We’re so excited to bring you this interview with veteran BBC comedy writer and author David Cadji-Newby. David has written for Fonejacker, The Peter Serafinowicz Show and Alan Carr Chatty Man, among others, and he released his first crime novel two years ago. In 2013 he added business owner and publisher to his list of achievements when he co-founded the company Lost My Name which uses multi-threaded storytelling software to create magical personalized books based on a child’s gender and name.
The company’s first gorgeous book – The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name/The Little Boy Who Lost His Name – launched in September last year and it sold an astonishing 330,000 copies in just a few months. Now, with the help of a £100,000 investment from Piers Linney on Dragon’s Den, the quartet is focussing on investing money in developing new products, diversifying and expanding the business into international markets.
A winning pitch from David and his partners in Dragon’s Den
1. How are you doing what you love?
I’m the chief writer, or head of story, or general words person, for Lost My Name, the company I set up a couple of years ago with three partners – Tal Oron, who has a background in creative tech, Asi Sharabi, a former advertising executive and Pedro Serapicos, a graphic designer. The book is a personalised children’s book, and it’s doing really well. I wrote it, and now I work on the book, the communications and content for the company, and it’s a lot of fun.
2. What’s your background?
I began working as a writer in advertising, before moving into writing comedy for the TV. I’m also a published novelist, so really, just… writing. I didn’t really consider writing for children before getting together with the other partners, but once I started, I realised that it was pretty much a hoot. Having a child myself, and generally finding kids funnier and more engaging and overall more brilliant than adults helps, too.
3. What inspired you to write a truly personalized book? What makes your books so different?
Our book is different to the mass of personalized books because, rather than just taking an existing story and simply changing the name of the protagonist to Sue or Ted or Ozymandius or whatever, our book builds the narrative from the letters of every child’s name. And the story for every letter is different, so Sue will get a very different book to Ozymandius.
4. How did you come up with the idea?
It was a bit of a joint effort, based on books we’d seen before – what was missing in other books was a strong creative narrative idea, which is where I came in. The idea of a child losing their name seemed one of those timeless quest story forms which could allow for the weird and fantastical. Plus kids, whatever their age, are pretty attached to their names, so we thought they’d engage with the story straight away.
5. Why do you think are personalised books are so popular with children and parents?
Reading is magical, but kids aren’t necessarily great at empathy, compared to adults – so engaging with a central character can be harder. But make the central character ‘you’ and you’re off. And of course, bedtime stories are much more marvellous and magical when a child’s really enjoying the story, it’s a simple pleasure.
6. Can you talk us through the process of personalising children’s books – it must be quite a complex process given the unique nature of your product…
I’m not the most technical person in the world, so I can’t give a whole lot of detail! The books are created on our web site, very simply, you just tell us the child’s name and gender. Then an algorithm goes through our huge bank of stories and illustrations, assembles the correct ones, then shoots it off to the print house (we’ve got five, and counting, around the world) which then renders it for print, and digitally prints it. It’s pretty mind-blowing, really.
7. When and how did you get your business started?
Because we started as a pet project, it all happened fairly slowly. First, I wrote the stories. Once that was underway, our illustrator, Pedro, starting drawing. Then came the technical part, which was Tal and Asi’s bag, and took a long, long time, and many, many hours. We all did it in our spare time, so there was a huge time commitment – far more than a financial commitment. Then we launched in beta – I remember having drinks when we sold 100 books. We’ve now sold nearly 500,000. Good times.
8. Lost My Name went from digital DIY to industry trailblazer in the blink of an eye; at what point did it go from pet-project to a full-on startup and how did things change as a result?
It was October 2013 when it all really began. We were selling on Not On The High Street, a reseller, and we were featured in their newsletter. Suddenly, from selling 10, 20 books a day, we were doing the same an hour. That October I think we sold nearly 5,000 books, and in November, close to 10,000. We were totally unprepared, broke the print house, ran around like headless chickens… But it was obvious that we were onto something pretty big. We all chucked in the day jobs at the beginning of 2014, and we haven’t looked back. This November we sold nearly 140,000 books.
It was all fairly stressful to be honest, getting investment, finding premises, hiring, wondering if we were being crazy or not. But it got easier pretty quickly, and now I’d say it’s mostly fun, with only the odd moments of massive anxiety.
The team at Lost My Name
9. You appeared on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den last year and received investment from technology entrepreneur Piers Linney. How was the experience, were you pleased with your pitch and the result and what’s been happening since then? What are you working on at the moment?
We were in a really good position when we went on Dragons’ Den, and it might sound strange but actually, it was a pretty stress-free experience. We already had investment and had signed terms, so we couldn’t actually negotiate – we had to offer the same terms to the Dragons. So we basically just stood there and said, ‘take it or leave it.’ And even if nobody had invested, we wouldn’t have gone to the wall, so there wasn’t a lot to worry about.
Right now we’re working on a second title, and translations of the Lost My Name book – we’ve already launched French, Spanish and German, and there are three or four more languages in the pipeline. And some other super secret stuff.
10. Why do you feel that encouraging creativity in kids and telling them magical stories is so important in today’s modern world?
Stories don’t have barriers – in a story, anything is possible, the only limit is imagination. That’s something that can only help children. Hell, it’s something that can help adults too. Get out there and do it, and don’t be scared to push barriers.
11. What’s the ultimate dream?
Become rich, famous and contented. Happy endings are generally the same for everybody, I think.
12. What advice would you give all the budding authors out there?
The same as any other author would: write. Write and write and write, and sooner or later, you’ll write something good. I did. But it took a while.
David’s snapshot
Place you feel most inspired: Walking the dog
Best place to write: In my study at home
Toughest lesson learned as an author: It doesn’t matter how good it is, people still might not like it
Biggest challenge in business so far: Scaling up, and scaling up very, very quickly
Proudest moment: Beating Julia Donaldson to the number one bestseller spot
Best careers advice for your kids: Don’t do what pays well, don’t do what you think you should, do what you think you’ll enjoy
Wish for the world: Be nice to each other
You can find out more about Lost My Name at www.lostmy.name and watch this marvellous video and see how it all works…
PS: If you’d love to find out what could really be possible for you in business, hop on the waiting list today for more information about our revolutionary new course, The Business Soul Sessions, and download our free ‘What If…?’ resource to help you dream big, wide and deep. You might just surprise yourself!
