Small Biz Profile: Pink Truck Designs, Because Girls Love Trucks, Too

Photos submitted

Dana Babbin, 45, is an apparel entrepreneur and an accomplished legal advocate who specialized in child online safety issues. Her inspiration for Pink Truck Designs, based in Hopkinton, came when she discovered her twin daughters both loved trucks.

Babbin looked around and found that clothing with trucks, and other “boy friendly” symbols, was only available in the boys’ apparel sections. She found this to be unfair, and did something about it. Pink Truck offers American-assembled apparel sporting pink images of trucks, trains, boats, airplanes, police cruisers and fire engines, further blurring the gender divide.

Babbin and her husband, a State Police trooper, raise their five-year-old twin daughters and Babbin’s 14-year-old stepdaughter in Hopkinton.

Babbin’s goal? To spread the word to girls everywhere that it’s cool to love trucks, and to spread the word to boys everywhere that it’s cool to love the color pink.

When did you open/launch? I launched the Pink Truck website online in December of 2014.

What made you decide to open this type of business? And why this location? After numerous visits to leading department stores to get my twin toddlers some T-shirts adorned with their favorite trucks, I grew tired of having to shop in the boys’ sections. It struck me as pretty ridiculous that my girls couldn’t find any girls’ shirts with trucks or trains, and friends with boys couldn’t find any boys’ shirts with flowers or the color pink. All kids love playing with trucks and trains, and everyone loves flowers! So why the separation? What messages are we sending to our kids with those dichotomies in the stores? Even now, at the age of 5, my kids deal with those stereotypes and the lack of options. One of my girls loves Spiderman, and both of them love Star Wars, but all too often, those things are found in the boys’ sections. Conversely, little boys who love Anna and Elsa from Disney’s Frozen can’t find much in the boys’ sections displaying their heroes’ faces. It all just seems a little off-kilter to me. I hope Pink Truck not only gives parents more options for their kids to express themselves, but also conveys the notion that it’s OK to be yourself! My store is online, but everything is assembled in Massachusetts and ships from Hopkinton. Because I already worked from home as a legal consultant (primarily to police, prosecutors, schools and other organizations impacted by online crimes against children), it made sense for Pink Truck to be headquartered here in Hopkinton. I do my best to work with local merchants and to minimize my carbon footprint. Having focused first on establishing brand recognition locally, I am now turning to a national audience, hoping to spread Pink Truck’s message that “it’s time to change gear.”

What do you like best about it? The best part of this job is watching people’s faces light up when they learn what Pink Truck is all about. Parents and grandparents will stop at my table during an event and ask me, “what’s Pink Truck?” As they listen to my elevator pitch, I can see the turning point when they’ve “jumped on the truck,” so to speak. They sprout these big smiles and begin to nod, saying things like, “Yeah, you’re right! What a great idea!” At that point, I know I’ve got a new Pink Trucker, which is my term of utmost endearment for my fans. The other people I love to see light up are, obviously, the kids. Just the other day, I had a 5-year-old kid melt my heart when she donned her new Pink Truck T-shirt and suddenly beamed, as if I just had handed her a new puppy. Later that night, her mom posted a message on my Facebook page, saying that her little girl had refused to take off her new Pink Truck T-shirt at bedtime and instead was sleeping soundly in it. I love that stuff; it makes me realize that Pink Truck really is making a difference. It’s helping build kids’ confidence in the notion that they can be, can love, can emulate -- anything. Bottom line: it’s helping kids be kids, and encouraging their authenticity.

Biggest struggle? Keeping up with inventory and fulfillment. I manage it all on my own right now, but I’ll have to get help with it soon. It takes me way too long to package, weigh, and ship each item. Now that Pink Truck has become more and more popular, it’s starting to require more wheels!

What do you see for the future? I see great promise. The issue of gender is a hot topic right now, and Pink Truck is a great way for people of all ages and any gender to show their support of the changes that are afoot in society’s treatment of kids. Pink Truck also is a way for people to celebrate those who’ve bravely broken through gender barriers in their professions.
I have a long list of designs and themes that I’d like to celebrate in future lines. So far, I’ve produced Pink Truck, Pink Train, Pink Plane, and Pink Engine, Pink Cruiser, Pink Tugboat, and, just this week, Pink Car. I want to add more options for adults, especially for my fans out there in vocations that correspond with those symbols. For example, I’d like to offer Pink Plane t-shirts for adults, because I’ve had pilots ask me for that. And I’d like my fans in the Navy and Coast Guard to be able to buy Pink Tugboat adult t-shirts and hoodies.

Politics and small business: how does government affect your business? It’s expensive to start a small business, and government accounts for many business expenses, such as LLC registration, trademark registration, postal and shipping expenses, tax filing preparation, and submissions to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. However, it’s all worth it in order to get our message out – “it’s time to change gear!”