We were lucky to catch up with Irene Kang recently and have shared our conversation below.

Irene, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have always been fascinated by languages and cultures around the world. Growing up as a Chinese-American in Texas, I studied Mandarin Chinese and Spanish in elementary, middle and high school. I then studied Japanese and Korean in college. What I love the most about learning a language is that it builds a connection and deeper appreciation of the culture, the food, the people, and the places it is connected with.

When I became a parent, I realized how important it was for my husband and I to pass down our heritage languages to our son. I looked for books, toys and teaching resources in Chinese and Korean, and to my surprise, it was really hard to find accessible, high-quality and engaging resources. Books were the easiest to start with to begin teaching a language. However, books in languages other than English are simply not widely-available in the U.S. I later learned that although 20% of people in the U.S. speak more than one language fluently, only 1% of children’s books published today are bilingual, with even fewer in Asian languages.

That’s when I decided to create my own.

It was 2020, the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. My son just turned 2 years old, and his vocabulary was blossoming. I decided that it was time to teach him Chinese and purchased all the materials I could find – some Chinese blocks, a flashcard set, a My First 100 Words bilingual book, and some books from Asia. He started throwing the flashcards in the air and all around the room, and I felt exasperated. This wasn’t fun for me either, and I wanted to make learning Chinese fun. That’s when I had an idea. Why not incorporate these vocabulary cards into a storybook with lift-the-flaps? I wrote a story titled MY FAVORITE GIFT about the meaning of being with family during a birthday. The story was inspired by the pandemic when we couldn’t see our friends and family to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, graduations, and weddings. My son loved our lift-the-flap book, so I decided to make it a reality for others.

Spark Collection bilingual books and toys launched on Kickstarter in July 2021 and our first title MY FAVORITE GIFT was published in December 2021.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Irene Kang, and I’m the author and founder of Spark Collection bilingual books and toys. Everything I create is because I found a need for something that doesn’t currently exist. Fundamentally, my mission is to make learning language and culture fun and meaningful. I focus on physical books and toys that you can feel and touch to create meaningful moments of learning and joy. While digital resources are much less costly to create and easier to scale, both my passion and the research shows that learning through physical play is essential and the most effective, especially in the early years.

Our books are thoughtfully designed to give non-native speakers and multicultural families like mine an opportunity to learn language together. They also feature meaningful stories and diverse character representation so that we can raise our next generation to be kinder and wiser. Our books are available in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Hindi with special features such as big lift-the-flaps, dry-erasability for tracing and writing, and free companion audiobooks by native speakers – you have the reading, writing, and listening all in one book.

Responsible business and environmental sustainability are important, so our books are made out of 100% recycled paper and FSC-certified paper.

I recently launched our first cultural toy, a Wooden Zodiac Animals stackable figure set. It features the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac in beautifully crafted FSC-certified wood and non-toxic water-based colors. The large wooden animals are perfect for little hands to stack, count, match colors, and create a story with, while learning about the zodiac animals associated with the Lunar New Year.

The community response to Spark Collection’s products and mission is what makes this admittedly hard journey worth it. Our books are loved and sold around the world, including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Hong Kong. The countless messages are the best, and I read every single email, DM, and comment.

“This book is what I’ve been looking for my daughter for a long time”

“The world needs this!”

“As one of those that lost their language, I so wish this had been around when I was child”.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The journey from my past career to Spark Collection is my life’s biggest pivot.

Prior to creating Spark Collection, I had built a career in the Energy and Sustainability space. Most recently through 2020, I was leading pilots with transit agencies and school districts in California to transition their gas and diesel fleets to electric vehicles to guide state energy policy and reduce GHG emissions. I had worked all of graduate school for this role, given up a full tuition reimbursement for the job, and just received a promotion. It was my dream job, to say the least. If you had told me then that I would be starting my own business in a completely different industry a year later, I would have never believed you. Well, if you also told me that the world would shut down, everyone would be wearing masks and not allowed to go to school, work, or restaurants, and finding toilet paper and milk would cause me stress, I would also have never believed you.

In that year when we were surrounded by so much fear and deaths, it made life seem short and fragile. My husband and I were cramped in a one-bedroom San Francisco apartment with our son, whose daycare closed and was home full-time. I had back-to-back meetings all day, and my husband would take the night shift to catch up on work. For multiple reasons, we decided to move to Austin and that’s when I decided to leave my dream job and take a sabbatical, to focus on our son, to start a fresh chapter, and give myself headspace to consider what was next. The rest became Spark Collection.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

While I have read countless books and case studies on management and business philosophies during my time in graduate school and beyond, the one that has stuck with me is something I had stumbled on one day ten years ago. It’s a YouTube video of Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, speaking at Google. The video is called “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose | Tony Hsieh | Talks at Google”. In the talk, Tony shares a story of a customer dialing Zappos customer service in the middle of the night looking for a pizza recommendation. Despite the random and unrelated-to-their-business request, the Zappos rep ended up helping her, and she became a life customer.

A brand is not just the logo or website, it’s every interaction and touchpoint you have with a business. It’s how that interaction makes you feel. I deeply believe that if you show up with kindness, authenticity, and a willingness to understand and connect with others, it will bring good things to your business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sparkcollection.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesparkcollection
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesparkcollection
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparkcollection
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sparkcollection

Image Credits
Cathy Sunu Photography, Kelly Zhu Photo