Teaching Entrepreneurship to Kids with the Tuttle Twins Books with Connor Boyack

0:02Who's ready to rock today Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Marketing Against the Grain. Today, we'll be breaking down the process of teaching entrepreneurship to kids with the Tuttle Twins books. And Fire Nation, we'll talk about why it's important for entrepreneurs to talk to their kids about these type of ideas, shouldn't this stuff be taught in schools, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Connor and our sponsors. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

0:39Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Oh yeah, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the platform that simplifies selling online and in person. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash onfire to take your e-commerce business to new heights. Connor, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:19What's up, everybody? Super excited to be here. And I think my answer to that question is that a lot of people feel like success is a destination, something to arrive at, I feel like success is more about the journey. It's like if you're scaling a mountain, yeah, you get to the peak and it's exciting. But then within minutes, you're like, okay, what's next, right? I'm looking off to the horizon for the next peak that I can climb. So I feel like becoming successful, it's far more about the process, how we change ourselves, how we change the world in the process, rather than just trying to make a bunch of money or do something big.

1:56It's more about the transformation. To me, that's what success is, is transforming ourselves and others in the process. Well, Fire Nation, you are built up of parents of kids of multiple ages. You are potentially kids of parents who are entrepreneurs. I mean, we've got the full spectrum here. And that's why I love the topic of today, which is all about teaching entrepreneurship to kids with the Tuttle Twins books. So let's just start off with a bang, Connor. I want to know a little bit more about Tuttle Twins and why the heck have they become so popular? Well, they've exploded in the past couple of years.

2:36The Tuttle Twins, it's a series of children's books that teach kids about the ideas of freedom and money and entrepreneurship, personal responsibility. And we've got books from toddlers to teens and every age in between And I started writing these as a dad just because I wanted to teach my kids these ideas. Literally back in 2013, I went on Amazon searching for books that would allow me to teach my kids these types of ideas, came up short, and so decided with my partner and illustrator Elijah to begin creating our own. And so you would think that the schools teach these ideas. You would think that kids these days are getting exposed to entrepreneurial mindset, abundance mindset, hard work, personal responsibility.

3:21Oftentimes, though, the narrative and the actual teachings in school and social media and so forth are quite the opposite. And a lot of people are promoting this victim mentality and socialism and jealousy of others and aspiring for eat the rich, redistribute their wealth rather than create your own. And I just think that's a very unhealthy mindset. I think that's not a good way to build a prosperous society. So the Tuttle Twins is really about empowering parents who think this way, who do want their kids to be critical thinkers and understand the world, to be able to have those conversations, read some fun little kids books together.

3:58We got discussion questions at the end. We're really just trying to get parents and kids to talk about these real ideas that matter to their lives and the world around us. I love all of this. And I really feel like that was a major void in the world is that there wasn't really necessarily a place that parents could go if they wanted their kids to be consuming this type of content in that type of form. And I mean, now you've got an animated cartoon series, which is just like you're going from strength to strength. Talk about the success that you've seen with that and how you've kind of continued to build off of these early wins that you've had.

4:33Well, with the books, we've been at this since about 2014 is when we published our first book. And now we've got over two dozen books across a wide range of ages. We've got curriculum and a podcast and a game and all kinds of stuff. But a couple of years ago, we were talking with some buddies of mine who were behind a TV show called The Chosen, which is all about Jesus. And they raised like $11 million from the crowd through crowd equity, not like a Kickstarter where you just get a t-shirt. These were people actually investing a hundred bucks, 500 bucks, a thousand bucks. and all their kids, these guys involved at what's now called Angel Studios, they read Tuttle Twins with their kids.

5:16And they're like, we want to create a cartoon out of this. And we said, well, we want to create a cartoon out of this. And so everything that we do with our Tuttle Twins project is actually run through a nonprofit because a lot of this is getting the message out, getting it into schools, spreading the message that way. But we spun off this cartoon as a for-profit and we did a crowd equity raised we raised almost five million dollars to do season one which you can watch entirely for free at tuttletwinstv.com and it was amazing because again like with that other show the tuttle twins cartoon was entirely crowd invested it was people saying i want to invest in this i want to create it and so the community has a lot of skin in the game and we were able to create the cartoon together and we're just now launching season too.

6:03We hope to turn this into a multi-season show. And we're really trying to structure it so that I think of like The Simpsons, where it's got silly stuff for the kids, but then there's adult-level humor as well. So mom and dad are getting some more intellectual-type jokes. That's how our cartoon is structured. We're really trying to create just an awesome family experience because we want those conversations to happen. We want the cartoon episode to end, and then we want mom and dad and the kids to talk about those ideas and actually maybe even apply them in their lives. Go start a little lemonade stand or start something else.

6:34Those are the little sparks that we're really trying to encourage, both with the books and then now with the cartoon. Well, I love that because to me, it's really exciting when the parents can actually maybe look forward to something that they're consuming as well, because there's a lot of times where I have a lot of friends with very, very young kids. And I will say from time to time, they're like, it's great that this movie just came out, like a frozen or Jumanji or one of these movies that like they're actually enjoying as well. So it's not like just this painful experience for the parents too.

7:05So I really love that you're kind of adding in this aspect where, man, the parents are really going to be intrigued here. Maybe they're going to kind of get something out of it that they didn't previously expect and spark the conversations. Maybe with just the, you know, the parents themselves, not even with the kids. They'll be like, can you believe that like that was part of it? Like I can see all these great conversations happening. And them actually looking forward to this. Because, you know, listen, kids are perceptive. They can tell if a parent's not really into it, if they're on their phone, if they're doing this, if they're not paying attention.

7:35Like, we want to have this full family experience. I know when I'm involved with my niece and my nephew, like, we love having it where everybody's there engaged and learning at the exact same time. So what is really the age demographic that you're looking for here, Connor? our primary books that we're most known for are written for kids i would say between five to eleven what was interesting though when we were doing these these are about like 60 pages each they're fully illustrated fun little storybooks but what was really interesting in the early years when we were creating these books was that parents were telling us two things number one their older kids like teenagers were reading these silly little kids books because even though the format was beneath them and beneath their age level, the ideas for a lot of these teenagers were often very fresh and interesting.

8:30They had never been exposed to them before. So they ended up reading these kids' books, even as teenagers. And the second thing that they told us is that they themselves, the parents, were learning things for the first time. I can't tell you how often we get this from the moms and dads who are like, hey, I bought these for my kid. They saw an ad on Instagram or whatever. They're like, holy cow, I've learned a ton. I've learned a bunch about economics and money and entrepreneurship, stuff that I never understood before. Humans are wired for story, right? Our brains are literally neurologically wired for story.

9:04And so when you convey information through story, it sticks, it resonates, people understand it more. It's the contrast between sitting a kid down with a economics textbook, or here's a manual on how to be an entrepreneur, versus telling them stories about people who've actually done it and how these things happen. And so the Tuttle Twins, really, it's just storytelling about these ideas that matter, and both for the kids, but also for the parents. So we end up with this wide age range where it's like, it's really hard for us to peg and say, oh, it's for kids age five to seven, because what we're finding is that these ideas are not really being taught anywhere else in any significant way.

9:42And so when families find these resources and start reading the Tuttle Twins, they realize that they're kids of varying ages, and even they themselves, the parents, are learning first time, which for us matters because this is ultimately about the family having dinner table discussions about these ideas and creating experiences, starting little businesses. We want that family support system to be there, which is why for us, it's a good thing that we end up with this broad age range of people who find interest in the Tuttle Twins materials. I love all of this. And Fire Nation, you can really see that Connor just identified a niche, avoiding the marketplace.

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13:12Now it's your turn to get serious about selling and try Shopify today. This is Possibility powered by Shopify. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash on fire to take your e-commerce business to new heights. Shopify.com slash on fire. All right, Connor, we're back and we know that what you've created is good. It's great. It's helpful. It's interesting. It's story based, all of these things. But I want to now talk about the why. Why is it important for entrepreneurs to talk to their kids about these ideas? I saw a funny meme. I think it may have been from the Babylon Bee a year or two ago, and it was this mom and dad standing on the doorway of their home waving to their 18-year-old son who was getting in the car.

14:03And the headline said something like, you know, parents excited for college to completely undermine everything that they taught their kids. You know, we live in an environment where, sadly, the schools and the media and so many of these institutions are exposing our children to ideas and mindsets that I find counterproductive and unhealthy. I work with a lot of financial managers and entrepreneurs, and one of the biggest themes that I hear is the lament of parents who have this entrepreneur mindset, but who see that their children develop this kind of victimhood or entitlement attitude. Maybe they grew up in a well-to-do family because the dad or mom was a successful entrepreneur and the kids don't know struggle.

14:50They don't know service. They don't know problem solving. They've just never really had to deal with that. So these parents then are frustrated and they wonder, what happened? And why did my kid turn out this way? And this is a theme I consistently hear. So the answer to your question, why is it important for entrepreneurs to talk to their kids about these ideas is that if you don't, someone else is going to be feeding them ideas that you completely disagree with. Our children are going to develop some kind of worldview, some kind of mindset, some kind of attitude about money and business. And if you don't show them and teach them and sit down and have conversations with them, right, they're going to be absorbing that like a sponge from someone else.

15:33Many parents make the mistake of feeling like, oh, I got to wait till my kid's a teenager. Or when they're an adult, when they get a job, that's when I'll sit down and have the talk with them about money or about entrepreneurship or whatever. But by then, it's often too late. They've been exposed to so many messages along the way. And so what parents really underestimate, from my experience doing the Tuttle Twins for years now, is that they underestimate how much their young kids can and want to learn about these ideas. If you simplify it, if you do it through story, little kids can lighten up with these ideas and really understand how the world works, how money works, why inflation is happening, right?

16:15How you can serve other people through entrepreneurship, all of this stuff. We can and we should talk to our younger kids about this so that we are instilling in them the right ideas and mindset and worldview so that as they go out in the world, they can be little entrepreneurs of their own. They can be problem solvers. They could be creators in society rather than just moochers. And so I think parents just need to wake up a bit more to this, lean into this and say, let's have those family conversations, even with our young kids about the ideas we believe in. And that's fundamentally what we created the Tuttle Twins for, was to almost be a vehicle or a conduit for parents and kids to have those types of conversations.

16:52This is fantastic because I've actually seen the light go on in the eyes of my niece, my nephew, other kids that I've been around. And it's such an amazing thing when that happens. And it just doesn't happen enough. And what I love is Fire Nation. This puts you as parents, if you are parents, in control of this opportunity to expose your kids to what you want to expose them to. Now, this kind of does beg the question, Connors, shouldn't this stuff be taught in school? Perhaps so. However, I would suggest that the type of people who end up as teachers in schools typically don't have an entrepreneur type of mindset.

17:30They have a very bureaucratic rule-following type of mindset, which is often in significant conflict with thinking entrepreneurially. Not to say they aren't good people doing amazing things. They are and they do. But especially if your focus is entrepreneurship, if you want to talk about economics or capitalism or individual liberty and some of these broader ideas that create a safe and prosperous society, I don't know that we can delegate that to the schools. I don't know that parents really can trust these institutions or the individuals within them to really, I don't know, represent in a fair and honest way their own beliefs.

18:08I think parents shouldn't delegate this to the schools. They need to recognize that they're the ones primarily responsible for teaching these things to their kids. It's again, just that the biggest issue has been for so long, parents have been ill-equipped as I was a decade ago in knowing how to talk to my kids about these ideas, right? It wasn't easy. It wasn't convenient. I didn't understand how to talk to my kid about, you know, why inflation's happening or what eminent domain is and why it's a problem. And so I didn't until I created the Tuttle Twins. And so many other parents out there are in the same situation.

18:41They don't talk to their kids about these ideas because they don't know how. So yes, maybe the schools will, but it's up to the parents. And what we're trying to do is help those parents have those conversations. So not only are you teaching about entrepreneurship, you are on Entrepreneurs on Fire and you are an entrepreneur on fire. I mean, 5 million book sales. That is no small feat to say the least. Talk a little bit about your business model and how the heck you've sold so many books. Well, as I mentioned earlier, we're actually structured as a nonprofit, which means that I can avoid the corporate income tax, like if I was a for-profit business.

19:24And also, I open up an additional revenue stream, which is philanthropy. So our typical model, what we do with all of our books is – I'll give you a specific example. We created an American history book that we launched last year, 240 pages, beautiful. It's an amazing book. We spent a lot of time working on that, and we went out to donors, and we raised almost a million dollars to cover all the costs of producing that book and curriculum and videos. And then we went out and we sold that book and curriculum and videos, and we reinvest the proceeds from selling the book back into marketing. So we kind of create this kickstart model where we can tap into donor funds to produce these assets.

20:07And then we go out and we market and advertise them and spend those dollars to generate interest and then reinvest the revenue. So the reason why we've been able to sell 5 million books and growing is because we're trying to create almost like this snowball effect, whereas it goes down the hill, it gets bigger and bigger. The more books we sell, the more revenue we generate, the more we can reinvest into marketing. Because for us with the Tuttle Twins, I have no knock on any for-profit capitalist effort at all. But we have chosen to do this through a nonprofit route because for us, the message is what's critical.

20:42And we're trying to change the world for the better. And we're trying to help families and teachers have these types of conversations. And so it's actually been a fairly helpful model because we have those diversified revenue streams that we can kind of systematically build into this machine. that can hopefully sustain us over time so that we can continue to reach just millions of families. The cartoon is the exception. As I mentioned, that is a kind of a spinoff we did with some partners as a for-profit venture. So we kind of have our hands in both. What we're really trying to create though is kind of this content empire where no matter the topic, no matter how old your kid is, we want to have books and curriculum and cartoons and games to facilitate these conversations about the powerful ideas that have made our world a better place.

21:27And so that's really what we're up to at the Tuttle Twins. Man, I love that. I mean, we just need more of this kind of stuff in the world. So my hat's off to you, Connor. Give us just one key takeaway from our conversation today that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets. Then give us the best way to connect with you, any call to action you have, and then we'll say goodbye. Absolutely. So I guess my takeaway, if I were to summarize everything to the moms and dads out there, I would say intentionality is what matters. Don't assume your kids are going to follow in your footsteps. Don't understand they're going to develop healthy mindsets about money.

22:04Don't assume that the schools will do it. Be intentional. Sit down with your spouse, your partner, whoever, and come up with a plan. Whether that's using Tuttle Twins books or something else, come up with a plan to foster family discussions where you can share these ideas, have these conversations and not just hope that your kids will learn along the way from school or the media be intentional be intentional that's that's my call to action that's what the Tuttle Twins is here to serve you know our audience and help them do that finding us is super easy all the books are at tuttletwins.com hey parent check out the entire list there and and that's you know we're all over social media with the Tuttle Twins and elsewhere so we're super easy to find online.

22:45I just started watching the video on your website. Are those your kids right there? Those are my kids. Oh my God. I mean, stop it. I have to share briefly with you the story of that video. We've had millions of people see this video. Everyone thinks it's super cute. We're on a family vacation a couple of years later after it racked up a few million views. And my wife told my kids about what a royalty is. And my son turned to me and said, dad, why don't we get a royalty for the video. And I said, no, no, no, no. You got paid a one-time flat fee. You got to learn how to negotiate better. So let this be a lesson for you.

23:19So they're super cute and the stars of a lot of our marketing. That's so fantastic. Well, Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CB and JLD today. So keep up that heat. If you have any direct questions for Connor, go to eofire.com and you can just type Connor, that's Connor with two N, C-O-N-N-O-R in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up with links to everything that we've talked about here today. And of course, go watch that super cute, adorable video over at TuttleTwins.com. You will just die, Fire Nation.

23:56And Connor, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Connor for sponsoring today's episode. Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

24:33Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business with episodes like how to get out of your day-to-day operations without crashing your business. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Oh yeah, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the platform that simplifies selling online and in person. Sign up for a$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash onfire, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash onfire to take your e-commerce business to new heights. Thank you.