High bar

Maia Haag,
I See Me! Inc.:
952.473.3939
mh***@****me.com
www.iseeme.com

Allan Haag:
952.473.3939
www.iseeme.com

I See Me! founders set tough target for growth, quality

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I See Me! Inc. is one of two winners of this year’s Upsize Growth Challenge, and CEO and President Maia Haag has been working with experts and her team to reach an ambitious goal: doubling revenue to $10 million in five years. With company co-founder and husband Allan Haag, she described to Upsize what will mean the most if they get there: twice as many children will get their books’ message about self-esteem.

Upsize: Describe your company as it stands today.

Maia Haag: I See Me! is the largest publisher of personalized children’s books in the U.S. We develop, publish and sell personalized children’s books with the mission of building self esteem in children through books that celebrate the uniqueness of each child. We sell our books through our website, iseeme.com, and through national retailers including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Pottery Barn Kids. We produce quality personalized books that are unlike anything else in the market, that truly make a child feel special.

Upsize: How did you develop your mission?

Maia Haag: When I was at General Mills, I was at a conference where we had to define a personal mission for our life, and a work mission for our life. On the work side I said I wanted to start a business that had to do with children; I was pregnant at the time so the hormones probably had something to do with it! Allan and I both have very strong beliefs that as parents we can shape a child’s confidence by reminding them at a very young age how important they are, and we wanted to do that through books.

Upsize: Allan, you have a huge role to play in the company regarding designing and producing the books. You’ve talked about a high level of personalization. How do you set your books apart?

Allan Haag: Our main goal is to have the best quality books we can produce. We try to design the best book and we try to the illustrations. We try to avoid the pitfalls of personalized products where it looks like it’s digitally done. We try to do just the opposite. When the book is completed we want it to look as if it’s handmade.

Upsize: Why is that important to you? It’s a digital world after all.

Allan Haag: This goes back to us being parents. Your children spend so much time with technology, gadgets. We like the feeling and the experience of pulling back a little bit of that older technology. And even though it’s current, it still looks like it’s created by somebody’s hand.

Maia Haag: I’ll add that by hiring fine artists who are doing oil paintings, it not only differentiates our books from others, but that’s what brings the high quality look and feel.

Upsize: You’ve talked about an ambitious growth goal. Tell us about it.

Maia Haag: We are approximately a $5 million company now, and we want to reach $10 million in five years.

Upsize: How did you develop that target?

Maia Haag: If we reach $10 million in sales, we’ll have the infrastructure, the product line, the team, that we would like to achieve, and the profits, in order to successfully sell the company.

Upsize: Would you want to do that within a particular time frame?

Maia Haag: Allan and I both love this business, so it’s not that we’re looking to grow it and move on necessarily. But we’d like to grow it to the point where we’re able to do that when the time is right.

Upsize: Is it a matter of wanting to attract the resources to take the company to another level, or is it more about looking at personal lifestyle choices down the line? Or is it too hard to say when you’re right in the middle of building your company?

Maia Haag: One day when we do sell the business, we might want to stay on with the business, or we might want to travel the world, which is a goal of Allan and I. The question is, what is the case when the time comes?

Upsize: Meanwhile, I know you’re in the deep weeds of growing a company. Tell us about some of the key actions you’re taking, to get to the 5 over 5 goal.

Maia Haag: We know that we need to double the number of people coming to our website in order to double our business. We have very loyal customers; we have a strong product line that generates a strong response. For us it’s all about exposure and bringing more customers to our site. We’re focused on that.

Upsize: How are you going about it?

Maia Haag: We’ve identified the ever-changing marketing tactics that are most efficient and effective at driving traffic to our site in the digital world. It’s an Internet-based business, and a lot of our focus therefore is in the Internet advertising world. So we’re constantly looking at the best ways to reach customers in the environment that we’re in.

Upsize: Tell me about how you view the whole subject of growth. I know that both of you have struggled with the thought, “I could spend a whole bunch of money and get much bigger much faster, but what’s the trade-off?” And I know your advisory board has encouraged you to grow, grow, grow. So, how do you view growth?

Maia Haag: We have mapped out the percent growth we have to achieve, and it’s 15 percent each year, in order to reach the $10 million; So 15 percent is not so extravagant that it requires extreme measures in terms of changes to what we’re doing. But we have to keep trying new things.

In between working for General Mills and starting this company I worked for two companies that went bankrupt. It was at the height of the e-commerce boom, when cash was flowing. That very much influenced me because it showed me what not to do. It showed me the need to prove out a concept and prove out a marketing strategy before blowing all your cash on one gamble. So that has influenced me to be more prudent in the way that we spend. Ultimately where I’ve come out on it is it’s a matter of defining what you’re going to do each year and making sure that in the mix you’re trying new things.

Upsize: You pointed out the tactic of trying many different things and then if you find one, doubling down with a lot of investment. Is that an accurate description of your approach?

Maia Haag: Yes, except I don’t think there’s a silver bullet. I think it’s, to continue the bullet analogy, shooting enough rounds and finding the ones that will hit. So once you find what works you’re able to exploit that opportunity.

Upsize: Sometimes, though, don’t you find it frustrating to work in steps, to take a measured approach, when all the rhetoric among entrepreneurs is to go big or go home?

Maia Haag: It is frustrating, and during the recession we were flat and that was the most frustrating of all, to work so hard and not get the growth. What’s most frustrating is if you’re trying a lot of things and not finding that new thing that’s working. But once you start to get the momentum, whether it’ s a new product that was a success or a marketing campaign that was a success, I can feel it in my team. The excitement starts to snowball on itself.

Upsize: Is that part of why you articulated the growth goal, 5 over 5?

Maia Haag: Yes, it pushes me and my team to do more than what we’ve been doing in the past, and keep trying new things. We know that if we don’t continue to try new product launches or new marketing, by definition we’ll stay flat. It forces us to put a plan together to focus on it.

Allan Haag: I think the best thing we have going for us is we have a good team, both on the book business and on the design team that fuels this whole thing. I think this growth challenge is, there’s a value in putting an aggressive stake down and going for it.

Upsize: Why?

Allan Haag: I think it’s important to have a vision. It gives you something to focus on as a team.

Upsize: Earlier you said how you can get all the advice in the world, and you and Maia do seek out advice from your advisory board and others, but in the end it’s your money to lose. Expand on that.

Allan Haag: Any time we have advice from our advisory board, we know that those board members are very experienced and intelligent, but we then have to analyze all those recommendations, and some of this comes down to gut reaction. Somebody’s going to have to make a decision of where we invest and where we don’t. What we’re looking for is it’s a collaboration of thoughts, from our executive team and our advisers, and is that collaboration of thoughts all pointing in one direction.

Maia Haag: We have the growth challenge in terms of the numbers, but what motivates our team ultimately is the mission-which is, if we get there, that means double the number of children are seeing the books and getting the message of how special they are.

Upsize: I can see how that would be a powerful message for your team. You have said if you’re a product company, everything has to go into the product. What is your philosophy toward building a company based on a product or a line of products?

Maia Haag: One quick aside: when I was at General Mills, I was in the new product area, and I was enamored of a new product and the name around it, and the product itself was an afterthought. I learned that I cannot get the company around this idea, because the product itself wasn’t meeting the company’s standards. At the time I was annoyed with the process, but looking back I see the merit in it.

With our company, the very first book we wrote and produced is still an evergreen classic. What drove a lot of growth at the beginning was word of mouth and PR, and retailers finding it and looking for it. We didn’t have the resources to push it into the market; it was pulled into the market.

Upsize: Tell me more about the experience at General Mills: You were putting all the sizzle on the product under development, but that wasn’t going to be productive ultimately?

Maia Haag: I was in new product development, and when we talked about it with our sales group, they knew they had to sell it into the marketplace, and we hadn’t articulated what would make it unique.

Allan Haag: I think when the day is done it all comes down to a parent with a child with our product. With all the craziness that’s going on, that’s when the books come out in our household. That’s when it’s quiet, and that’s when you make it or break it with your customer.

If their child is entertained we consider that extremely important, and if they’re educated, even better. If after the book is closed they feel better about themselves, that is the ultimate. That parent will not forget that experience they’ve had with the child.

It’s that emotional reaction that we’re looking for, and the self esteem building, so we get that big smile. They read their name and they say their name, they feel that exuberance. That’s how you’re going to get remembered.

Maia Haag: In today’s world it’s not about us telling people about the product, it’s about customers telling other customers about the product. So it’s even more about the product.

Upsize: You are introducing one new product a quarter. That’s ambitious. How do you balance that schedule with your focus on high quality?

Maia Haag: It’s a matter of planning. We have a long pipeline of products so that Allan and his team have the time needed.

Allan Haag: It’s a matter of balancing time and quality. It’s that daily balance of quality and time, and how do processes break down. Maia and I get into some fairly heated discussions about quality and time to the market. If you rush the production of that book-we don’t want the customer to have an inferior product in hand. We don’t ever want to say, here’s our first launch, and then come back and say this is what we really wanted to do.

Upsize: That’s so interesting because as you know, other companies do it differently: they do the beta test and then they fix it. Why do you feel your way is the only way to go?

Allan Haag: If you send a product out to market and it isn’t to the best it can be the first time around, I think you’re risking your reputation. I know personally I don’t want a single book go out with any imperfection in it. I want to know when the day is done I don’t have something up there that someone is going to detect, that this isn’t quite what I expect.

Upsize: And once that bar is set, it’s hard to keep it so high?

Allan Haag: It is. What helps on the creative development side, as soon as we start a new book, we now have nine or 10 titles, and this is a discussion I have with the illustrators. those illustrators; I’m trying to get a sense for their view of quality. I’m also looking for the business side of it: do they understand that we have a retail track we have to hit.

Upsize: How much do you think about these types of topics-quality, mission, and so on, when you think about how fast to grow your company? Because if you control the finances you can control those things, but then your path is slower.

Maia Haag: We have concluded that we want to remain in control of the company from an ownership viewpoint, so that we can define the quality expectations and maintain the mission of the company. The growth expectations in my mind are really all about marketing. Now that we have put the systems in place to be able to introduce a new book every quarter with quality, now we can get the word out.

Upsize: Let me ask you a few philosophical questions. First of all, can you look back at your company’s history-you’re 10 years old-and identify a turning point for the better.

Maia Haag: In 2006 we had a tipping point. I’m sure you’ve read the book by that name! And we hope to have more tipping points, but it was a tipping point. In 2006 we finally introduced our second book; we used to be much slower at product development. We achieved a lot of momentum with new retailers that started carrying us. By chance we were contacted by People magazine that year; we were in Good Housekeeping, so we achieved national exposure.

Upsize: What role do you think the second book launch played in that momentum that you gained?

Maia Haag: Our customers had been waiting for six years for us to introduce another book!

Upsize: What took you so long?

Maia Haag: One, honestly, the success of the first book surprised me. I’m the author of the book, and I wasn’t positive that I could write another one that could do the same thing.

Upsize: You thought you were a one-hit wonder?

Maia Haag: laughs My focus was on the operations, distribution, etc. of the company, and we were growing with just that one book.

Allan Haag: There was another factor too. As retailers were looking to carry our products, we had one of our largest retailers aggressively ask, where is the next book? And kind of suggested that if you can’t provide the next book, we’ll probably find one to sit right next to yours!

Upsize: Ah, the old carrot and stick approach.

Allan Haag: I said, I need to look up the word partnership, because this doesn’t feel like a total partnership. I wanted to put this into a model where I could be in much more control of the design process. We had a partner who was pulling, and that was a good reminder for us. And then we had to get this laddering process in place, so we are not rushed. With every book complexity has increased. Every book has a unique attribute that’s popped up. We finished one book where we anticipated 2-3 hours of coding for one page, and it took 60.

Upsize: I had neglected to mention: What is your first book, the one you call the classic.

Maia Haag: My Very Own Name.

Upsize: Is that still your favorite?

Maia Haag: It’s still extremely popular. My favorite is The World According to Me, which makes the child the author and illustrator of the book.

Upsize: Let me ask the flip side of the positive turning point: the dark day. What is a time when things went wrong at your company? How did you recover?

Maia Haag: Last year was a very challenging year for us, because we had to move very quickly from our previous printing partner to a new printing partner. We had to build the technology from scratch in order to move to a new printing partner. We were very dependent on our former printing partner. We had to do this under a tight time frame, while keeping the company going. It was very nerve-wracking.

Upsize: What did you do? How did you manage a big potential disruption like this?

Maia Haag: Last year during this process, I was not able to focus as much on the marketing elements of the business, and was forced to turn my attention almost 100 percent to our operations. Luckily we have a great team, and there were some members of our team who did a great job of keeping things moving from a marketing perspective. We leaned heavily on our team. But it was all engrossing. My kids told me afterwards that my mind was elsewhere for a good six months, dealing with this.

Upsize: What did you learn from that experience?

Maia Haag: A lot. Primarily the risks involved in becoming very dependent on an external partner, and what can happen when things go wrong. I learned the importance of keeping certain parts of your business in house, if they are critical necessities to your business being able to move forward. I learned the importance of having a strong team that you can rely on. I learned the importance of legal formalities.

Allan Haag: The other thing I quickly noticed is, we assembled our team, and you quickly tell that we have a group of people that were willing to shift gears at a moment’s notice. Our accountant started making customer service calls, for example. Everyone started wearing the hats they needed to wear.

Upsize: Which is more important, in your opinion, talent or experience?

Maia Haag: Talent. Talent I’m defining as the intellectual horsepower to be able to figure something out, whether you’ve done it or not. Inevitably there are going to be things you have not experienced in the past, and having that horsepower to be able to assess the situation, figure out your options, identify a solution, is what I think has made our team successful.

Upsize: What about money or ideas?

Maia Haag: Ideas, because if you don’t have money you can start out slow and gain momentum.

Upsize: What’s one thing you wish “they” would have told you about being an entrepreneur?

Maia Haag: How all-encompassing it is, and how hard you have to work at compartmentalizing your life so that when you’re at work you’re at work and when you’re with family you’re with family.

Upsize: What’s one lesson you would like to share with other business owners, about growing a company?

Maia Haag: Work very hard from the very beginning at defining what makes your product or service unique. Be as targeted as possible in defining your audience, and what it is that will make them come to you instead of someone else.