Parallel Interests, Friendship, And Storytelling Birth Education Media For Kids

The birth of an idea has been molded into books, television, and cinema for generations. New York Times best-selling book, What Do You Do With An Idea? by author Kobi Yamada provides a behind-the-scenes look at idea cultivation through the eyes of a child. The tenets might be woven through the simplicities of childhood but resonate for anyone who has dared to grow a dream into a market reality.

Callie Christensen and Kelly Oriard, co-founders and co-CEOs of Slumberkins, a children’s educational and entertainment company, can relate to the child-like nature of an idea becoming something bigger than one's wildest dreams.

In 2018, the dynamic entrepreneurial duo from the pacific northwest found themselves in front of ABC’s Shark Tank, believing that their social-emotional learning (SEL) educational product offerings were destined for a dedicated television show. The Sharks disagreed, but Christensen and Oriard, friends since high school volleyball tryouts at 14 years old, knew they were onto something.

Gated Information

Long before Shark Tank, Oriard and Christensen were educational professionals supporting kids, families, and school environments. They were best friends pursuing Division I and professional volleyball goals simultaneously. Oriard attended the University of Oregon and played professional volleyball in Europe for four years. Christensen had similar dreams while attending the University of Hawaiʻi.

“We both thought we were going to retire as educators,” says Christensen. But instead, the proverbial seeds of change caused both educators to reflect on community resources and equitable access.

Oriard, a family therapist and school counselor, and Christensen, a special education teacher who worked in Title I schools, noticed a disconnect between their respective training and the information accessible to parents of young children.

“I reflected on my mental health training, wondering why the information I was learning about the importance of bonding and emotional development was generally gated from the general public,” says Oriard.

Stroller Time

Their shared idea of what to do took shape while Christensen and Oriard were on maternity leave with their first children. “We were going on walks with our new babies and having classic ah-ha moments about how our work could be powerful if we put it into the hands of parents,” says Christensen. The key driver for the tandem was to intervene earlier in the development cycle of a young child supporting parents with tools they had learned during their own respective education and training.

The pair started to have active discussions about how to intervene, not knowing how to take ideas and craft them into businesses. What they did know was storytelling and character development as tools they had both used in the classroom. “We knew that we wanted to provide a comprehensive system of resources that supported the building of self-esteem, creativity, overall emotional well-being, grief and loss skills, and self-acceptance among key developmental areas,” says Oriard.

So, they put their heads together, creating physical characters to support the curriculum they were building. Christensen and Oriard retaught themselves how to sew and then started constructing storylines rooted in the skillsets they had previously employed in classrooms. “Kelly happens to be a poet, and so she wrote the first three storylines for Slumberkins,” says Christensen.

They both realized that they had the beginnings of a business after selling out 30 prototyped characters at a local high school holiday craft fair. The economics were less clear as the initial $200 investment for the prototypes came from the support of Oriard’s mother. “We borrowed money from Kelly’s mom because we were basically broke educators on maternity leave. But we turned that investment into $700 and opened a bank account. We treated the craft fair like the NCAA tournament, and even though we went back to part-time [work] at school, the rest was history,” shares Christensen.

Entrepreneurial Beginnings

Christensen and Oriard represent a growing number of female entrepreneurs choosing to form companies on their own. According to Zippia statistics, 42% of U.S. small businesses are female-owned small businesses, averaging 1,821 new female-led businesses a day in 2022. However, a Pitchbook report states, “Companies founded solely by women garnered just 2% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the U.S.”

Yet a glimmer of hope exists when looking at the movement of female investment recently. The Pitchbook report adds, “U.S. VC funding for female-founded or co-founded companies have been trending up in recent years, and 2022 saw the creation of several women-led funds, incubators for female founders, and more new companies.” While more collective effort is necessary across the entire VC landscape, it appears more female leaders are beginning to take matters into their own hands.

Halle Stanford, President of Television at The Jim Henson Company, was attending a conference when she was introduced to the educator moms turned entrepreneurs. “Kelly and Callie’s creative energy is infectious,” says Stanford. At the time, Stanford was looking for a franchise that addressed anxiety levels in young children.

“I was looking for a property that would help kids tackle the pre-pandemic problem of increased anxiety levels, but I also knew that networks weren’t clamoring for shows tackling really tough subjects,” says Stanford. That changed after the three women met at a conference for female entrepreneurs. “I am a big fan of superstar moms, and meeting Callie and Kelly brought it all together for me.”

As a young girl, Stanford herself found solace in the emotional complexities of the Sesame Street character, Grover, and knew that the need was there among today’s youngest generation. Stanford continues, “I was an anxious child myself, and I loved Grover because he had a bit of anxiety.”

When the three women sat down to discuss Slumberkins, Stanford was shocked to find something novel in the education space with room to grow through entertainment. “I was blown away that Callie and Kelly had created opportunities for children, themselves, to figure out how to overcome difficult issues and challenges. I knew that while they may not have been puppet-friendly during that first encounter, the medium lent itself to the beautiful characters and storylines they had built,” says Stanford.

Fast forward, and the newly minted trio found themselves presenting to Tara Sorensen, Head of Children’s Programming at Apple TV+. “Tara Sorensen herself is a real formidable tastemaker. I think she saw that this [Slumberkins] could have a real deep impact in the lives of children and families,” says Stanford.

In many respects, Kobi Yamada’s children’s book succinctly captures how the birth of an idea, while delicate in origin, can forge substantial and lasting bonds for creators and consumers. Yamada shares a collective impact as the book concludes, “It [idea] went from being here to being everywhere. It wasn’t just a part of me anymore,” he writes. “It was now a part of everything.” Yamada’s award-winning book closes by noting the character’s realization that an idea can change the world.

Female entrepreneurs are expanding in number and influence globally, highlighted by incredible stories of impact through International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023. And, like Stanford, Christensen, and Oriard, women worldwide are coming together to support impactful business ideas and people.

The co-founding CEO duo of Oriard and Christensen found each other during the tried-and-true passage of high school sports tryouts, never imagining that life's greatest hallmark moments would be shared with one another to support and impact countless parents as they learn to connect with their children. “We were two awkward, tall girls that met in high school. We found our village together and said, let’s stay together,” remembers Christensen.

While sloth, bigfoot, and yeti characters might have served as the initial offering, these competitive entrepreneurs and moms are finding new and imaginative characters and platforms to meet parents and kids at the intersection of life.

An impending app launch, books, and standards-aligned social-emotional curriculum through their subscription-based curriculum hub, along with a hit television show, has positioned Christensen and Oriard as both the sentimental and entrepreneurial captains of the SEL movement across the country.

Slumberkins' “Connect-to-Grow” approach is based on several therapeutic approaches (EMDR Trauma Clusters, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Attachment Theory, Child-Centered Play Therapy, etc.) to support healthy relationships for children. For individuals embodying a certain self-proclaimed awkwardness, Christensen and Oriard are quickly demonstrating a level of proficiency modeled by the savviest of entrepreneurs.

The Jim Henson Company and Apple TV+ have already bought in, and here’s a guess that more and more parents will soon follow suit.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.