Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
In 2000, Maia and Allan Haag started I See Me! Inc., two years after receiving a personalized book as a gift for their first newborn son.
They loved the personalization, but thought the illustrations and customization could have been better.
By 2011, when I See Me! participated in the Upsize Growth Challenge, it was about a $5 million company with hopes of doubling that in the next five years.
Now, another eight years later, that goal has been met.
Sales and profits are up and the company continues to have a clear vision for its future growth, though co-founder and President Maia Haag says she no longer discusses specific financial details.
In addition to more than doubling sales, I See Me! has had an interesting eight-year run. First, the company was acquired by San Francisco-based The McEvoy Group LLC, which owns several publishing companies, including Chronicle Books, which in 2012 established MyChronicleBooks, a line of personalized books and gifts.
While under new ownership, Haag still operates I See Me! relatively autonomously.
She says the company has benefited from The McEvoy Group’s expertise in the business. The larger firm had international contacts that Haag expects to leverage over time to increase distribution of I See Me! books. The company is just getting into Canada this year. I See Me! also now has access to illustrators across the globe.
The sale also has provided I See Me! with an influx of financial resources, access to best practices and information about what is working and not working with other peer companies, and improved financial reporting practices, she says.
“By selling the business, it brought another layer of discipline to us in the sense of reporting we do on a monthly basis,” she adds. “Strategic conversations we have with our owners have really helped to provide another layer of financial and strategic discipline.”
I See Me! also is getting into new product lines. The company in October launched BookofUs.com, a new brand operated under the I See Me! corporate profile, but as a separate, stand-alone website. The new entity provides a collection of personalized books adults can give other adults.
“It’s a book that allows an adult to express their love for someone else whether it’s their spouse, their partner or their best friend,” Haag says.
When someone buys a book there, they customize an avatar, text, illustrations and other aspects of the story. The idea stemmed from when I See Me! published “Super Dad,” a book kids can give their fathers and others in which both children and adults are both featured.
“I See Me! Has been a leader in personalized children’s books for almost 20 years,” Haag says. “We wanted to take that strong capability we have in personalization and bring it into the world of people being able to give books for adults. … It was a natural extension for us to now offer books for an adult to give to an adult,” she says.
Not long before that, I See Me! had launched personalized books for pets, written from the perspective of the family dog or cat. The line also includes personalized puzzles that includes images and the name of a pet.
The success of the last decade has not come without some lessons learned along the way. Haag says the business had one of its more challenging times when its printing partner had financial problems and was not able to ship its books. The solution there was switching printers and adding a second such partner “so we would not be 100 percent dependent,” she says.
Financially, she adds, I See Me! learned how important it is to understand precisely what is driving the company’s success.
For example, personalized books that are great gifts the recipient will turn around and give another person enable building a viral effect for the business that is beyond when the company creates a book for a parent to give to their own child.
“Emphasizing the gift-giving aspect of our business is something that has really driven our success,” she says.
“Being successful is one thing. It’s even more important to understand what is driving your success and finding a way to replicate it.”
After all, the company’s goal is to make people feel special.
“When we are at our very best, we are taking limited amounts of personalization information and doing an extraordinary job of personalizing a book and making it unique to that individual while still making it easy to order,” she says.
Contact: Maia Haag, co-founder of I See Me!: 877.744.3210; mh***@****me.com; www.iseeme.com.
