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Vermont Teddy Bears had only two out of its three retail locations doing stuffed bears but had closed them down as being too expensive and stepping on its Bear-Gram program. With Friends 2B Made, the name was similar to Build-A-Bear's slogan "Where best friends are made" the Workshop demanded that the company stop selling stuffed animals, recall its merchandise, and turn over its customer database and its proceeds. In 1999, the Workshop sent out legal letters with threats of federal lawsuits regarding supposed violations of its trademarks and copyrights to its competitors: Friends 2B Made LLC, Vermont Teddy Bear Co. The stores were doubling the national mall averages of $350 sales per square foot. The expansion consisted of opening stores in major cities to bring the chain to 14 stores. īuild-A-Bear continued to impress investors, with Walnut Capital Partners investing in 1999 $5 million for expansion. With the four stores opened in 1998, the chain had $3.3 million in sales. Windsor Capital injected $4.5 million into the company, which allowed for two Chicago area stores to open. Kansas City Equity Partners invested to allow her to open its second store in August 1998 in Overland Park, Kansas. With store opening cost of $500,000 to $700,000 and estimated per store sales at $2 million, Clark quickly found capital firms to invest in for the expansions. The first year's sales at $377,600 were above projections.

She opened the first store in the Saint Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights, Missouri. Clark wanted to expand the store into a chain from the beginning, expecting to open three to five stores in 1998 and six to ten stores in 1999 with the goal of having 100 stores within five years. of Los Angeles was hired to develop the concept. In 1997, Clark also offered to purchase Basic Brown Bears, who has been operating since 1985 in the do-it-yourself stuffed animals space. Doll shops (known as Build-A-Doll) were also a part of the original business plan.

The build-a-bear concept was selected from the three, as the children were excited about it, and the stuffed animals offered a high-profit margin. She drew up three plans, then presented them to a panel of children. She went to toy factories and children's retail stores looking for ideas. In the mid-1990s, Maxine Clark resigned as president of Payless ShoeSource and started a string of retail stores with interactive experiences similar to her childhood of various events held at department stores. A Build-A-Bear Workshop at Vaughan Mills in Toronto