Every morning, her mother spent 15 to 20 minutes styling her hair. Every afternoon, the barrettes were gone. Gabrielle “Gabby” Goodwin of Columbia, South Carolina started pushing the idea at age 5 — and at 7, she didn’t just complain about the problem. She invented the answer.
Every parent on this page knows the mystery: barrettes that leave the house in the morning and vanish into the school-day dimension by pickup. For Rozalynn Goodwin, those 15–20 minutes of morning styling kept ending the same way — with her daughter’s hair undone and the clips simply gone.
Most kids file that under “things that happen.” Gabby filed it under “things to fix.” She started pushing the idea at 5. At 7, mother and daughter sat down and invented the fix together.
The barrette that can’t fall out
What they built was GaBBY Bows — the first patented double-face, double-snap barrette, engineered not to slip out of a child’s hair. Two faces, two snaps, designed against the exact failure every parent knows. They launched the company in February 2014.
And the build that followed reads nothing like a cute kid story. The pair hold three U.S. patents. Gabby was a six-figure entrepreneur by sixth grade. She was the youngest-ever South Carolina Young Entrepreneur of the Year, in 2015. The business grew into Confidence by GaBBY Goodwin, shipping to all 50 states and 16 countries.
Three patents. Read that again. This wasn’t a lemonade stand with good press — it was intellectual property, protected properly, built on an invention a seven-year-old insisted the world needed because her barrettes kept disappearing at school.
The part where she hands it forward
The Goodwins also built a door behind them: their Mommy and Me Entrepreneurship Academy has helped other girls launch businesses of their own. That is the signature move of every great story on this page — the person who solved the problem turns around and teaches the method.
A mother who listened to a five-year-old’s complaint like it was a business plan. A daughter whose daily annoyance became three patents and a company shipping to 16 countries. Somewhere tonight there’s a little girl whose morning hair stays DONE all day — because another little girl refused to accept that barrettes just fall out.
Notice what the Goodwins protected, because it’s the move that separates a cute story from a company. A barrette design could have stayed a family fix — a clever clip sold at school fairs. Instead, mother and daughter patented it, three times over, turning a seven-year-old’s frustration into intellectual property with her name on the documents. That difference is everything for a young founder: the idea can’t be quietly lifted, and the enterprise that grew out of it carries the inventor’s name in its own — Confidence by GaBBY Goodwin.
Join the conversation
Be honest: how many barrettes have YOUR kids lost to the school-day dimension? And if your child came to you at 5 with an invention idea, would you build it with them the way Rozalynn did? Tell us below.
Source note: Gabrielle “Gabby” Goodwin’s account — pushing the idea from age 5 in Columbia, South Carolina, with her mother Rozalynn spending 15–20 minutes styling her hair each morning while barrettes were gone by the end of the school day; inventing GaBBY Bows with her mother at 7, the first patented double-face, double-snap barrette, and launching the company in February 2014; the pair holding three U.S. patents; a six-figure entrepreneur by sixth grade and the youngest-ever South Carolina Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2015); the growth into Confidence by GaBBY Goodwin shipping to all 50 states and 16 countries; and the Mommy and Me Entrepreneurship Academy helping other girls launch businesses — is from South Carolina Senate resolution S.657 (2025), Richland Library, Vanderbilt University News, and Black Enterprise.
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