I See Me Inc. creators make a name into a success story

When we introduced you to Maia Haag seven years ago, she was headed for a $340,000 annual gross with an imaginative, home-based business that published highly personalized keepsake children's books.

Haag's I See Me Inc. is still a cottage industry, but with a lot more zeros behind the dollar sign: Sales were $4.9 million in 2007 and are on track to top $5.3 million this year.

That's a compound annual growth rate of nearly 50 percent since 2001. Not bad, considering that the slowing economy has held her company's growth below 10 percent in each of the past two years.

That's not the only change since Haag introduced the original book, a charming, full-color volume dubbed My Very Own Name. The plot: A series of animals drawn by professional illustrators presents the first letter of their names to spell out a child's name, each with a short rhyme attached.

Haag, 41, has taken the business much farther, introducing a fairy-tale book for little girls, an entertaining introduction to the ABCs using the animals introduced in the first book, and an inspired entry that turns a child's own words and drawings into a book.

Oh yes -- and a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle that incorporates the child's name and birth date. Introduced in August, the puzzle was four years in development in search of a die-cutting process that would allow the customization.

Haag didn't do it alone however; her husband, Allan, 45, owns Haag Design Inc., a Minneapolis graphic design company, and he created the sophisticated look of the company's hardcover books. He also designed all of I See Me's marketing materials.

The I See Me brainstorm erupted in 1998, when Maia was on leave from her brand-marketing job at General Mills after the birth of the first of her three children. A friend sent a personalized book that inserted the baby's name into a story about a trip to the zoo.

"Allan found the illustrations amateurish, and I thought the story line was a bit impersonal," Maia said. The result was the My Very Own Name book, in which a herd of forest animals finds a baby in a bassinet and gathers round to name it.

Maia introduced the first book in 2000, grossed more than $160,000 in the first 12 months, and the business has been soaring ever since.

Growing product line

Recent additions to the product line promise to keep the updraft going. First came My Very Own Fairy Tale, designed for girls. It tells the story of a flock of fairies gathered in a magic garden to name "a very special girl" to be their princess. In a plot similar to My Very Own Name books, the fairies bring the first letter of their names plus an adjective to describe the recipient.

Thus, to spell out, say, the name, Shari, the Sunflower Fairy would bring the S for "a smart little girl," the Hollyberry Fairy would contribute the H for "honest" and others would line up to finish spelling out the name.

It was an instant hit, grossing $2.1 million in 2007, its first full year on the market.

A subsequent offering, a less personalized board book called "My Very Own ABCs," uses animals and rhymes to introduce a child to the alphabet. The book is on track to gross $600,000 in 2008.

Maia said the books are assembled by computers, which select the appropriate pages to create a name, thus making the personalization process economically viable despite a comparatively moderate $29.95 price-tag.

But how the Haags reap profit from one of their newest additions -- "The World According to (Your Child) " -- remains a secret.

Newest creation

The concept incorporates the drawings, opinions and interests of the child into a hard-cover book with the recipient's name on the cover.

Creation of the $39.95 book involves a kit with color markers and prepared pages the child uses to draw such things as a self-portrait, a family montage and a rendition of superhero fantasies. Questionnaires ask about favorite toys, who and what the child loves and wants to be as an adult.

A postage-paid envelope is included to return the material, which is translated into a colorful hardcover book that includes a picture and biography of the child and is shipped in three weeks.

More than 50 percent of I See Me's revenue is generated by its website, thanks largely to agreements with 8,000 child-oriented websites that publish links to iseeme.com in return for a 10 percent commission on sales they create.

Maia also has recruited 1,000 moms who collect a 15 percent commission. But the largest contribution beyond the website comes from a growing national retail presence in Nordstrom's stores, the L.L. Bean catalog and 250 baby boutiques.

So what's next? "Taking a breath," Maia said.

But between breaths, she's also plotting a little boy's version of the Fairy Tale book.

Dick Youngblood • 612-673-4439 • yblood@startribune.com