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

What if Blacks ruled the World?

The other day I was listening to the artist KRS-One, a prolific and political rapper. In his song, “You Must Learn“ he goes on to educate his fans about innovative African-American leaders like Benjamin Banneker (almanac), Granville T. Woods (inventor), Eli Whitney (inventor), Lewis H. Latimer (inventor), Charles Troupe (performer) Garrett Morgan (inventor), Harriett Tubman (Abolitionist), etc. In another song called, “What is That,” he begins to rant about how African-American kids are only taught to “read, write and act,” where he compares this limited approach to “teaching white kids how to black.”  Then he begins his case in explaining our black genealogy in the following lyrics. 

Genesis chapter eleven verse ten: 
 explains the genealogy of Shem. 
Shem was a black man in Africa
. If you repeat this fact they can't laugh at ya

.

Genesis fourteen verse thirteen: 
Abraham steps on the scene. 
Being a descendant of Shem which is a fact
 means Abraham too was black

. Abraham born in the city of a black man 
Called Nimrod, grandson of Kam. 
Kam had four sons, one was named Canaan
. Here, let me do some explaining

.

Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob
. Jacob had twelve sons for real
 and these were the children of Israel

. According to Genesis chapter ten: 
Egyptians descended from Ham. 
Six hundred years later my brother read up
. Moses was born in Egypt



In this era black Egyptians weren't right
. They enslaved black Israelites. 
Moses had to be of the black race. 
Because he spent forty years in Pharaoh's place. 

He passed as the Pharaoh's grandson. So he had to look just like him
. Yes, my brothers and sisters take this here song
. Yo, correct the wrong.

These songs got me thinking…what would the world look today if things were reversed and ruled by blacks and how would I feel?

Since I’m a white, Latina female who grew up in an urban environment in Rochester, NY, I’d think I would be Ok with it. My mom worked for the Rochester City School District and as a family we attended lots of educational activities with other urban city kids. Puerto Ricans, African-Americans, arroz con gandules and soul music consistently surrounded me.  This was the norm for me in the mid 70’s. There was the Puerto Rican Day Parade, us kids doing the “mathematical bump” and parties with inter-racial couples with PhD’s.

I attended “The World of Inquiry,” a fully integrated, multicultural school; one of the best expeditionary learning schools in the country. However, at 10 we left the city; moved to the burbs and into a predominantly all white school. I still remember feeling out of place there, like I didn’t belong. It was exceedingly quiet, reserved and conservative. I was in culture shock and I while I adapted, I never forgot my urban roots and culture.

Back to the question….How would it be living in a world that disliked me because of my skin color?How would I overcome such obstacles and hostility at work and within society? The thought of all these feelings overwhelm me and place me back in time when we first moved to “white” suburbia.  

Over the weekend I attended a graduation ceremony for the same suburban town I was relocated too. In a crowd of 1,500 people, I was amazed to see things had not changed very much and the lack of diversity was quite stunning.  So while Adele Bovard, Superintendent of Schools (Webster, NY) bragged and stated all kinds of exemplary statistics about Thomas’ academic student achievement, I realized the glorification stems from a predominantly white student body whose parents have higher educational attainment levels. In that precise moment, I thought how this amazing high school could benefit the many minority students who continue to face under-achievement in the Rochester City School district. An environment with teachers who care and where students excel in a competitive environment; where safety is an every day occurrence and aspirations dictate the future; this environment and its conditions could reap high rewards for any student regardless of race or socio-economic status. The question that lingers for me is, can forced integration improve educational attainment levels for the students of the City of Rochester & elsewhere? A city that continues to be one of the most segregated in America.

My hope is that if we can put ourselves in another person’s shoes for a meaningful moment, we can develop a spirit of compassion, understanding and tolerance to build communities where race doesn’t matter and where opportunity for advancement exists for all. 

Women Who Motivate & Inspire!

Only one month into the new year and I'm feeling so very inspired by several women who have accomplished so much. Let's start with Kathryn Bigelow, an amazing action director whose produced two critically acclaimed films; Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker.  Obviously, as a director she's a risk taker and not afraid of controversial issues (i.e., interrogation techniques, government secrecy). At 61 years old, she knows what she wants and how she wants to pursue her passions. She did a superlative job in depicting one of today's real heroes; the agent and the brains behind the capture of Bin Laden. A focused and committed woman who diligently followed her instincts. Despite all the nay-sayers around her, she ferociously stuck to her guns and followed through on what became a historic mission! Incredible!

Another inspiring young woman is Malala Yousafzai; a teenage, Pakistani girl who took a bullet to the head to protest the inequalities of education for girls. After having multiple surgeries, she appeared today on the news  to continue to state her purpose of raising educational attainment levels for girls.  Miraculously, Malala "has no long-lasting brain injuries" after being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen last October. Her demeanor is calm, stable and loving.  She continues to demonstrate tenacity and commitment to her mission. Amazing!

I also need to praise the amazingly talented women who performed at the Super Bowl last night: Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child and Beyonce.  They're all beautiful goddesses whose performances were electrifying and awesome. Their talents, beauty and sexiness are to be celebrated, not hidden as this is exactly what makes each woman special and unique!

So to all my "chicas," know you're special, talented and lovely. You're a woman who was handcrafted for something incredibly special. Press on, don't give up and keep the dream alive! Be inspiring always. 

#dcastil

Silicon Valley's International & Male Dominant Culture

Having lived in the NYC area for over 15 years, I considered it multicultural and diverse until I moved to Silicon Valley.  I've met people from all over the world in SV; the cream of the crop where engineers permeate every aspect of the local ecosystem and where innovation lives at a level I've never experienced. Another notable difference in SV, in contrast to the NYC area where there are 200,000 more women than men, is how the male population fully influences the local culture and trends. At the gym the majority of the channels featured are programmed to sports; at events or local meet-ups, the ratio of male to female participation is 75% and 25% respectively; on the streets of Mountain View or Cupertino, it's always a stream of men walking together with few women in the mix; in fashion, most women dress casually, reflecting a dress code more similar to a geek squad verses couture.

On a personal note, 100% of all my SV job interviews have been with men. More recently, I interviewed with eight men for a Senior Director of PR position for a streaming radio network. They're interest focused on growing their female base of listeners.  Ultimately, they chose to add yet another male to the team. This made me wonder, has local leadership become so comfortable with its "own" type that seeking out qualified female candidates is no longer a priority? More than likely not since SV has already proven itself to be exemplary in building great products and businesses.

However, as a woman, I still think it's important to simply highlight why it's critical to have  qualified women on your team. As stated in the book, "Women Want More:" women account for 64% of the $18.4 trillion spent annually on consumer goods around the world; women in the US control 73% of all household spending; women also already control half the wealth in the United States. Recognition of the rise of the female economy is an important insight to evaluate when planning a company's business development growth strategy. The quintessential staff  is one that equally represents both genders and the various cultures and demographics of today's population. Through diversity, the best brands and products can be developed which reflect all the important echelons of society. 

Food for thought....

Still Confounded By Republican Leadership's Lack of Foresight

All this week the news outlets confirmed how Latinos, women and young people helped President Obama win the presidential election. What baffles me is the Republican party's apparent inability to recognize the changes in today's demographics, a marketing 101 lesson.  I ask myself, how is this possible?

In the late 80's in Providence, RI,  I got introduced to Buddy Cianci who was seeking re-election after being removed from his mayoral seat. At that time the city had a large Dominican population; he decided to hire me as his Hispanic campaign director to seek their support. Imagine his foresight as the 1990 census report still had not been released.  He knew his city, he understood the demographics and we developed a plan to captivate that audience. We bought Spanish-language media, recruited Hispanic leaders from the business and non-profit sectors, organized coffee hours and went door-to-door in South Providence to get out the vote. Buddy Cianci won the election by a slight margin and those votes came from the Dominican community. 

In the early 90's I landed a position working as the group account manager at FOVA, the Hispanic arm of Grey Advertising. I managed a $20MM budget overseeing Proctor & Gamble's brands marketed to the Hispanic consumer (Jif, Downy, Crisco), along with specific Kraft brands.  Fast forward to today, company's like Blockbuster have added a new Cine Latino movie section in more than 200 stores of their stores; Disney just launched their first Latina princess, Sofia; Salma Hayek became the first bilingual star to lend her face to the popular “Got Milk” campaign. Then there's one of my favorite TV ads whereby two guys get into a Passat and after their music-less road trip, come out of the car speaking fluent Spanish. 

Obviously the demographics in the US have changed to a multi-cultural ecosystem. How is possible the Republican party missed this in 2012 when there were so many market indicators???