Believe it or not, the man who writes and sings the MY FRIEND WREN stories and songs is the same guy who developed the TWISTER game and originated the NERF line of kids’ toys. With his daughter Ree, he also began the Nashville-based WRENSONG music company that has a Grammy and two Country Music Songs of the Year. And on top of that, he started the Winsor Learning company that helps more than 10,000 kids a year who were not reading….to read. The Wren’s real name is Reyn Guyer. And it’s quite obvious that he likes kids and thinks like a kid. Maybe it’s partly because he and his wife Mary have five children, 10 grandkids, and 4 great grands.
Reyn started writing songs at age fifteen. His first song was called “Birds of a feather flock together, why can’t you and I” and he has been dreaming up stories and songs for kids ever since then. Reyn says, “Today, I’m hoping there may be a need for a singer and storyteller who brings a gentle but intelligent vibe to the kids’ market.” Reyn’s stories and songs always have a clever point. He says, “I hope my material teaches but I don’t want to sound like a teacher.” Reyn, like one of his heroes Ted Geisel (Dr. Suess), went to Dartmouth College where he majored in English and wrote short stories for his major credits. “I hope kids and parents like to watch and listen to my songs and stories together” That’s probably what we can call MY FRIEND WREN’s motto.
What is My Friend Wren all about?
My Friend Wren is a thoughtfully crafted collection of creative and gentle childrens’ stories and songs designed to provide insightful, educational material and adventure to both kids and parents alike. We are committed to inspiring little minds through gentle learning, adventure and creativity.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
Fresh out of college, my father convinced me to put aside my plans to get a job as a writer and join him in his newly started business that designed and produced point of purchase displays for fortune 500 companies. After five years of progressing in the enterprise, I was beginning to doubt the long-term viability of the business model. So, I kept reaching out to try new ideas to complement our work. I tried some lulus. (See Pizza-in-the-round).
Fortunately, I landed on the idea that there weren’t any games for kids that used people as the playing pieces. This, of course, led to the TWISTER game and three years later I started a new team that imagined products made from poly-foam, and this initiated the NERF line of toys.
So, obviously, I had planted myself smack in the middle of the “kid business”. It turns out that I had written songs since I was a kid, and this led to starting the Wrensong Music Company in Nashville with my daughter Ree. One of our writers, Jeff Harrington, and I decided we should write children’s songs and stories. This led to recording and marketing six cassettes of original songs and stories we called CURLY LASAGNA’S CAR-TAPES. Occasionally, today, a fifty-year-old will approach me to tell me they remember growing up with Curly Lasagna on their car rides
I’ve continued to write new kids’ stories and songs and I have chosen some excellent artists to illustrate them. Three years ago, Jeff and I decided we should try to put them up on social media sites under the name MY FRIEND WREN. Our first trials were ill-conceived. Fortunately, we did not surrender. Two years ago I pulled together a new team to video them and begin to market them online. And there we have it. Our MY FRIEND WREN online products are far exceeding the benchmarks that define a successful new product launch. I’m feet-first back in the “kid business” and I’m loving it.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
Be comfortable knowing that you don’t know everything – because nobody knows everything and, if you think you do, well you surely don’t know everything.
Do not go at it alone — surround yourself with a strong team – because teams bring creative balance to any idea and balance is the key to bringing any small glimmer of creativity to life
Begin every creative brainstorm with, “What happens if…” – because why not?
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
We will be continuing support the increase of our numbers of readers (ie. Subscribers and Video viewers) online. We will also be moving into streaming each of the songs. Especially the JAMAZON song which we intend to be everybody’s ‘good-night’ anthem. We are planning to develop a presence in the children’s print publishing market of the MFW stories and songs. Do some of the characters we have developed have marketing possibilities beyond their current online presence? We’ll see.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
To say that the sequestering we observed during our one year of COVID isolation was helpful would be incorrect. But, did it hinder our progress? No, it did not. We found that we could record the audio of our new material with direct contact with our engineer in his studio while we were in a bedroom in our home. We often seemed to come away from our 4 person team ZOOM meetings with a sense that we had devised a new and more creative direction. And in some way, our times alone did give each of us a sense that, “Hey, I’ve got time to get this right. I guess I’d say that the quality of our new products wasn’t harmed. Did I miss the wonderful BS that we all enjoy while working together in person? You bet I did.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
As I’ve been writing, recording, and choosing artists and, finally, videoing my stories and songs, I’ve been very aware that my gentler and more thoughtful content is very different from most of the louder and much more frantic and frenetic material of our competition in the on-line kids’ market.
Our team knows that we may have an uphill climb. But, we have concluded that we may actually have an advantage once our viewers and subscribers come to understand and appreciate our gentle approach. We’ll see.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
Once I had produced several of my stories and songs, I reached out to an advertising and PR group that had just successfully directed a big launch of a new retail product. I gave them the material I had prepared and the name of the project MY FRIEND WREN. Right from the start, I had qualms about the direction they were choosing to take our launch. Essentially they were building a new site that was basically a copy of the online sites already on the kids market. But, I kept deferring to their judgment because they were hugely successful and I presumed that they knew more about what we were trying to do than I did.
Finally, after a year of expenditures, and my silently disliking where they were taking my products, I called an end to the entire effort. It wasn’t easy and I had no idea where I was going from there.
Fortunately, there were some people who had come to the project that I admired. So, I went to them and slowly brought them in as I built a new team and now we are heading in a direction that features my original stories and songs. After nine months of launching, from all the indicators we rely on, it appears that we are cookin’. May it be so.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
In today’s world, the amount of online content for children has grown dramatically — which is both exciting and somewhat challenging for parents. My Friend Wren is committed to providing gentle, imaginative, and educational content for our young viewers. We primarily occupy the YouTube space and, thus far, have been marketing through our social media platforms. We find that marketing through Facebook has been our most effective platform; however, we are quickly moving into parent-based websites, Mommy bloggers, influencers, and email marketing campaigns.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Facebook Advertising because Facebook still stands as a leading platform for up-to-date and innovative content. It is such a connected community. We’ve been able to directly target our demographic via Facebook and it’s helped tremendously
- YouTube Partnership Program Ads — Once we reached a certain threshold of views and subscribers on YouTube, we joined the YouTube partnership program. This has allowed us to monetize, advertise and increase viewership on so many levels.
- SEO optimization from our digital marketing expert — we work with a wonderful digital marketing firm based in Minnesota who has done an exceptional job at optimizing our brand and testing different markets to see exactly where My Friend Wren fits best.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Surround yourself with a strong team — I consider a team to be 5 people or less. More than that, is a committee and we all know that committees can’t move as quickly or as swiftly
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
I will always recommend anything from Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) — His work is very much an inspiration to me.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
One facet of my business is called Winsor Learning — it is a program that I created that is designed to teach individuals how to read. A dream of mine has always been to have the Winsor Learning Program be placed in prisons across the country. It is apparent that a large percentage of the imprisoned population cannot read and I feel strongly that Winsor Learning could help change that.
What is your favorite quote?
When I hear the word “rules” I get the shivers. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to be a part of developing several products and businesses and I can acknowledge that each of their successes has been due to the fact that they have broken rules:
The TWISTER game broke the social rule that getting two bodies tangled together in a social setting is not proper if you’re not dancing.
The NERF BALL broke the “no throwing balls in the house” rule.
The Winsor Learning products proved you didn’t need a “trained professional’ to teach kids to read who can’t read.
The WRENSONG music company broke into Nashville with Pop and Synth sounds that brought it to success.
So, when someone happens to suggest that there’s a “rule” that applies to the subject of our attention, I will often quote a favorite of mine: “No street shoes on the gym floor.” – it often gets my point across.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
It’s easier, more effective, and a lot more fun to work with a team rather than to ‘go it alone.
If you grow a team to more than five members you have a committee and committees are consistently uncreative.
Once the team is underway, make it a habit to encourage everyone to start each sentence with the three magic words ‘WHAT HAPPENS IF….’. It isn’t “what if”. “What if” starts fairy tales while “What happens if….” demands the exploration of all the steps necessary to make the idea successful.
When your team stumbles on a seemingly fresh idea, proceed directly to make one. Over-talking the new concept will lead to killing it. Besides that, more often than not, the new concept doesn’t work as planned but a totally new idea will pop up its head. The secret is to “do” and not talk.
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