Kim Vaccarella's closet used to be a graveyard of discarded beach bags. 

In 2008, the mother of two boys was on a never-ending search to find a bag that she could use during her family's frequent trips to the Jersey Shore. Straw and mesh bags didn't hold up well to the sand and moisture of the beach, while canvas bags didn't last long before becoming filthy. 

"I wanted something that was large enough to carry everything we needed, but that at the end of the day I could hose off and hang up and not have to worry about it," she tells CNBC Make It.

Vaccarella concluded that what she needed was a bag made of EVA foam — a rubbery, water-resistant material similar to that of Crocs. There was only one problem: no such bag existed. 

"When I looked and saw that there was nothing that existed on the market like it, I drew it out on a piece of paper," the 54-year-old says. "I have zero artistic ability. I just drew out this square bag with holes in it and handles." 

Vaccarella "had read all the 'Millionaire Mommy'" books and was always on the lookout for a way to make more money for her family. She would sell items on eBay and tried her hand at buying website URLs that might one day become valuable. 

"I've always been this kind of Lucille Ball of sorts," she says. "I always had a harebrained scheme as to how I was going to be the next big thing."

As it turns out, Vaccarella had correctly identified a space in the market for a bag that is roomy, easy to clean and can stand up on its own without collapsing.

Sixteen years after she first came up with the idea for her perfect beach bag, Bogg Bag is on pace to rake in $100 million in revenue this year. 

But the product's journey from crude sketch to an exclusive collection at Target was far from easy. Indeed, the company almost shuttered when its first order went terribly wrong. 

Here's how Vaccarella grew Bogg Bag from an idea into a nine-figure brand. 

Accidentally starting a business

When she first came up with the idea, Vaccarella was 16 years into a successful commercial real estate career. With no experience in manufacturing, she never thought she'd actually make Bogg Bag herself.

Inspired by Crocs' 2006 acquisition of Jibbitz for $10 million, a figure she thought was "mind-blowing," Vaccarella wanted to develop the idea for the bag and then sell it to the highest bidder.

"My thought was if they could sell Jibbitz for $10 million I ought to be able to get $50 million for Bogg Bag," she says. "At the time, it was all Monopoly money. I was just making these things up in my head."

It took Vaccarella a few years to get a patent for the bag and find a factory in China. When she finally got her hands on a prototype in 2010, Vaccarella was enamored. Though she had no luck finding someone to buy her idea, she was convinced that she was onto something.

Vaccarella's first order was for 300 pieces. She found a local New Jersey shop that was open to selling the bright pink bags and started attending trade shows to learn the business and find prospective retailers. 

These days Bogg Bags come in three sizes and dozens of colors, with prices ranging from $55 for the smallest to $100 for the largest. But at first, setting a price for the bags was tricky. Vaccarella says there was a lot of guesswork involved in coming up with her initial $60 price tag.

"I didn't know what wholesale and retail pricing was. I basically winged it and came up with a price," she says. "I kind of took an idea of what I was paying per piece and then just figured out that you would normally have to double that and then double that again."

When her initial inventory sold out, Vaccarella was ready to make a major financial commitment to the business. Using money from her children's college savings, she placed a $30,000 order in 2012 for a shipping container full of 1,200 bags: a "scary as hell" sum that she said felt like spending $1 million. 

"One of the things we did early on was start to save for our kids' college. My husband and I, neither of us went to college, so that was important to us," she says. "I was taking their money and I was gambling with it, essentially."

When the shipment arrived at her home, Vaccarella realized they were defective. A number of the bags that were supposed to be bright yellow were streaked with black. 

"My heart sank," she says. "As someone who always envisioned Bogg Bag to be a Nordstrom bag or a Bloomingdale's bag, I knew I couldn't sell these. There was no way that I could fix it." 

With no product and no more money left to spend on inventory, her company was dead in the water. It would be four years before Vaccarella would sell a Bogg Bag again. 

Rising from the ashes

Shortly after receiving her botched $30,000 order, Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast. Vaccarella and her husband Rosario donated the cosmetically defective bags as part of a care package for people impacted by the storm. They set up a Facebook page to let people know where the family would be helping distribute resources.

As the area began to recover, Vaccarella started receiving messages through the Facebook page from people thanking her for the donation and asking where they could get more bags. Vaccarella was elated to hear from them, she says, but knew she'd have to go back to the drawing board for Bogg's second go-around. 

"Starting all over was just as scary as the first time," she says. 

Getting her company back up and running — a process that involved finding a new factory in China, as well as securing a $120,000 investment from a family friend to pay off existing debts and build up new inventory — took several years. Bogg Bag began taking orders again in 2016 and steadily began to grow. 

"I was doing Bogg Bag at night, after work, on the weekends," she says. "My husband would come help me. My son would come help me. My first employee, who's still with us today, would come over after high school. We would pack boxes and tape boxes and load and unload trucks. It was very hard in the beginning."

By 2018, the business hit $1 million in revenue and was too big for Vaccarella to run in her free time. She put in her notice after 26 years in real estate and focused on expanding Bogg Bag's footprint across the country.

Blowing up during lockdown

While Bogg Bag was growing steadily — it hit $4 million in revenue in 2019 — it wasn't until Covid lockdowns that its growth was supercharged. 

"We quickly found that it had so many different uses, and Covid was one of those times where we really saw a lot of uses come to life," she says. 

The bags quickly became favorites of nurses and teachers, who not only loved its durability, but also its antimicrobial qualities. 

"That brought a lot of attention to us," she says. "It was a matter of [teachers and nurses] bringing things back and forth to school or work and wanting to make sure they didn't get sick." 

Like Crocs, Bogg Bags are made to be accessorized. The company sells decorations that can be snapped onto to the bags, as well as attachments like dividers, pockets and a cupholder add-on strong enough to carry the viral Stanley Quencher. 

Last year, the company brought in $54 million, and is on pace to finish 2024 by crossing the $100 million threshold. But Vaccarella isn't done yet.

Bogg Bag recently entered into an agreement with WinCraft by Fanatics to offer bags with official sports team logos and has plans to expand further into the Midwest and West Coast. Eventually, Vaccarella hopes to see Bogg Bag open its own retail stores and have an international footprint

"Bogg Bag hasn't scratched the surface," Vaccarella says. "It feels like a dream."

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