Negocios Now

www.negociosnow.com 38 Junio 2023 By David Steinkraus L ike other app developers, Francisco Cornejo and Daniela Vega are trying to solve a problem. It started as their own problem rather than one they saw coming. They were living in Australia in 2015 while he studied for a master's degree on a scholarship. They were 8,000 miles from their native Ecuador, in a country with an unfamiliar language and with a time zone difference that made it very difficult to talk with friends and family, Cornejo said. He wor- ked and studied while his wife was at home with the children. "After a few months of that routine, things started to break," he said. "I was absent, and she wasn't connecting emotionally with the kids." Their children, he said, began to develop early signs of anxiety. Vega realized the children needed to feel physical affection from their parents. "Infant massage was a fan- tastic tool to nurture kids emo- tionally. So she took a class and got certified as an infant massa- ge instructor," he said. She practiced with their chil- dren with candles lit and told them stories as she worked. "Magic happened," Cornejo said. "The kids loved these moments so much that they started to fight each other over who would go first — something that doesn't hap- pen with kids." Then the children began opening up, he said. They talked about missing Ecuador and how they were treated in school. HELPING OTHERS The family was in Australia from 2015 to 2017, and by the end of the first year, Vega had suggested the idea of a smartphone app to help other parents connect with their children. He said Cornejo and Vega returned to Ecuador, took a long time to research the idea, and in 2019 Storybook was born. The app provides music, a recorded story read by a voice actor, and pictures that coach a parent in providing massage. It's not the message of professionals who work and stretch tired mus- cles and joints. This is a gentle touch, for example stroking from forehead to cheeks. The point is not muscle stimulation but skin- to-skin contact, Cornejo said. The company has a group of scientists, including sleep spe- cialists and child psychologists, who advise on methods and approve the stories. Vega wrote all of those. "She's amazing at writing words that go directly to the heart," Cornejo said. What Storybook is not, he emphasized, is another product to entertain children while they're alone and until they fall asleep, which is not good for their emo- tional health. "Storybook is an app created for the parents," he added. STARTING UP Cornejo said Ecuador does not have a start-up culture, and entrepreneurs needed more networking. Fortunately, Cor- nejo had plenty of entrepre- neurial experience, so much so that his six years with Honda in Ecuador is an outlier on his resumé. "Since my childhood, I have always been doing things to earn my own money." He said he washed cars, clea- ned shoes, owned a bar, and owned several marketing compa- nies. He went to the Ecuador divi- sion of Honda because he likes autos and motorsports, he said, and because of what he could learn. "I always knew I would need structure and know-how from a well-established corpora- tion." At Honda, he learned to hire at scale and, barely age 25, was in charge of 70% of the company's revenue, he said. As a result, he said, he better understands how to market a company like Story- book and how to scale it. Storybook is now based in Mia- mi but retains its development team in Ecuador. "I moved here to find opportunities, to find inves- tors and partners, and understand customers more," Cornejo said. Angeles Investors, the Chicago venture devoted to nurturing Lati- no-owned businesses, has made Storybook part of its portfolio. The app is offered in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. English accounts for about 50% of the downloads, he said, Spanish 40%, with Portuguese making up the rest. As of a few weeks ago, the company added content in Japanese. With just those few languages, he said, Storybook is used in more than 150 countries, with most users in the United States and Latin America. He said the app is on track for 3 million downloads this quarter. Subscription sales, which give users access to all content (there is a free version with limited con- tent) are at about $2.5 million. He said that companies with related products, such as essen- tial oils that can be used in massage, are interested in being partners, and other companies offer the app as part of their employee wellness programs because they recognize that employees with undisturbed families will do better work. He said he and Vega hope to grow story characters beyond the boundaries of the app to con- nect with children worldwide to build their self-esteem and help them handle difficulties. "Our goal is to reach 300 million families," Cornejo said. "We want to go from a point solution to a platform." Parents' problem becomes a solution for everyone Angeles that grow fast L aunched by David Olivencia and Ade- la Cepeda less than three years ago, Angeles Investors is one of the lar- gest and fastest-growing groups in Ameri- ca that brings people from all backgrounds to support Latino entrepreneurs in buil- ding the following great companies. Oli- vencia, Angeles's CEO, is an accomplished global technology executive and author with experience delivering measurable business results for leading organizations. Before Angeles Investors, David held senior executive positions of increasing responsibility at Nippon Telegraph & Tele- phone (NTT), Ford Motor Company, Ora- cle, Verizon, Softtek and Accenture. Angeles's chair, Adela Cepeda was named one of Bloomberg's 100 Influential Latinos in the US. She studied economics at Harvard and worked on Wall Street, managing public and private debt and equity transactions. She is a director of BMO Financial Corp and serves on the boards at UBS Funds, Pathway and chairs Mercer Mutual Funds. Negocios Now presents two features of companies benefiting from the inves- tment of Angeles Investors. ADELA CEPEDA Chair of Angeles Investors DAVID OLIVENCIA CEO of Angeles Investors Francisco Cornejo and Dalia Vega are the creators of Storybooks, an app to help parents with their young children.

• Cover