We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marisa Burke a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Marisa, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My name is Marisa and I am 8 years old. When I was 6 years old I wanted to run a business like my Mom and Dad. They have always owned their own business, I wanted to find a way to spread kindness to the whole world. I told my Mom my idea and she helped me make that happen.
Mom- As an entrepreneur for many years, it was not surprise that Marisa was interested in following an entrepreneurial path. Marisa is a very kind hearted, sensitive girl who loves to make friends and really take the time to understand others. Her idea was to spread kindness to the entire world. I asked her what she meant by this, she replied that she wanted no one to bully anyone and for all people to show kindness to others. This thought was very important to Marisa. As a young girl in an elementary school where not everyone is kind or inclusive this message was one of importance. Together, Marisa and I came up with a name and a logo “Kindness Club”. We made it legible, in a simple font with a heart. We then discussed how she would like to spread kindness. We brainstormed and came up with tshirts- they are easy to see and many people can wear them. Marisa is very eco conscious and loves animals so our next step was to incorporate her vision with eco friendly methods in mind. We chose to screen print with water based ink, chose vegan dyes and chose a manufacturing company that uses ethical and environmentally friendly practices. We took extra steps to make our shipping carbon neutral as well as using recycled paper and poly mailers for shipping.
Marisa learned to screen print along side us, helped us tag clothing and was present every step of the way to ensure her vision came through.
Our shirts were placed in a small, local boutique where it gained momentum very quickly. Marisa enjoyed tye dying the shirts the most and we came up with a technique that we called “marble dying” which was quick, easy and simple for children to do. As time went on we slowly built up a client base by attending small vendor shows and creating new products. Kindness Club became much more about inclusion and self love than only about spreading kindness. Marisa and I decided to write a set of positive affirmation cards for kids. We chose the images together and we talked about which affirmations she’d like to use and the reasons why. This helped us keep Marisa’s business, Marisa’s business. The idea of positive affirmation cards with affirmations and ideas from a child’s view is truly unique and helpful to other children. We had not heard of this- we had heard of teachers, professionals and adults all creating these things but not a child using her experiences and thoughts to help other children practice self love and positivity,
We have a unique approach in that, Marisa is our CEO and we think of ourselves as her employees. She is after all still a child. We do not place a lot of pressure on her to meet tight deadlines and large outputs of product. Instead, we brainstorm together to maintain a healthy balance of work for her. Many people have asked before if Marisa actually does the work, I can assure you she does. She has helped screen print, she has directed photoshoots with assistance and even wrote a summer journal this year. Marisa is full of ideas and creativity that we want to nurture in a healthy way. We always encourage her to express herself through her business and show her she is in charge of her business. Her ideas, thoughts and vision were being utilized to meet her goals with the assistance of her parents for more complex parts of the business.
Marisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Marisa has watched her parents become entrepreneurs her entire life. She has seen things from the very beginning to its current state and excitedly tells people what we do. As a self taught graphic designer and a jill of many trades, Marisa has watched us really work in all aspects of a business. She has always been interested in watching me create and asked a lot of questions about how I did certain things and showed genuine concern for problems we were trying to solve, she even offered solutions.
Marisa is an extraordinary girl who really truly cares for other people and animals. This nurturing and caring personality it was drove Marisa to want to enter this business. I thought it was important for her to share the kindness she has inside. The world can truly use more kindness and a business dedicated to spreading kindness through a child’s vision is an amazing venture for a child entrepreneur.
After starting with apparel, I noticed a need for products related to inclusion, anti bullying and self love. Marisa’s view as an 8 year old and her relation to these ideas and emotions are very complex so I did take the lead on introducing them to her in a way she could understand and relate to. The positive affirmations were a product we had seen a lot and never used, so we tried them. We liked the idea but Marisa had many questions about the wording used like what they meant or they were directed at an age group that was too old or too young. So we decided to create our own. We used terminology she could understand and we used affirmations she thought was important to her age range. This project encouraged Marisa to really put herself into her business. These were her ideas, her affirmations and something she felt would be helpful to other children. This really set us apart from other affirmation products as, Marisa’s affirmations are ones that truly relatable to other children. She is currently working on a set of night time affirmations for older children- a set that works on bed time routines and other children can use to help with night time anxieties.
In the last year we have also worked on incorporating acts of kindness in our community. At Marisa’s school she has written and hidden over 50 kind notes for other students to find. They are positive words written by Marisa anonymously on colourful paper left around the school for other students to find. The principal of our school excitedly shared that our school community was very happy to find the notes and it created a wonderful sense of community. Recently, we created a “take one leave one” board. We used a bulletin board in the hall and left a stack of post it notes and a marker to write positive words for students and staff to take one and to leave one for others. This board was full within a day!
One thing that we have incorporated into our business is performing kind acts and donating to anti bullying initiatives. Marisa was taught about Pink Shirt Day and anti bullying in a school environment. We asked to sell a pink Kindness Club shirt for this day at Marisa’s school. $2 from every shirt would be donated to Kids Help Phone and to anti bullying initiatives. This year we raised $500 for Kids Help Phone and we could not be prouder of this accomplishment. We try to grow each year for this particular initiative as it has become a very serious issue for children everywhere. Whenever we sell the pink version of this shirt, $2 is donated plus any school or business can set this initiative up though us.
This year we have take a serious look at Kindness Club and have paused to regroup, reassess and make some meaningful changes. We want to move away from being an apparel based business to a more mindful and inclusive space with products that align with these ideas. We want to incorporate more acts of kindness, more action in our communities and encourage others to do the same. It’s more than buying a t shirt, it is implementing kindness into our daily lives.
We are so proud of where Marisa started and how far she has come. This year Marisa and I wrote a 60 page summer journal. This is a part of the business that really helps people understand how we operate. When people hear that she wrote a journal, I suspect there is some disbelief. Our business is growing with Marisa, and she has gotten a few years old with more to say and more to create. This journal was an idea I suggested to Marisa since she had just started writing and journaling a lot more. Marisa’s eyes lit up. So we sat down and I explained to her that summer vacation is typically 60 days, so we should think about a journal that is 60 pages (one for each day). Marisa sighed and rethought this entire project. She said she didn’t think that was possible and she was not sure she would be able to handle that. I explained to her that we could create a plan and do it in sections, each page would relatively be the same and we would take many breaks. We brainstormed what was to go on each page by looking at other journals and what Marisa would want in hers. Marisa decided she would like a doodle journal and have positive affirmations in it. I took it a step further and suggested a bullet journal (which is made for doodling and writing). Next, we talked about have a yoga corner, each page with a different pose. Marisa enjoys yoga and we thought this would be a good fit for the journal. We later decided after trying to find 60 different poses that perhaps breathing exercises and calming activities would work best. We still included more simple yoga poses but I felt that the calming activities were more accessible for everyone and covered a larger age range and ability level. Marisa like the idea of placing an emotion scale on each page to write how you felt everyday ie. hpapy, sad, mad etc. Then we talked about how some children are new to journaling and that a writing prompt may help them write something each day and spark creativity. Marisa loves creative writing and she felt this was the best part. For the next few weeks Marisa wrote 20 positive affirmations a week while I created a cover, a template for each page and researched creative writing prompts. Marisa helped me design the cover, I fine tuned it and asked her for her opinion along the way. Marisa made noteable changes such as removing the word “aquaholic” on the cover. I asked why because I did not see anything wrong with it. Marisa said she did not want it on her journal for children because aquaholic sounds like alcoholic and children shouldn’t be reading about addiction. Plus, she thought it was a strange way to describe loving water. This was so insightful and a unique view from a child making products for other children. It reminded me why it is important for Marisa to be at the forefront. We continued and I designed each page with her positive affirmations, the emotion scale, the breathing/calming exercises and the writing prompt. As I designed this, Marisa helped add in which doodles would be the best, helped choose the font and which emojis she wanted for her emotion scale. We had a great time together writing the calming activities and I was a stumped a few times but Marisa picked up the slack. She came up with some activities I never would dream of. Once I completed the rough draft, Marisa read it over. I thought I would have it easy and she would give me the thumbs up. I was completely wrong. There were many words and phrases she asked to change because they sounded to complicated or told me kids wouldn’t like that or possibly may misinterpret them. She also asked me to change some of the activities in the book and even took some out. Marisa physically completed each breathing/calming exercise to ensure that other children could read and interpret what the activity was supposed to be. I registered and submitted the journal onto Amazon KDP where it is available now. Marisa was very excited about this journal and screamed with delight when we received our copy in the mail. This journal was an accurate representation of how our business model works. It allows Marisa creative control, to lead a project, use critical thinking and problem solving to create a product that is meaningful for other children.
We want people to know that Kindness Club is more than just an apparel brand that sells shirts. Marisa wants others to show kindness to themselves, others and be inclusive.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
We manufacture a part of our products. We researched and found various apparel brands to try before we settled on one brand. Our focus was eco friendly manufacturing but once we started researching there was more to consider; comfort, softness, stretch, shrinking, ethical practices, eco friendliness, ability to dye, ability to withstand washing and screenprinting. We purchased samples from many brands but ultimately settled on an apparel brand that was in the higher price range. We weighed the pros and cons of all the brands and one brand came out on top. We chose an apparel manufacturer that offered a variety of colours, was eco friendly and practiced ethical manufacturing. In addition, they offered a much softer material that was resilient, minimal shrinkage and overall a good quality shirt we were able to screen print on.
We learned that finding an apparel manufacturer is difficult and that there are high thresholds for quantity. Purchasing from a wholesaler was our best option and we found our choices were limited in Canada. We decided on a wholesaler that manufactures in North America that we can easily order in Canada.
We learned there is a lot that goes into manufacturing a product and to take our time. There is also the the decision of cost effectiveness- is it worth me cutting and sewing a shirt, having to purchase all the material, purchase and maintain a machine and the time it will take for me to make one shirt? Will it be more cost and time effective to invest in a manufacturing route or purchase wholesale.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
We sell on Shopify which can connect to other platforms such as amazon, etsy, pinterest, meta etc. We decided on Shopify because it was the easiest to use and incorporate our own branding. We were able to make the heart in Kindness Club beat at the top of our page. To make changes to the site, update inventory, setting shipping costs and having a pos system available were big selling points. Shopify connects to many other platforms and makes it easy to manage them. There are several plans that have a range of prices, so you are never stuck and can chose something that fits your business now with the ability to change in the future. Shopify also allows you to use themes that you can purchase third party or their themes (free and paid). We have encountered some cons, like the compatibility of certain apps or things we would like to change but are limited if you use a free theme however the pros heavily outweigh the cons,
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kindness-club.ca
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/kindnessclubca
Image Credits
JLP Photography