Looking for a comic book that teaches kids about creating their first startup? Below I interview Frank Martinez from ‘Your Comic Story’ about a project to bring such a book to life.
What inspired you and your team to want to write My First Startup – an educational comic book for kids?
The creators of My First Startup (Russell, Andrey, and David) are all serial entrepreneurs going back to when each was a kid. In discussing their paths to success, one remark kept coming up “I wish I knew this when starting my first business.” So they decided to create something for kids to learn those key lessons about creating your first startup – and to make it fun. Since they run a custom comic book company (Your Comic Story), they were in the perfect position to create a comic book for kid entrepreneurs.
You’ve set up a Kickstarter campaign to launch this project. Who would benefit most from this book being created?
Kids who like to innovate or dream of starting their own business would benefit from getting a guide to how to do this, which obstacles they’ll face (complete with some ideas on how to overcome this). Because we partnered with Shopify, Instapage, Jukebox Print, Shippo, and SendInBlue, Kickstarter backers who choose the Startup Toolkit reward (or above), will be able to get free business cards, labels, months of use, and generally friendlier pricing on key business services. Parents will benefit too, since My First Startup teaches kids important life skills, like time-management, decision-making, responsibility for own success, creative problem solving, and much more.
Please tell us a little bit about you and your team’s background.
Russell and David both have their background in Media and Marketing. Andrey’s background is in Tech. The team behind My First Startup runs Your Comic Story (www.yourcomicstory.com), which creates custom comic books for individuals and organizations.
Give us an interesting fun fact about the research or product development process you’ve gone through to-date.
Even though we did extensive research involving economists, child psychologists, and successful entrepreneurs, we were still shocked by how well actual kids received My First Startup. Specifically, during our Kickstarter video shoot, the two kid actors read the couple draft pages of the comic book that we provided to them and had an in-depth discussion about the business aspects of the story (especially about the need to get a license). They also asked if they could read the whole comic book and shared their own comic book interests and experience. It was the most fun focus group we’ve ever conducted.
Given your interest in entrepreneurship, how would you describe an entrepreneur’s mindset?
An entrepreneur’s mindset is unique in seeing challenges not as obstacles but as opportunities. It’s about understanding that no dream is too crazy (instead, being worried if it’s not crazy enough). That’s why we created this comic book with 8-12 y.o. kids in mind – they have fascinating dreams that can change the world, and no one has yet told them that is can’t be done. We know it can be done. My First Startup will inspire them to get it done.
Where can people find out more about helping make My First Startup a reality?
Please visit our Kickstarter campaign page at: http://kck.st/1MzVMc8
