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Julie Aigner-Clark Quotes

Article Overview: Julie Aigner-Clark Quotes

Julie Aigner-Clark Quotes

When I became pregnant with my first daughter, I wanted to stay home, so I left teaching.

It was a good excuse to spend my last six months of pregnancy at the pool.

About a year into my daughter’s life, I started thinking about the whole idea of making a video for babies. Something stimulating and positive. I wondered, ‘Why isn’t there a way to expose her to the arts and sciences?’ I found the marketplace completely lacked what I was looking for.

I knew my baby. I knew what she liked to look at. I assumed that what my baby liked to look at, most other babies would, too.

The first Baby Einstein video took off because it was a completely new concept. It was an entirely new idea. No one else had videos for babies.

During the first five and a half years, we never ran an ad. The videos made babies happy. Parents told their friends. News articles and publicity opportunities came to us.

Before Baby Einstein, I was an English major in college and after that I was a teacher in high school and left when I had my first baby. At that time, there was nothing that existed that was fun educational videos for babies. That is when I realized that there was a need in the market place and best of all I was my own customer.

Believe it or not, when I stopped working when I was six months pregnant, I had no intention of going back to work. I was planning to be a stay at home mom! I was really committed to the mommy-thing. If this was going to be my new job, I was going to be the best I could be.

When my daughter was born, I started taking her to museums and places like that. But it wasn’t very engaging to her or to me!

Am I the only mom who wants to develop the love of humanities and fine arts in her children?

I wanted something that was not only entertaining but stimulating and engaging that would give [my daughter] exposure to things that were lovely. It was something that I just came up with on my own.

I started this company because my children are at the age when you start to worry that they know about stranger safety, especially when they are on the Internet. I wanted a video that would be fun for them to watch as well as teach them. I am passionate about this and I am optimistic in its success.

I didn’t have a video background, but my husband and I borrowed video equipment and started to shoot scenes on a tabletop in my basement. I put a puppet on my hand and plopped my cat down in front of the camera. My husband and I used our home computer to edit our first video.

In the first year, with one title, we made $100K in revenue. This was nearly five times my teaching salary.

By the time we sold the company in 2001, we had revenue of over $20 million in sales for the year, with just ten videos and a handful of books. The company was still just my husband and me – we had five employees and a couple of consultants.

We didn’t spend any money on marketing and advertising.

Nobody was returning my calls. I knew if I could get it into the hands of a mom or an executive who had a baby [that] would sell it.

For the first two days of the show I walked around and memorized everyone’s name tags.

I ran up to them [and said,] ‘You’re going to love this video!’. You have to watch it! It’s perfect for your store!

Seriously though, I think it was clear to her that I had a great passion for my product.

I was ecstatic that I sold 50 videos.

The response was amazing. Parents loved the video and it flew off the shelves, really by word of mouth.

With a distribution into ten million homes, the exposure was incredible.

There was a reporter from People Magazine who loved it and wrote a piece on it. Then there was a producer on Oprah that also loved it and they fit it into a segment.

At the end of the day, word of mouth is your most important means to get the word out and we had a great group. Mothers!

Everyone asks, ‘How did you come up with the name?’ The truth is, I just sat down and thought of it. We didn’t test market it or anything.

I believe the name of our company was incredibly important to our success. When I first created it, I didn’t think I was creating a company just the name of a video. However, the name Baby Einstein caught on very fast and became the generic name for baby videos.

It seemed like our timing was perfect!

I’ve read a lot of research, but I’m not a scientist in a lab. I’m a mom in a home. And so I think I can expose my kids to really wonderful things for a very short period of time before they are hit with a lot of things from the outside world and peers. And I like to believe that this exposure to classical music, poetry, and language will have an impact on them and hopefully help them to develop an appreciation for these kinds of things.

Honestly I felt and still feel guilty all the time. Even now, I feel like I never give either my company or my kids enough attention. It’s really a battle when you have your office in your home.

When my company started really growing, I didn’t have any help in my house at all. I had the upkeep of my daily life, I had a one year old and a three year old, and I had my house. So I had to prioritize.

So I hired someone to help out in the house. That along with my really excellent husband has made all the difference.

At ten o’clock at night, I’m still working. If I walk by my office, I can’t resist going to my computer to check my email.

When the company was doing $23 million in sales, it was beginning to consume all my time. In order to take the company to the next level, it would have required much more of my time and commitment.

Because of that pressure, life was not what we wanted it to be. I had left teaching because I wanted to be with my kids, and I was finding I had less and less of that.

It was more important for me to spend more time with my family and be with my children.

In terms of regrets, I do not really have any. I have been able to be with my family much more than I ever could have for the past five years.

There was nothing on the market that I felt was any good, so I decided to make something myself.

I’m making babies smile and giving parents fun ways to interact with their children. What could be better than that?

My greatest moment in business was selling to Disney. I look at what they’ve done with Baby Einstein, and I’m so proud. I never could have expanded the brand the way they have.

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Article Tags: babies, baby einstein, educational videos, excuse, fine arts, first daughter, friends news, half years, humanities, intention, marketplace, mommy, months of pregnancy, museums, new job, news articles, publicity opportunities, six months, stay at home, stay at home mom



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Re: Biz Plan Competition - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":72azzt51]Hi Andy, In this competition, do the students get to retain the rights to their "original" business plans or are they published for everyone to see and implemented by sponsors, etc?[/quote:72azzt51] That would be a question for Julie King... Julie?
Facebook application - Hi Kevin - thanks for the suggestion! The two that we were thinking of were Famous Entrepreneur Quotes and Which famous entrepreneur am I most like? I like your idea as well. We've got a rollout schedule of new features for the site that we are working on first before we can get to the Facebook app. We're also not sure how hard it is to integrate into Facebook. It looks like there is a php way to do it which is great because that is our core competency.
Facebook applications - ....[quote:36s714h1]The two that we were thinking of were Famous Entrepreneur Quotes and Which famous entrepreneur am I most like? [/quote:36s714h1] So far my own foray into Facebook has been a complete bust, though I expected that from the start. But if I do an Application for my own particular field of interest, such as Your Favorite Sci Fi movie...that might get people going. So Evan when you figure out how to do this please let me know how complicated it is!!
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Franchise Questions - Great list Julie - where did you get it from?


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