Almost ready to mail

October 10, 2008

Posted by Matt at 8:42am

We’re rapidly closing in on our first mailing date, Wednesday, October 15th.  Wow.  I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that all of our fingers are crossed that the final updates to our back-end customer management software will be finished by then.  We’ve been steadily working towards launch for the better part of a year and a half now and it’s thrilling to be so close. 

Our beta test sign up period begins today, sort of as a “soft launch” before we ramp up our marketing initiatives.  If you’re interested in getting in on the beta phase with a free subscription, shoot me an email at with “SOFT LAUNCH” in the subject line.  As a member of the beta launch group you’ll receive:

• a sneak peek at the Doodlestix service
• a free lifetime subscription (limited to one child per subscription) to Doodlestix
• the option to become a charter member of the Parent Advisory Panel
• an opportunity to provide feedback on Doodlestix - from the content of the letters to the actual paper they’re printed on and everything in between

We’re going to limit the beta test group to 50 subscriptions, so if you’re interested, be sure to email me ASAP!  This limited time offer is going to expire at midnight Sunday, October 12 or when 50 codes have been redeemed - whichever comes first - so be sure to email me to get your code now.

Just a reminder, we ship our Once-a-Month Letter Subscriptions on the 1st of each month and our Twice-a-Month Letter Subscriptions on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Once again, send me an email () with “SOFT LAUNCH” in the subject line for the special code.

Doodle-what?!?

September 02, 2008

Posted by Matt at 9:48am

If you’re anything like 98% of the population, you probably asked yourself “Doodle-what?!?” when you heard about Doodlestix or found our site online.  We have to admit, it’s a question each of us has asked too.  At least Bob, Sam, and I (Matt) have...it was Richard’s crazy idea to get this whole thing started!  So today, I’m going to sit down and provide a little bit of background on who and what Doodlestix is and the folks behind it. 

It’s probably a good idea to start with the person that came up with the idea.  That’d be Richard.  In his non-Doodlestix life in an alternate universe, he’s a department chair at Lipscomb University’s new College of Pharmacy.  Throughout the years he’s had varying roles in helping kids learn about character education and finally decided to combine his passion for teaching kids valuable life lessons with his passion for writing.  As a freshly minted graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature he began brainstorming ways to positively impact children’s lives and came up with the idea for a character that writes letters to children from a peer’s perspective to teach them about character traits and other life lessons.  It was about this time that he ran into Bob in an airport while both were dropping their daughters off for a senior trip.

Bob has known Richard for over 22 years, when both were fresh out of pharmacy school and starting out at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, NC.  There they started a newsletter about drug information for nurse educators; little did they know they’d start another mailing in the future.  Like Richard, Bob’s non-Doodlestix job is in the pharmaceutical industry, working with companies to help improve drug safety and get effective treatments to the patients that need them.  When he bumped into Richard at the airport, he had no idea that two years later he’d be working alongside him in a startup for children’s character education.  Richard told him about his idea for a character, tentatively named “Doodlestix”, and Bob thought he was crazy!  But the idea stuck and grew on him and the two began meeting regularly to discuss and plan a potential company built around this “Doodlestix” character.

Since both were busy working during the day and had other commitments at night, most of the meetings happened during lunch.  And since college students have an innate ability to sense a free meal, I (Matt) soon started showing up at these lunches about Doodlestix.  Richard and Bob had come up with a solid foundation for Doodlestix, but were missing that one key ingredient - how it would work with the internet.  I had previous experience with starting an online store and online marketing so I started helping Doodlestix get its arms around the internet.  It’d be nice to say I was able to answer all their questions and come up with a solution but that’s not the case...shoot, we’re just now ready to launch (two years later)!  As my dad (Bob) says, “two years, that’s kinda embarrassing....but it sure turned out to be a lot more complicated than we thought.”

Which is where Sam enters the picture.  Sam is the one who sits down with the huge whiteboard and figures out how he’s going to subdue technology to do our bidding for our Doodlestix subscribers.  In other words, he’s our programming and IT maniac.  Maniac really is the best word to describe it - he’s incredibly focused on making sure everything works...perfectly.  A little exasperating at times, but his dedication shines through in the end product and this website is a testament to that.  Anyhow, Sam and I had known each other for several years and worked on and off designing websites for other people in the area so it was natural to give him a call and see if he was interested in adding some extracurricular work to his college load.  Countless long nights and having to deal with the “Can we do XYZ cool thing with the website?” and then “Actually, that doesn’t really fit with the concept, can you change it back?” moments, Sam is still here making sure everything is running smoothly. 

During the process of creating Doodlestix, we looked around and realized we were missing something.  That something was the wise and insightful input of someone who is around elementary school aged children 24/7 and has two X chromosomes.  We had to be honest, our surveys had shown primarily moms were interested in the Doodlestix concept.  A second glance around the group and it was apparent the four of us guys might have some trouble connecting with and developing a useful product for moms on our own.  To make the Doodlestix letters effective and have moms actually love to use them would take the perspective of an educator and mother. 

So we recruited Nina, our newest team member, to fill the void.  Nina, who also happens to be Richard’s sister, has taught 2nd grade for over 30 years in Nashville and won Teacher of the Year, not once, but twice!  Nina heads the Doodlestix Advisory Panel, a group that reviews the story in each letter and provides feedback before it is mailed.  In this position, Nina plays an instrumental role in making sure each Doodlestix letter is spot on for age appropriateness, proper reading comprehension level, and content.  Basically, she makes sure that each Doodlestix letter your child receives will be “just right.”

There’s obviously a bit more to the history of Doodlestix, but I’ll save that for another post.