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| Latest Alphabet Fitness News |
Nov. 10, 2004
By Anand Kantaria
We Are What We Play!
... A unique look at how the games we played as kids have shaped our approach to life and business.
Babson Business Journal
Serving the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business
at Babson College Since 2003
Interview with Karen Voght, Founder of Wellness Inc., Brookline, MA (October 04)
It's 10.55am on Tuesday morning and as I finish up yet another study group session I race upstairs to meet my Entrepreneur interviewee, Karen Voght. Karen is poised outside Olin Hall, staring up at the blue sky. Upon meeting her I am immediately taken by her grace and calm demeanor (not your typical frenetic entrepreneur I thought to myself!). We pick up a coffee and immediately fall into a fully fledged discussion about meditation; Karen has been practicing the art for several years and finds that it helps creativity to surface.
I ask a little about her background and discover that while she was trained in childhood and industrial psychology, she in fact made her biggest fortune as a real estate developer in Massachusetts, a business she grew over 20 years. I ask why the divergence from psychology to real estate, she smiles and states "well you know, necessity is the mother of all inventions ...I was raising two children and wanted a job with flexible hours and that paid well, plus home building and working the land is in my blood". It was here that the entrepreneurial spirit took off.
Karen swiftly learned the "rules of the game" in real estate. She soon found herself selling so much property for a particular developer that she approached him to develop a RE office. Gathering the best brokers, she was careful not to create segregation in the ranks. By never losing the human touch and never taking the manager's percentage, she built trust and respect in her team, and the most successful RE office in the area. After two years, Karen again was again successful in selling yet another builder's homes, and asked to run his office. Within three months, Karen became a partner with a 90 lot sub-division which she sold at the peak of the market.
Karen has always been quick to read trends (largely by reading the WSJ and Economist). Selling out of the real estate business at a profit, she moved to Boston to pursue her passion for research & psychology. In 1995 she founded Wellness Inc. and began developing literacy and wellness exercise programs for children aged 3-6 years.
Karen researched the effect of the repetitive use of games on the child's developing brain and body. She believes that it is no coincidence that many of us now spend our lives amassing wealth and land, since as children, Monopoly was one of the most popular games we grew up playing. With this understanding of games and the brain, her goal is to create a greater awareness of the nature of our children's games. As fundamental tools that educate and entertain children, games offer a tremendous potential to instill positive mental, emotional, and physical health for our children and society as well.
Karen is following an interesting business model. When considering the swiftest and most innovative ways to get her message and indeed her products in front of young kids, she understood that she needed to develop a TV show or movie that appealed to her target audience.
In order to do that she needed to build credibility as an expert and raise substantial funds. She therefore decided to do what many entrepreneurs do, write a book! Well several actually, Karen is the authour of "The Kids' Wellness Guide", "How Well They Feel", "How Well They Learn" and "Alphabet Fitness". Writing was something that she labors over, but she knew it was necessary to driver her agenda forward.
Karen set about designing innovative user-friendly alphabet fonts as playful Book and TV characters that would appeal to young kids (see exhibits). These have been the bedrock of her ideas for TV shows and the first set of unique literacy and fitness products for children have now been developed using "Chimp Shakespeare", Professor Alphabet and Miss Spells as some of her icons. The idea is for these products to continue to reinforce the lessons of the TV show in the child's every day life, as media branded products typically sell for a premium. The products are to be sold through various distribution channels such as book stores, learning centers, website, yoga centers, schools and child day care centers.
Karen likes to keep things simple and manageable, she self-published her books and has self-financed Wellness from the outset. She has been savvy about using consultants to fill the gaps in her skill base and has developed a "trustworthy inner-circle" she can rely on for honest and constructive feedback. Karen has also tapped into the services of Babson College, enlisting the help of a One Year MBA team to develop a marketing strategy and approach for her products.
When I quizzed her on when she knew she had moved from an idea to an opportunity, she commented "I pulled out a proto-type at a conference and showed it to some key influencers who went crazy over it...that's when I knew that I had to proceed with this idea". On what she considers to be her sustainable advantage Karen refers to her deep knowledge base and her ability to package seven years of research into a form that is easily digestible by her customers.
I learned a lot from Karen about Entrepreneurship and certain traits and qualities that an entrepreneur should have to succeed. Some of her comments particularly struck me:
- On drive, "have clear goals but don't be so rigid so that you can't adapt to your market"
- On discovery, "curiosity is the key and a sense of adventure...if you have enough exposure your brain assimilates thoughts and creates connections".
- On strategy, "business is like a board game sometimes you move forward, sometimes backwards, but over time you learn the tricks of the
game and come out on top".
On a more practical note Karen also stressed the importance of knowing copyright and tax laws and not leaving a salaried job without a concrete idea.
The key obstacles faced by Karen in building up her business have been regulation, time and money in that order. "The insurance premiums you have to take out when producing toys for kids is off the wall. She is very cautious to be sure the size of her game dice is a size that children can't swallow etc".
When I asked what she would do differently if she had her time again, her answer was "get an assistant" as it is always good to have another person to bounce ideas around with and to allow you some down time.
Well, there appeared to be no signs of this abating, as she leaves, she tells me about how her morning was spent unpacking the first batch of 1,000 Chimp Shakespeare dice as she found an ink smear on some, and rechecked them all to ensure quality. I found it a rich experience meeting with Karen. Reflecting on her business model, it makes sense to me, she made the most of the resources, skill base and passion she had to develop a plan to reach her end goal, basically to help kids and society and of course make a profit. She was able to start small enough so as not to get into debt and leveraged her understanding of her customers, market forces, and trends such as the growth of childhood obesity, illiteracy, and stress related diseases, to develop a valuable product for children.
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