We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nikki Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nikki, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Since graduating from New York University in 2001, I have been a school-based Occupational Therapist, responsible for helping the students I serve become as independent as possible within their school environments. Throughout the years, most of the kiddos I work with have had handwriting difficulties.

With many of them, no matter what strategies I tried: tracing, hand-over-hand assistance, and/or repetition. their handwriting wouldn’t improve!

One day in desperation (and BRILLIANCE), I decided to put letter formations to rhymes, and amazingly they got it…and with practice, they finally started to remember how to form the letters correctly and wrote them legibly!!!

I later decided to expand my rhyme collection to a curriculum. So after years that included hotel retreats developing characters, transforming drawings to puppets, and writing letter stories; basement studio weekends converting storylines and rhymes to song then videos; then consistent correspondence with my graphic designer and website team until they finally said “Nikki, that is enough,” in 2017, Rhythm & Writing was finally launched!

My current phase is marketing and sales….both of which I am still learning as I go, trying to negotiate time with myself, to higher prioritize my retirement plan. After five years, the grind continues, with the expectation that Rhythm & Writing will become THAT ONE handwriting program, that everyone talks about and uses when teaching their kiddos to write….the RIGHT way!

Nikki, 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?

I’m Nikki Wilson, Occupational Therapist, author and creator of Rhythm & Writing with The Get Write Crew, a fun and exciting handwriting program that teaches kids to write…..the RIGHT way!!!

I developed this program after years of difficulty teaching kiddos how to print legibly….and then I figured it out: teach them to print using rhymes, music & videos….which what makes it stand out from other handwriting programs. Rhythm & Writing actually makes learning to write fun…..and it works!!!

What I’m most proud of, is that everything Rhythm & Writing is FAMILY!!! Every story & song written, every character designed, every song produced, and every video developed and produced, was done by those I consider family. Thanks to their support, after ten years, this project was finally complete debt free!

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I’m not sure how it has been for others turning dreams into realities, but I had no initial capital, nor the ability to obtain it due to my personal entrepreneurial credit and income limitations.

Instead, I continue to operate on a “….make it happen” budget”: buy supplies as I need them and/or when on they’re on sale, choose negotiated line items from project proposals, use family members hook-ups whenever possible, make monthly payments on equipment, and outsource production only on items I can’t do in-house.

I anticipate using this operating strategy until orders overwhelm me or burn-out my equipment, and I’m cool with that.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

As a new, unknown product (launched in 2017), in a saturated market of well-known, evidence-based handwriting programs, our most effective marketing strategy of attraction, has been setting up booths and presenting at conferences related to early childhood education. While attending conferences can be costly, they increase product exposure, and SOMETIMES such exposure lead to sales; ultimately and hopefully these sales lead to repeat customers then exponential sales through word of mouth. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rhythmandwriting.com
• Instagram: #thegetwritecrew
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-wilson-46342917/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpkhNPLjGLF3eRxP64cCCZA

Image Credits
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