WhiteLake Group
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
Search

The Era of Personalisation

6/16/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Lost My Name (www.lostmy.name) a London-based children's book startup
From personalised gifts, to personalised service to personalised meals, we live in an spectacular era of personalisation. Nosto is an interesting startup that raised £2 million a couple years ago to open offices in London that is based on specialised e-Commerce, to personalise the online shopping experience. 

I was searching online for a children's book for my cousin's daughter, who is turning three, when I found this London-based personalised children's book startup called Lost My Name.

Picture
Ah, I would've loved these books as a kid! I previewed one of the books using my name. The elegant UI interface makes it easy to see what the actual product would look like.
Although there are many personalised children's books out there, such as the US-based  I See Me! Inc. which was founded in 2000 by a couple who left their jobs at General Mills to start designing and publishing personalised children's books, I found that the quality of the writing and stories were far better in Lost My Name, although currently they only have two book offerings along with the much more preferable free international delivery. 

In comparison, I See Me! (which was recently acquired by the McEvoy Group last year) has a much larger selection, with personalised hardback editions, insertion of children's own photos inside the books, in addition to having celebrity endorsements for their books; however, their graphics and story writing I found a bit too simplistic (set in duple metre rhymes) or just plainly inappropriate:
Picture
A book from I See Me! Inc. (www.iseeme.com). I wasn't too impressed with the content nor the storytelling.
PictureLost My Name's fun graphic design and imaginative, storytelling prose that veers away from the boring duple metre prose and heavy "princess" content of other children's prose books
In addition, the delivery fee often doubled the actual cost of the book itself. 

In the end, I decided to send the Lost My Name book to my cousin's daughter. I found the superb graphics, the writing and the story much more amenable to a growing, imaginative mind than the mindless princess tales and simplistic writing style of the I See Me! books. In fact, Katy Wright from Lost My Name writes in their blog that they are gender agnostic. This is in line with Virginia Woolf's writings in A Room of One's Own that she believes having an androgynous mind is far superior for development of creativity and intellect. 











From a consumer point-of-view, I prefer the Lost My Name books, simply based on the content. Analysing Lost My Name from a business perspective, they do face some substantial competition from more established companies who are offering similar personalisation of children's books, but of course, it all depends on the content and potential development of an accompanying mobile application. With its hefty international delivery fees, I could see that I See Me! and other clone companies would have a harder time reaching audiences in Asia Pacific and India, whereas, Lost My Name, if the startup develops more titles, would be more adaptable towards the Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korean demographic, countries that are known for spending more capita per child on personalised educational products and services than its US counterpart.


Picture
I would like to see Lost My Name create a new era of personalised books that break old models of gender roles, and instigate creativity in both girls and boys through an androgynous voice, perhaps even stimulate the minds of girls to become entrepreneurs instead of princesses. 

By Sierra Choi, Director of Marketing
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    CONTRIBUTORS


    JOHN ROWLAND, Managing Partner, Whitelake Group

    SIERRA CHOI,
    Adviser, Whitelake Group


    ASHOK PAREKH,
    Director of Investment Services,

    Whitelake Group


    Archives

    June 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact