I AM WHO I AM!

Today I got real honest about who I am: the good, bad and the ugly. I am who I am. 


A dynamic leader of the pack, first in line to get things going; a kick-starter, builder and initiator. I jump into the fray full force and contribute much in the process. I’m good at rallying the troops even against seemingly insurmountable odds. I have a certain, personal magnetism; perhaps a result of projecting genuine passion and authenticity. I don’t shy away from new ground because I’m a pioneer and often take the road less travelled. I’m convincing, and often blunt and too the point. I accomplish much in one day with a great deal of focus, determination and fearlessness. I’m competitive in nature, bold, courageous and I like to win. I have a lot of energy and can stay in the game longer than most. I work well independently and contribute with zeal in a group setting. At times, my approach may be construed as arrogant and domineering, but it takes a lot of focus to be a female leader in a male dominant world.

My Childhood is What Drives My Startup

I am the child I’m trying to reach. I grew up with a Latina, Spanish dominant, immigrant and single mother who worked three jobs to make ends meet. My mom use to say, “we may be poor, but we’re not stupid.” Education was the way out of the “hood,” and she was going to ensure I and my siblings would get there. Like many immigrant families with small children I was sent away at 7 years old to the homeland (in this case Panamá) to spend the summers with my grandmother. I didn’t speak a word of Spanish and I was terrified. After three months of full immersion I came back fully bilingual and bicultural. I begged my mom to send me back and she did when I was 9 and 14 years old. I intimately understand what it’s like to be thrusted into a foreign environment where you don’t speak the language.

Ultimately, learning a second language and becoming bicultural opened up many opportunities for me. These new skill sets set the stage for my academic studies and long term career path. I would carry the flag for those who didn’t have a voice to influence change. I would take my skills and knowledge to Sony Music Entertainment and propose a completely out of the box idea (originally met with great resistance). My strategy was to take some of the Latino artists on the Latin label and cross them over to the general market. A multi-million dollar strategy resulting in huge sales. Since then I've been devising winning business strategies to help company's tap into the ever-growing Hispanic market. I opened up an office on the West Coast and provided similar services to the movie studios. One of my many film clients was Mel Gibson and while controversial, I handled all the Hispanic marketing and PR for “The Passion of the Christ;” now a casebook marketing study.

After 10 years in entertainment, I went to work for a visionary man; Mario Baeza the former executive chairman of Vme Media. Alongside a research analyst, we conducted extensive research about the Latino educational crisis. With this research in hand, Mario wrote a white paper about the crisis and how high quality children’s programming could better prepare Latino children for kindergarten. That white paper essentially became the foundation for my startup, Bilingual Children’s Enterprises. My company is an e-learning, multimedia edutainment company developing, aggregating and acquiring bilingual and dual language transmedia properties. Our mission is to provide our users/customer base with appropriate and effective tools to stimulate children’s language and numeracy skills through bilingual and dual language content from an early age. We intend to develop and position original and acquired kid content across multiple platforms including broadcasting, streaming video, web, mobile and tablets. We create products with high pedagogic quality accompanied with a large dose of fun for learning to take its course without the child ever even noticing. Families and educators who are interested in bilingual, dual language and preschool through 1st grade content, are our primary target audience.

In 2011, a small network in the NYC area was awarded a $30 million grant from the US Department of Education. Out of 300 content providers, we were selected as a top three finalist. For this grant submission I assembled an amazing team, invested $10,000 of my own money to create our demo and of course countless hours. While we were waiting for a decision from this network, I submitted our demo and business plan to another network. Ultimately, we didn’t win the grant, but still it gave me the confidence to know we we’re on the right track. We ended up hearing from the second network and began negotiations to give them the distribution rights to the show; all contingent upon us securing the funding for production.  With a distribution contract in hand we also secured investors. However, after a long process of figuring out the production budget, our investors decided to pull the plug at the start line. It took three years of hard work to get to this point and then surprisingly with a three-sentence email, everything came to a halt.  These two huge set backs completely derailed my enthusiasm for my startup and caused my co-founder to leave. I took off almost a year from working on my startup and then to my surprise, a friend wrote me check that ultimately helped me start all over again. So here I am, yet again, persevering through my failures and lessons learned with an even greater level of enthusiasm. I don’t know where this entrepreneurial spirit comes from…sometimes I think it’s a blessing, other times it feels like a curse.

Check us out at www.tipitomtales.com

Being an entrepreneur is terrifying!

As I lay in bed (day 5 of having the flu) I've been thinking about how truly terrified I really am. Usually this comes at night when I first get into bed and start thinking about all the money and time I've put into my startup, all the career opportunities I've past up and how I never have any money anymore to travel, shop or even donate.

Most days I'm very focused and motivated. Yet some days I ponder whether it will all pay off particularly as I approach the first of the month when all the bills need to be paid. The days I'm questioning myself I go back to the one thing that always brings me joy and focus no matter where I am, how I feel or what I'm doing and that is CHILDREN.

As a Latina, social impact entrepreneur focused on better preparing Latino kids for kindergarten through English language acquisition, I remember why I'm carrying this burden, why I'm working so hard and why I'm sacrificing so much to make this startup a reality. The CHILDREN!

Truth be told, I was a kid who grew up in low-income housing with a single, Latina immigrant mom who showed us in so many ways that an education was important and that higher education would also be attainable if we worked hard. Fortunately for me, I grew up in an English and Spanish speaking household and therefore had no issues with the English language early in my academic experience. However, today the fastest growing segment of the student population are English language learners. They need affordable tools to help them acquire a second language in a fun and entertaining way.

Anyway, I've digress...back to being terrified. Now that the business plan and demo are done, the financial projections are complete, the team and corporate formation is in place, the question is, will THEY invest? How much longer will this take? Can I hold on as my bank account dwindles down to nothing? Do I have the stamina to keep going?

Thankfully, there's something called an obligation that can keep an entrepreneur engaged. Last year around this time I received a small seed investment instrumental in getting me to where I am today. I feel obligated not to let that investor down, regardless of the size of her investment. So I continue on, terrified, yet hopeful this will all be worth it.

Best,

Deborah
www.tipitomtales.com

Sneak Peak for "Tipi Tom Tales", A New Bilingual, Preschool Show