As many parents are realizing in these strange days of shuttered schools and imposed distance learning, it can be a challenge to find effective and engaging teaching tools for children. Sofia Fenichell knows the feeling. Her frustration at the dearth of quality educational products available for her own kids proved the inspiration behind her plan to create the London-based (with offices in Los Angeles and Hong Kong) publishing and ed tech startup, Mrs. Wordsmith, where she is CEO, leading a team of 39 employees.
Mrs. Wordsmith offers books, games, and soon-to-be-launched digital apps designed to help children ages 4-to-11 improve vocabulary, literacy, and emotional intelligence. Bestsellers include Storyteller’s Illustrated Dictionary (2018) and My Epic Life Word Book (2019). This past February, the company launched a new line of child development titles with Flush! And 37 Essential House Rules.
To date, Mrs. Wordsmith has sold more than 500,000 print units globally, and the total revenue for the company’s print titles is just under $7 million. In the U.S. alone, where Simon & Schuster is the company’s distributor, more than 250,000 print titles have been sold, and the U.S. revenue for print is close to $3 million. In March, Mrs. Wordsmith was named to the 2020 Financial Times list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies, landing in the 81st spot.
The company’s growth spurt has been fueled by $14.5 million raised over two rounds of funding from leading investors Trustbridge Partners, Reach Capital, and Kindred Venture Capital. Key expenditures so far have been staffing a team of story artists, many with Hollywood experience, led by Craig Kellman; the work of machine-learning experts who developed a word curation engine for Mrs. Wordsmith; and building the team of game developers behind the company’s forthcoming digital platforms, scheduled to debut this year.
Mrs. Wordsmith’s trajectory began from Fenichell’s kitchen table, literally. That’s where, in 2014, she hatched the idea for creating a vocabulary placemat business. She was driven to start the endeavor after ordering a box of flashcards to help her kids with their creative writing vocabulary. “I was utterly underwhelmed and failed to see how a product like this could help children learn,” she recalled. “I had the simple thesis, if words were consumed physically at the dinner table, they would become part of the meal and conversation,” she said.
To get the venture off the ground, she drew on her experience as a mother as well as her professional background. Fenichell had worked as a screenwriter for Disney shortly after college, and then shifted gears leading her to an MBA and a career as a technology analyst for such companies as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs before leaving the finance world to raise her children.
Her own family’s disappointment in their search for entertaining learning materials helped solidify Fenichell’s broader opinion “that educational content was behind the times.” As an example, she noted, “Storytelling in education pales in comparison to storytelling in entertainment. We don’t ignite [children’s] curiosity with stories about what is possible.” Fenichell believes that educators and parents need to “prepare children for a future that is relevant, inspiring, and globally competitive” and to do that, “we need to invest in their education with research-based pedagogy and world-class content.”
To that end, Mrs. Wordsmith’s basic formula was to combine humorous Hollywood-caliber illustrations and animations with a curated list of the 10,000 words deemed essential for building literacy skills. This content was initially developed by an in-house team of data scientists, linguists, and literacy experts; that work is now performed by a machine learning tool. As Fenichell explained it, “Mrs. Wordsmith is a unique word engine that uses data science and creativity to accelerate language and literacy learning.” She describes the company as “an epic collaboration between moms, teachers, academics, data scientists, and our creative team.”
Outlining her vision for the company’s future Fechinell said, “Our mission is to make Mrs. Wordsmith every child’s most-loved English teacher—in the world! We are launching two digital platforms to help us achieve this goal. The first is an app that will teach children ages four to seven how to read [expected this summer]. The second is a social 3D word game for kids 7–11 [due later this year]. They will both be part of a larger blended learning platform that includes digital, books, games, and toys.”
But before those projects come into view, Mrs. Wordsmith, like most publishers, has been focused on responding to the current coronavirus pandemic. The company has provided numerous free printables and other resources on its website, including one adapted from its new book Flush! “We created materials that families could use to have their own important conversations,” Fenichell said. “When the coronavirus media coverage spread so rapidly, we created a kids’ illustrated infographic [inspired by the book’s Rule #21: Wash Your Hands] that takes CDC guidelines and translates them into child-friendly language with our customary funny illustrations. We felt compelled to provide guidance and assurance for kids and parents to make learning part of the dinner table conversation.” It’s a fitting goal for a business that started at her kitchen table.
