Encinitas duo featured in Christian Science Monitor

Jan. 14, 2011 - PRLog -- Ruth Marvin Webster and her tennis partner Kathy Doherty spent years making puns on the tennis courts.  Love all. Get a Grip. Tightly strung. Yours.  They’d even joked about turning their favorite witticisms into a tee-shirt business.  So after Webster was laid off in 2008, the pair took the plunge and started Net Wit, a business so new it started operations two months ago off a Facebook page.  The website at www.tennisnetwit.com went up just a month ago.

“It was a real natural for us to start this company since we talk about tennis and clothes all the time anyway,” said Doherty.  “And it’s great to apply all those business skills we’ve learned over the years at something we both really enjoy.”

If opening a business demands courage, starting one in the aftermath of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression demands a special steeliness, especially for female entrepreneurs.

Other start-up companies do well to begin with an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars.  These women began a company with a good idea, a little help from their friends and an initial joint investment of less than $1,000.  

In less than just two months, the pair has already broken even.  They are in the process of printing a new batch of shirts --- with new sayings --- and expanding sales to women’s tennis teams.  Webster is also sending out shirts to local women’s professional tennis players such as Coco Vandeweghe and Lindsey Davenport in the hope they’ll wear them around town.  “We searched the web for cute, different tennis shirts, and there’s nothing out there like ours,” added Webster.

The other day, the Encinitas entrepreneurs said they heard two women at a local coffee shop saying they had seen women playing tennis ‘wearing the cutest shirts with ‘love all’ and ‘get a grip’ on them.’  Webster delights in the word-of-mouth advertising.  “Our first success,” she said.

An Encinitas mother of three with a 20-year career in marketing and event planning, Doherty grew up in Coronado.  Webster, an attorney and freelance writer, is set to ship out with the Peace Corps early next year.  Together they play tennis in a recreational league through the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad.

Net Wit was recently featured in the nationally acclaimed Christian Science Monitor.  They also speak about why they chose to start an e-commerce business in a You Tube video for Novusweb at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pZZ_3dSVVw



To schedule an interview or to learn more about Net Wit, please contact Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 815-7762 or rwebster@ucsd.edu or Kathy Doherty at kdmarketing@roadrunner.com or (760) 533-5573.

# # #

A small women's tennis apparel company based in Encinitas, California, we make witty, stylish tennis tops for fans and fanatics alike. Express your love of the game.