DN #29: The Viral Loop of Imagination, Kids as Creators & Learning Through Story (w/ Feifei Qiu)

Feifei Qiu:by the end of the play date, every child started to making their own version of dragon story. And same dragon but different version. And that's really a magical moment for me. And it made me thinking, and kids can really inspire each other. one little adventure will inspire many, many different version adventure and kids can kind of the viral loop of imagination.

Niklas:Hi and huge welcome to you, my lovely listener. So glad you're here. Today you're joining me for a chat with Feife. Fefe is the founder of Kindlewood Studios, a creativity-based learning platform for kids. Fefe, so nice to have you.

Feifei Qiu:Hello everyone, thank you Nicholas for inviting me. I'm so happy to be here today.

Niklas:Learning is something I've been obsessed with for quite a while. And I find it really interesting. You kind of picked the the very young crowd of learners. Why did you focus or decide to focus on especially that niche?

Feifei Qiu:Absolutely. And there are multiple reasons and number five number one is because I have two kiddos and they are five year old and four year old. They are the perfect age and start learning reading and writing and I think it just got started the whole journey. And me as a mom, as a parent, I sought a lot and in the age of eight eye. what my kids gonna learn how they will develop a real edge for the future while everything is changing and so pr unpredictable in the future. I think that's one primary reason and the other reason is and look at me and I was the product manager at tech company for so many years and the whole thing is changing. The way people think, the way people live, operate or work, everything's so different. And naturally keep me thinking, okay, for me as a grown up and I need to change the way I learn for any topic. And the same thing for children, and it's the time to transform how they learn. It doesn't have to be boring and there's new way and we can help kids learn more fun, more creative, more engaging and more personal. Yeah.

Niklas:It's really interesting. Before we further deep dive into it, I'm interested in your background story. I think it's been a journey from China to the US into tech. So maybe walk us through it a bit. How how did this all work out?

Feifei Qiu:Yeah, absolutely. for me, I was born, raised in China, and I got my bachelor and master degree back in China as well. And I majored computer science for my bachelor and machine learning and as my master's degree. And about 15 years ago, I moved to United States, Seattle area and for working primary. And talk about my career. I pretty much have done all kinds of tech role from customer support, testing, engineer, and product manager, program manager, and also sales. And so it was really interesting journey after a long journey at big tech company and particular at Microsoft. And I finally I would say found my calling. working at the intersection of education, AI, and technology. So yeah, that's really quick background about me.

Niklas:If you if you look at it today, I think you were like in one of these big tech companies in Microsoft. If you look at it today compared to to that old life in the corporate, how did it change? What's different now?

Feifei Qiu:You know, that's the question I have been thinking a lot for myself and also sharing with my friends as well. And first, I left my job when I was working at big company like Microsoft and the new technology and the resource, the support you able to had at that moment, and also the learning opportunity as well. And but again, I feel the organization was so big and it took a long time a process and decision steps to come to the alignment. It was not easy. And me most of my career my job was product manager. I think f one thing I was really enjoy doing is number one, connect to customer and talk to the user. And understand about their pain points and come up with ideas with team to address their pin points or improve the business process. And but again, there were moments I felt I didn't just have the authority to make the decision to fully serve my customer and make the impact. And so there are pros and cons definitely. And I come to right now building my own product. and do my own startup. I think number one thing is I learned a lot throughout this journey by doing everything from think about the problem and coding the solution, think about go to market and marketing, distributing, and even fix bug for production in real time in front of my customers. And so there's so many things I wasn't able to experience at the big tech company because kinda you own a smaller area, not the full end-to-end, not all the decision through the whole journey. I think that's one thing, a lot of opportunity for me to really think about in every decision, would that imply for the whole product for my user? And so yeah, that's very different between jobs.

Niklas:And and on the other side, it's probably also been a good learning experience. I mean, these large companies they have a lot of friction. I think that's known. You that's kind of what you pay for when you are in it. I'm that's just a huge administration that you have to deal with when when you're in of them. I think they are all the same in that sense. But but on the other hand, it probably also helped you a lot for what you're doing now, like what what's the biggest learning that you could take from from being at the big tech company to now building your own your own product?

Feifei Qiu:Absolutely. I would say there are a lot of learnings. I will share top two probably. one is the product thinking and that helped me a lot, particular designing the user experience for my Kindlewood product and also how to position. And one example is and you know for me At Microsoft, I designing building enterprise solution and product. I need to think about all the different personas and what's their normal behavior, was the user journey for each persona, and design the right experience for each persona. And that concept or product thinking I naturally carried into the Kindlewood. And one small example is for Kindlewood products. we split the creator experience which is the reading experience. And the reason why is there technically can be the same people doing the same, two different tasks, but for reading and take my three-year-old as example, initially it was on the web application and together with the creation, there's a page you can flip around. And my three-year-old and just keep tapping every button and every single wear of the page and jumping out and lock out and he got frustrated. And when I observing how he used the system, it reminds me, he's different persona in this whole journey. I need to define the experience tailored for this age group. And the reading basically becomes a native mobile app and very simple UI and very focused. Kids only do one thing, read. They read story. They don't think about anything else. There's no like purchase button. There's no link you can click, log out accidentally. So that's one. Truly think about user experience based on who the product for and their user journey. and the special things for that user. And and that's one thing. The second thing really important and helping a lot on the startup journey is be empathy with user. That sounds simple, but when it comes to practice and it can be really challenged. What I mean is Back then I talked to all different customers. Some customer really easygoing, basically, okay, come to decision is is pretty quick. Some customer maybe demanding is the wrong words, but that's how I felt at the moment. But again, I keep thinking, keep learning. Every demanding ask. There's some reason behind it. Me as a product manager. As someone defined the product, I need to think about the motive, the reason, why they ask. What the real problem, what's the real needs underneath the the ask. Sometimes they don't know what they want. They ask A, but A doesn't necessarily helping their process or addressing their needs. So we have to go one level to level deeper to truly understand and be patient. And I learned the most demanding customer are always the most valuable customer by the end. They you tackle them, they are the best loyal customer, they stay with you and they're happy about the product by the end.

Niklas:Th it's interesting to understand this side. I also think if you go out of one of these large companies you have to unlearn some things. Is there something that you really had to unlearn when when you started working on yourself or yourself were on your startup?

Feifei Qiu:Mm-hmm. I wouldn't say I learn and I will say just be open and be ready to adapt anything new, especially with AI, different technology every day. And I think that's really critical. but there are I would say a mind size shift and what I mean is like back tech company and for me I was product manager, I worked marketing team, a sales team, and they are the first owner owning the go-to-market strategy and sales page and me providing the context and not like owning everything. But right now I have to naturally pick up everything and I need to be okay to do both exciting stuff but also the boring things as a founder, as a builder. And that's one. And second, I think I learned the product, how to tell a good story that mattered a lot. And for my product, I pivoted almost three times. Each time I learned and what message resonate audience better and what are the real problems I'm trying to solve. And so I think that that keep pivoting and keep polishing the message and keep crafting a compelling story until I do things on my own. I didn't had the chance or opportunity to experience and before. And that's something new. But I didn't, I learned what I learned. I keep reminding myself, okay, just be open and be ready to fail and to be hammered by partner, by customer, by parents. And but again, everyone gave me any piece of feedback, positive, negative, and they they spend their time, they pay their attention, and I should be grateful and appreciate.

Niklas:When before we do more of a deep dive into into the product itself, I I'm really interested why the name Kindlewood? Is there any background to it? How did you g arrive at that name actually?

Feifei Qiu:Okay, the so take a step back, Kindlewood. So the very first version is just a storytelling, a storybook, and actually the whole Kindlewood journey started with my case story one story sparked the whole whole thing. And because the story and kids love like tree house and so the wood was the first the word popped in my head okay kind of represent the magical and the the adventure style and for Kindle and like kids growing up and I want the story and become a guide become a little light and help them navigate around their their life their journey. So kind of I was just thinking a couple key things I want to bring into the concept, like the wood, the light, the magic, the adventure. of course I was consulting with ChatGPT. Now we together come up with this name. Yeah.

Niklas:Yeah, when when we look beyond it, you already said it. I think the at the end of the day when you build something, you have to make something people want, right? Now you have a really challenging at least user group. I'm not sure if they are really the customers who pay for it, but but they at least the users are probably f four to seven year olds. You already said they they behave very different from from us probably when we use an app. They How how what how how did you work that out? Did you just build something that you thought was great and then really watched your children? How how did you go go about that? I is there some more structure behind it? How does it actually work?

Feifei Qiu:Okay, just one small correction. Our target user group from three year old all the way to 12. And they are storytelling is the key thing we are emphasizing right now. And through storytelling, kids can learn different things. That's how tied back to the learning aspect. And they can learn different like science and reading, writing and life skills and or just purely fantasy adventure style. And now go back to your question. so I think Mmm. So first let me take a step back. And so the whole journey started from my kids' story that was about a year ago. My four-year-old sat by the dining table, told a very cute story. A dragon ate his friend and accidentally. And he is the superhero gathered together at the friends, went to save the friend, got eaten by the dragon. And there are a lot more, but that's the simpler version. And he's superhero squat and saved the friend. At that moment, it was such a cute story as a mom. My only thought is I want to keep this memory. And so I was trying to explore any any tool or any way I can keep it. And the very first I used the ChatGPD try to make some images and with the story. It took about four hours, even five hours, and the prompting, adjusting image, and the character was not consistent and there are many other issues. But eventually there was a very okay-ish version, but he's super super happy. At that night he kept the reading like 20 times and his younger brother also kept the reading. The second day he insist brought the book to share with his friends. Five other children on the play date. And by the end of the play date, every child started to making their own version of dragon story. And same dragon but different version. And that's really that's a magical moment for me. And it made me thinking, and kids can really inspire each other. one little adventure will inspire many, many different version adventure and kids can kind of the viral loop of imagination. So that's the moment and I had that spark. Okay, I want to do something. Number one, make the whole process easier, efficient, not five hours, it just be five minutes maximum or even one minute. And any kid's imagination and any story, parents can just quickly turn into something tangible. Digital version and they can print it out as the paperwork paper book as well. So I think that was the very first version of Kindlewood. And then it comes to the learning and he about the time to learn reading, writing, and we tried a lot of book in the market, also the reading app from the market. I wouldn't say the name, but he just not quite interested. But his own book, he just kept reading, reading. And that got me thinking more. What about we combine both? Instead of reading the normal textbook, he can read his own adventure, his own story. And through making story, he also learned reading and writing. And I can see how he turned that into action. When he sees interesting interesting words, he grabs a pen and write on the paper. And when he starts sitting down writing, his little brother got influenced. Come join in the reading and the learning journey. And that's how the kids' community effects come into the play. And I organized more community workshop and storytelling events and bring more kids. When kids see each other, they will naturally inspire each other. That's why one of my taglines is One storyteller can inspire many, many more. And that's true. I see that in action. That's really, really happening. Yeah.

Niklas:And and how's traction so far? So how how can I imagine that you have a number of creators and also a lot of stories, I think, to date. So how is this going and how do you feel the scaling is going? Are you happy with your progress?

Feifei Qiu:I would say absolutely, we have making a really good progress, not a lot. so on the business metric side, and we have more than 200 young creators or storytellers, and they are creating stories and over the week, over the day, and there are more than 500 stories created throughout the community already. In addition to consumers. We also partner with School Local Learning Center on the Storytelling Workshop or the Writing Workshop. And kids can come to write their own story. And as I mentioned, and story is the format through the creation of story, kids learn reading and writing. For older kids and like seven. and they learn writing because writing is such a critical skill and very fundamental critical skill and how to write clearly, concisely, express their thoughts and on paper into words. And that is something they practicing. There are nine schools we are partnering right now. And again, pretty much every school we have talked engaged. school director, principal, they loved idea. And kids, it's love story in general. And through story, they learn so many things. And the bottleneck is actually on us for school partnership engagement. And we need to have more teacher or people to engage. And so there are a lot of opportunity for us to scale. But we need to have our own team ready first before go go big, yeah. I I would say I would prefer growing with a steady and healthy pace instead of go viral because education first is not something you just go viral overnight over the week and I'm preparing for a slow journey. yeah so a little bit more on that in addition to The business metrics. What I care about is how kids like it or not. And there are so many emotional moments. Just literally make me cry every time I see kids from super shy, introvert. They come to the workshop, they didn't know what to do, they were hiding behind parents, but slowly their curiosity draw them out. They start engaged, but at the end of the workshop, they don't want to go. They don't want to stop. They just want to keep creating. And that was really rewarding moment for me. And seeing them love what they're doing. And also, yeah, just super rewarding for me. That's way beyond the ARR,

Niklas:Yeah.

Feifei Qiu:R R, yeah.

Niklas:That sounds awesome. And I think generally in the in the startup where there's this fun meme of ten years of overnight success. So that it's like most people don't see that companies existed for a long time before they actually took off. And I there are a ton of examples, even even the really large ones that we look up to, be it like Stripe these days or Airbnb, for example. I think Airbnb is one of these stories where everybody has heard that they were literally going to give up, like at a certain point in time. So so I think it's very normal that the start of the journey is hard. It's especially hard in marketplaces, I think. So so I I can I I think that is very normal. I think everything else is rather the extreme outlier. Like if you if you kind of hit it really well very early, I think that's that's Very difficult. What what I would find interesting is do you have some kind of viral loop? Because I think like this sharing of stories or something like that probably is something that that could create some marketing. I would like in Dropbox, for example, we shared the files and we became Dropbox users. I could imagine that something like that also works for what you're building.

Feifei Qiu:Yeah, absolutely. And I think the the viral loop of imagination and the community flying wheel. so basically some kids are very talent, they like creating at the one. My older kids as example and there are many kids come to the work workshop or just using online tool, I see the similar thing. And for some Other kids, they may not be ready to create ideal like my younger one. But when my younger one reads the story from the community, like this dragon, this ninja, and this apple tree, this squirrel, he will think, my brother creates so many stories, and he's the hero of every story. Now I want to be the hero of my own story. He started. creating his own story. He transformed from reader to creator. So that's how that works. And because kids will inspire and not necessarily quit right away, but slowly they will follow their own pace. And kids always curious. They always want to create. They are born to be creator. I always tell my community, think about my little one or other kids. They do the role play, they pretend to play and they dress up, they imagine, they build Legos, and they are the creators. They just haven't had a really good opportunity or a tool for them to express their idea yet. So that's why one this is the place for them to express their idea in any format. And storytelling is the starting point, and we will have more. program in the future to support kids creative growth journey.

Niklas:When when we look at AI and that it's the the dominating topic I think for the last one and a half years, I think it will profoundly change learning. What what is if you look at it today already, I think education is usually rather slow and a little bit behind, but but what what do you expect will happen and how what will the effect be and how does what you're building play into that?

Feifei Qiu:Yeah, I think that's a really great question. That's also one of the many questions we have been thinking, also our challenge as well. And basically, we as a team, how can we balance using AI to help children to explore new possibilities and unlock more potential? Also not replacing their thinking and creativity. And first we need to have a we need to have a good position, how we position AI. And right now, AI is a tool. We make sure kids are the author. They are on a driver's seat. They come up with idea and they express their thinking. and they writing, they read and the whole process, they are the one driving. And AI as a tool, they can help kids unstock, for example, a seven years old kids writing the full script of a story. We have the writing coach to help kids improve their grammar, conciseness, also helping kids understand. How does a good story entail in terms of the start, the beginning, and the conflict, the solution, the ending, and kind of asking more open-ended questions to help kids to navigate the storyline instead of okay, here one shorter prompt, here's the full story. And then kids basically you leaving the creativity to the two. you leave in the creativity to the AI instead of the case. So the design of the two need to be very, very well thought. And also and since we're serving teacher and parents as well, now we need to think about for grown up and we optimize for convenience, meaning grown up and we want to create something for learning quickly, like Okay, this week and this school will teach in the life cycle a butterfly or learn all kinds of wolves and teacher can have a kind of one shorter prompt life cycle a butterfly and the system can create quickly create a sign the fact-based learning book. So for teacher for parents and we optimize for communities and for kids, create. We make sure they are. at the driver's seat. They we have them navigate the process, but again, the thinking, the idea is all belong to the kids. Yeah.

Niklas:looking more again at the journey of yourself and now looking at wipe wipe coding and AI, how how do you feel your personal workflow has changed from f former product management work to today and and what what can how what is it like now?

Feifei Qiu:Yeah, I would say for AI, it did a lot more potential for myself. And even though I majored computer science for both bachelor's and master degree, but I didn't like coding with Java and C. And I never liked it. And you will I can, but I just didn't like it. And I more enjoying talking to users, engaging customer. And on the business product side of the work, that's why I picked product manager for later in my career. And now web coding or AI coding is perfect for me. I don't have to touch the the syntax, the raw programming, but it's a great opportunity for me to put my idea into a real product and much quicker. and testing, iterating and repivating. And so that's one also. And it helped me build a lot of confidence. And something I never truly believe I was able to do a full stack application built on my own. Never happened in history, but now it's happening for more people. So I think a lot of people keep thinking, okay, AI replace the job, AI will replace people thinking, no matter grown up for kids. I would say opposite. If people are really curious and AI will help them find more potential. They can explore. Once I tackle this thing and I have more questions, I want to try, I want to explore, it actually amplify my creativity. I didn't feel My creativity, my thinking got replaced. I think a lot, a lot more. Yeah. I got busier too, of course. Yeah.

Niklas:Yeah, I feel the same. I think if you if you want to build things and you know what you want to do, AI is a superpower now. Obviously there there will be some implications on the job market. We cannot rule that out. But that's a very different story. I mean if you if you think about your current journey as a builder, what has been the most rewarding moment that you see? Where where did you what really made you happy?

Feifei Qiu:Okay. I I I love this question. I tell you a story. Last week I went to Seattle AS Summit and I was rehearsing my pitch at home, kind of just talking to myself, and my five-year-old overheard my pitching presentation. he took a moment, talked to me. Hey mom. Is it me the reason got you a job? That was a very funny response. And but my point is I told him, yes, you give mommy a job. And the whole reason we have Kindlewood is because you you inspired me and my journey keep inspiring you and to create more stories and to write more. And also another pitch is at Kindlewood, every child becomes storyteller and creators. Kids don't just consume technology, they create with it. One storyteller inspires many, many more. And my five-year-old goes again. Am I the first creator? I say, Yes, you are the first creator. So back to your question. super happy that's the moment super rewarding I often tell you myself the end of the day the startup making money or not that's secondary me I'm part of my kids growing learning journey and I'm able to make impact that's the most rewarding and not only my own case at workshop we finished the whole season one child came to me and my partner saying I feel so sad I have to leave now that moment I was about to cry you know that's the the most beautiful moment you see kids and love your product they love what they are doing and so I will I I would say and success metrics revenue it doesn't matter to me. I feel succeed already at this very moment. I made an impact at the neighborhood, at the community for my own kids. But of course I want to bring the impact to more children and kinda more mission driven and money comes secondary. Yeah.

Niklas:I think this is a very nice story as final words for this podcast. Faith, thank you so much for being on the show and to you, my lovely listener, see you next time.

Feifei Qiu:Thank you so much, Nicholas, for having me and it was my pleasure. I will talk to you around. Bye bye.