Before starting Joy Sprouts, co-founder and CEO Suzanne So worked in the children business for 10+ years, managing the brand and licensing facets for brands such as Angry Birds and Smurfs.
Besides helping those brands set foot in the Greater China market, she also handled the product development and marketing for McDonald’s ’40+ Happy Meal toys Campaign’ launch. Despite the fast food giant’s stringent safety rules, cost and operational constraints, her team won the ‘Best Marketing Campaign of the Year’ with the ‘Hello Kitty Summer Fun Campaign’.
What is your startup?
Joy Sprouts has developed intelligence technologies that help parents understand the total developmental needs of their early age children.
Our pioneering iPad marketplace app brings modules of total development to children, age 2-6. We are the first to integrate with the the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start Development and Early Learning Framework, issued to ensure children have total development, through 38 important domains.
Children are offered focused total development, and parents are given superior guidance and recommendations through our intelligence technologies that follow children’s growth, and assesses their needs.
Our achievements since we started:
– Signed titles with market leaders, including Oxford University Press, BBC Worldwide and Garfield;
– Silicon Valley’s TiE50 Awards 2013, competed against 1,100+ international companies to get named as one of the top 50 startups;
– The 11th Annual Horizon Interactive Awards Gold Winner in the Education app category. An international award with 1,000 entries from 25 countries;
– MobEx 2012’s Best eCommerce Solution Bronze Award Winner.
How did you come up with this idea?
The story should begin with the time when I met up with my co-founder Leo at a hotel.
Well, we met at the orientation camp of the MBA program, which was held at a hotel. Leo and I were fortunate (or unfortunate for Leo) to get pre-assigned to the same group, we stayed with each other over the entirety of the program. During business school, Leo caused me both curiosity and doubt about his tech language, and his first startup, that got me infatuated with the fantasy of the startup world (almost the same level of infatuation I have with children). Hence, after many months of brainstorming and bluffing, we identified the key problems of the market, which is the source of our idea.
Basically, monetization is the key problem in the market. Parents are willing to pay but don’t have the expertise and information, hence 90% of the apps get downloaded for free. The root causes are:
(i) Parents are not experts in education: they need better information to purchase the right learning material for their children
(ii) Existing apps do not match with children’s educational needs: children need total development to achieve their full potential. Yet over 65% of the education app space is crowded by topics such as maths, and literacy.
Hence we focus on providing total development to children, and superior intelligence to parents to learn more about their children’s needs.
Who are you targeting and how big is the market in HK/Asia?
Our first target market is actually the U.S., with a population of 16.9 million children between 2-6 years and estimated market size of US$3.92 billion per subject matter.
What are your futures plans for your startup?
We raised our first round of funding and will work relentlessly to enhance our product, develop the 50 sprouts based on content we signed with world-class content providers, including BBC Worldwide, Oxford University Press and Garfield, as well as officially market our product in the State to gain good user traction.
1 Benefit and 1 Challenge in the HK startup scene?
Benefit – Simple tax and compliance system – very apparent contrast when we now have an U.S. entity – the extent and type of tax and compliance issues takes months to get on top of.
Challenge – Availability of the type of talents we need for our business. We put priority on attitude (passion in children and education) over aptitude (experience). Not many people I met have much interest in children and education. This would take time and luck.
I am fortunate enough that Leo and I are heading a brilliant team with passion in children, education, games, and vision to make a difference in the EdTech space.
Suzanne So on Startbase.HK: Suzanne So
Joy Sprouts on Startbase.HK: Joy Sprouts
