Shaking America By Storm

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But in the women's infomerical, there is room for innuendo?

The lighter device for women is for toning, when the one for men is a really tough workout. We never intended for the women's device ad to have innuendo. We had a bunch of people here from the industry, and a lot of women on the set, and they didn't make many comments. But it depends how you shake it as well. If you do it based on the three exercises that we have laid out, it's not that suggestive. Some of the women would say, though, oh if you shake it this way it looks like…well.

Beyond the infomercial, how else are you selling the Shake Weight?

Our sales come primarily from the infomercial, or from consumers going directly to the website. But also the Shake Weight is the No. 1 fitness product in WalMart, Walgreens, and Bed Bath and Beyond. We've gone international as well. The Shake Weight launched in the U.K. only a month after it launched in the U.S. Being viral online really helped us build a global awareness of the product. We could track traffic on the Web from the start, and it was being followed on the Web basically everywhere in the world, so we immediately filed for the international trademarks and for the URLs in foreign countries, so we could expand. And this born-in-the-U.S. way of selling is still part of the American dream that Europeans love.

You say you enjoyed the Ellen product appearances, but what about when Saturday Night Live did an infomercial spoof of your Shake Weight ad's potential to be sold as a product in and of itself?

I think it was hilarious. I think it was well done, and I'd love to be selling the commercial myself for $19.95. I don't think it hurt us one bit.

What's next? Is there a way to duplicate this success?

What's interesting about our industry, infomericals, is when something takes off, it just really becomes the dominant brand in the industry. Think about the George Foreman Grill. Or Proactiv, which is definitely the dominant acne solution in the whole market.

What works in the direct response business is the storyline – we need to know what the story is with the product before we finish the product. It needs to be different enough for people to stop and watch. We can't just say, here's another DVD player. We ask: what will motivate people to take action. You also need a critical mass of people to see this as very innovative. In fitness, what sells is at-home exercise, and they look at the thing and wonder, will I actually do that? Part of our job is to get them motivated to exercise.

The PR has been good. I'd love to do it again. But while part of it is planned, there is something you just can't duplicate. You can create something that's very suggestive, but that doesn't work as a product. And if you can't make something that's actually useful, it won't sell on suggestiveness alone, or be a good product.

Editor's note: This isn't Verheem's first company. His last business, Application Technologies, was profiled in Inc. in The Start-Up Diaries, a series that tracked a handful of entrepreneurs through the start-up process. Verheem sold the technology-licensing firm for approximately $4 million after 18 months.

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Christine Lagorio is a writer, editor, and reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, and The Believer, among other publications. She is executive editor of Inc.com. @Lagorio