle and sync with a free mobile app. Tap a phone to the Hoop and the app tracks that bottle’s freshness, tells caregivers which bottle to use next, and keeps everyone feeding the baby — parents, grandparents, nannies — working from the same information. It works with both breast milk and formula, calculates expiration based on milk type and storage location, and requires no batteries or charging.
Founder Roxie Alsruhe built it out of a 3 a.m. problem: her newborn son had lost more than 20% of his body weight, every ounce of milk suddenly mattered, and no product existed to track it. “I relied on my phone for everything. I thought, why not create a product that manages bottles for me? That way, I wouldn’t be standing over the sink at 3 a.m. wondering if it was safe to feed my baby this bottle.”
Gembah supported HoopDee’s path from concept to production: product design support, tech pack creation, manufacturer discovery for NFC-embedded, dishwasher-safe silicone, sampling, and production coordination.
Update, August 2026: Eight months after launch, HoopDee Hoops has been named a winner in the Good Housekeeping 2026 Parenting Awards, in the Feeding and Mealtime category. Read the winners’ list.
The hardest part of inventing a product: when your customer doesn’t know they have the problem
Most founders bring a better version of a known product to market. Roxie did something harder — she created a product category that didn’t exist, which means her marketing challenge isn’t “why ours is better.” It’s “here is a problem you haven’t had yet.”
“I keep saying, had I invented a stroller with a new feature — at least everyone knows what a stroller is,” Roxie told us. “It’s constantly trying to refine that message to make it so concise and clear that people who have never experienced the problem understand it.”
Her buyers are expectant parents. But the people who instantly understand the product are the ones who’ve already lived the chaos of bottle tracking: second-time moms, grandmothers, nannies. At in-person expos, Roxie watched this play out over and over. “It’s the expecting moms that come with their moms — the grandmas-to-be, or a sister who already has kids — and they’re like, you’re going to want this. They sell the product for me.”
That gap — between the buyer and the person who understands the problem — is the defining challenge of category creation, and it shaped everything HoopDee did in year one.
How do you market a product nobody is searching for?
HoopDee’s first eight months are a practical playbook for new-category products:
In-person demos became the messaging lab. HoopDee exhibited at Prego Expo events in New York, Orlando, and Chicago — where a one-day Chicago show became the company’s biggest sales day to date, with crowds at the booth and the pastel Hoop pack selling out entirely (one customer bought the display unit rather than leave without one). More valuable than the revenue: watching exactly which explanations made shoppers’ eyes go wide, then feeding that language back into social content and ads.
Experienced parents became the sales force. Because the product clicks instantly with anyone who’s done bottle tracking the hard way, HoopDee leaned into gifting: on TikTok Shop — currently one of the brand’s best-converting channels — the dominant buyer is a parent who’s been through it, buying Hoops as a baby shower gift “because I wish I had it.”
The packaging became a walking billboard. After noticing expo shoppers were finding the booth because they’d seen someone carrying the box, Roxie printed branded shopping bags for the Chicago show — turning every customer into a moving advertisement on the expo floor.
Education was treated as a slow burn, not a failure. Early paid ads didn’t convert — not because the product didn’t resonate, but because cold audiences didn’t yet understand the problem. Rather than forcing spend, HoopDee paused, gathered real-world messaging from expos and TikTok, and is now returning to paid channels with language proven in person.
The founder as user: shipping with a two-week-old QA tester
There’s a detail in HoopDee’s story that product founders will appreciate: Roxie started designing the system when her firstborn was two weeks old — and her second child arrived two weeks after the first production shipment landed. The family has run the entire system in production, in real time, ever since.
That’s also where the product architecture pays off. The Hoops themselves — the hardware Gembah helped source and manufacture — stay constant, while the app evolves continuously based on daily use. “The hardware stays the same, but I can update the software,” Roxie says. It’s a model more physical-product founders are adopting: put the durable investment into manufactured hardware that doesn’t need to change, and keep the fast-moving improvements in software.
A Good Housekeeping Parenting Award — and what validation does for a new category
In August 2026, HoopDee Hoops were named a winner in the Good Housekeeping 2026 Parenting Awards, following testing with hundreds of real families. For an eight-month-old brand in an invented category, the recognition does something specific: it supplies the third-party authority that in-person validation can’t.
“I get so much validation from customers and people we meet in person — once we explain it, they get it,” Roxie says. “But that only goes so far. This is the authority signal.”
For a category-creating product, that distinction matters more than it does for anyone else. A new kind of product carries a trust burden a stroller never will — and an institution telling parents “this is real, and it’s one of the best” compresses years of grassroots credibility-building into a single line on a product page.
What’s next for HoopDee
The system keeps expanding: alongside the Hoops, HoopDee’s numbered freezer storage bags bring frozen breast milk inventory into the same app — no spreadsheets, no digging through the freezer. Roxie’s roadmap points toward more hardware that syncs with the app and deeper partnerships in the baby space. “I have a greater vision for this entire company,” she says.
FAQ: what founders ask about launching a new product category
In-person demonstration beats paid advertising early on. HoopDee’s expo sales — including sold-out inventory and customers buying display units — proved demand that early digital ads couldn’t, because the product’s value lands in seconds face-to-face but takes education to land cold online. Validate where you can watch the reaction, then translate what worked into digital messaging.
Treat it as a slow burn and plan cash flow accordingly. HoopDee found in-person channels and gifting (experienced parents buying for expecting ones) converted first, while cold paid social required proven messaging before it earned its budget back.
Yes. HoopDee Hoops was named a winner in the Good Housekeeping 2026 Parenting Awards in the Feeding and Mealtime category within a year of launch. See the winners’ list. Third-party awards are disproportionately valuable for new categories because they supply borrowed trust while the brand builds its own.
It requires a factory capable of both food-grade, dishwasher-safe silicone production and reliable NFC chip integration — a narrower field than standard silicone goods. HoopDee worked with Gembah to source and vet manufacturers with that combined capability, develop the tech pack, and coordinate sampling and production.
The manufactured component can stay stable while the software improves continuously. HoopDee’s Hoops haven’t needed a hardware revision since launch; the app has shipped steady improvements informed by the founder’s own daily use — no retooling required.
Key takeaways
- Category creation is a messaging problem before it’s a product problem. The product worked from day one; the work of year one was teaching people they had the problem.
- The people who get it aren’t always the buyers. HoopDee’s best advocates are experienced parents; its buyers are expecting ones. Bridging that gap — through gifting, expos, and family word-of-mouth — became the growth engine.
- Watch faces, then write copy. Every high-performing message HoopDee runs online was discovered in person first.
- Institutional validation compounds everything. A Good Housekeeping award doesn’t replace grassroots traction — it converts it into authority.
- Gembah’s role: product design support, tech pack creation, manufacturer discovery, sampling, and production coordination for a hardware product built to last while the software evolves.
👉 Follow HoopDee’s journey at gethoopdee.com.
Have a baby-category idea? Talk to Gembah about bringing your infant product from concept to compliant, manufacturable reality.
Start Your Journey TodayThe Original Story: HoopDee’s Launch
Originally published November 2025
See how HoopDee! partnered with Gembah to launch the HoopDee Hoop—an NFC-enabled baby care product helping parents track bottles with ease.
When Baltimore-based founder Roxie Alsruhe became a new mom, she quickly discovered a challenge most parents face but few talk about openly: managing breast milk and formula safely and efficiently. Tired of guesswork, forgotten bottles, and wasted milk, Roxie set out to build a smarter system for parents everywhere.
Her flagship product, the HoopDee Hoops, is a simple silicone band with NFC technology that syncs to a mobile app. Together, they help caregivers track freshness, manage inventory, and eliminate the stress of asking, “Is this bottle still safe to feed?”
The Idea Behind HoopDee!
Roxie’s inspiration came in those early weeks of parenthood, when her underweight newborn required strict milk management. Every ounce mattered, but traditional tracking methods—mental notes, sticky labels, even spreadsheets—fell short.
“I relied on my phone for everything. I thought, why not create a product that manages bottles for me? That way, I wouldn’t be standing over the sink at 3am wondering if it was safe to feed my baby this bottle.” — Roxie Alsruhe, Founder of HoopDee!
From this personal frustration grew HoopDee!, a brand that aims to solve real parenting challenges with smart, playful, and reliable products.
Partnering with Gembah
To bring her idea to life, Roxie turned to Gembah for expertise in sourcing and manufacturing. The HoopDee Hoop required not only durable silicone manufacturing but also the integration of NFC chips—making it far from a lightweight project.
Gembah supported Roxie with:
- Factory sourcing to identify reliable partners capable of producing high-quality, dishwasher-safe silicone bands.
- Supply chain support to ensure scalability and long-term production reliability.
- Product extension guidance, helping Roxie explore brand-building opportunities like promotional teethers and other accessories to increase average order value and strengthen customer loyalty.
Building a Brand Parents Will Remember
Unlike many baby brands with soft, interchangeable identities, HoopDee! is designed to be bold, fun, and memorable. Roxie describes her brand ethos as creating “a lovable mascot and a line of products that don’t just help with milk management but make parenting easier and more joyful.”
With the HoopDee Hoop as the flagship product, HoopDee! plans to expand into additional offerings that reinforce its identity and build a loyal community of parents.
What’s Next for HoopDee!
The HoopDee Hoop launched in November 2025, marking the first step in Roxie’s vision to transform how parents manage bottles and beyond.
“I wish I had found Gembah sooner, because I would have used their product designers too. But now that we’re working together, I feel confident about scaling production and building the HoopDee! brand the right way.” — Roxie Alsruhe
Gembah will continue supporting Roxie as she moves closer to launch, ensuring her innovative solution reaches parents everywhere.
Key Takeaways
- Founder insight: Roxie identified a pain point from personal experience and turned it into an innovative product.
- Flagship product: HoopDee Hoop—silicone NFC-enabled bands for bottle freshness and inventory tracking.
- Gembah’s role: Factory sourcing, supply chain support, and brand extension guidance.
👉 Follow HoopDee!’s journey as they launch the HoopDee Band and continue innovating in baby care.
Have a baby‑category idea?
Talk to Gembah about bringing your infant product from concept to compliant, manufacturable reality.
Start Your Journey Today