RONIT SHIRO, FOUNDER OF FEPPY
Name: Ronit Shiro
Founder: Feppy
Who is Ronit Shiro?
Ronit Shiro is the founder & CEO of Feppy, an edutainment company that produces multimedia bilingual solutions for parents wishing to facilitate immersive Spanish-English language learning for children based on the core value that kids learn best while having fun! Having grown up as an immigrant’s daughter in Venezuela, where she was born, Ronit Shiro spoke several languages at home and recognizes the opportunities to connect and understand other cultures through language.A marketer-byprofession, mom of 3, and avid traveler, she leverages her marketing experience in Fortune 500 companies such as Pepsi to help parents provide a fun learning environment when teaching languages to young children.
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
Feppy is an award-winning creator of bilingual Spanish & English books, games, and learning toys for kids ages 3-8. Our mission is to raise the next generation of global citizens, one moment, one storytime, one fun game at a time!
Our name, “Feppy” is meant to embody bilingual happiness; it originates from the Spanish (FEliz) and English (haPPY). Founded by Ronit Shiro, a mom and champion for multilingual education, Feppy products are designed entirely for kids but with parents in mind, too. Feppy makes Spanish & English language learning fun, playful, and accessible to kids at every developmental and language skill level.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
It means pride and gratification.
Fearless woman who is not afraid of pursuing her mission of solving a need.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
I am proud to be a female only company. I feel that women need to support each other. Collaborate with other women business owners. Participate in pop up, events. Support other women’s events.
Promote other women owned businesses in social media.
I would love to mentor young women entrepreneurs who are just starting out by providing guidance and feedback on how to start and grow their businesses.
What lesson or skill did you take with you from a prior job to help you succeed in your role today?
Progress before perfection. We always need to strive for excellence but we need to learn to move forward and keep the inertia going.
How did you land your first client?
My friends and family have been my biggest supporters. They have been helping me sharing my story and are the responsible for my first clients.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
My books for kids are bilingual Spanish -English. Having side to side text in both languages was not enough. I developed audio video support for parents wishing to expose their kids to more than one language but not necessarily feel confident pronouncing a foreign language. This feature have been a differentiating advantage for my community and interesting enough it was developed following a comment from a follower.
What was an obstacle you overcame to get your business where it is today? Please share the story behind it.
I started my business as a subscription box (bilingual subscription box for kids). I didn’t take into account that it would be very difficult to get customers to subscribe to a new brand. Usually customers subscribe to products that they already know. Although the subscription model is ideal for learning another language it was very difficult to grow being a new brand. I decided to start selling books and games individually to get the customers know my brand and to use it as a stepping stone for future subscriptions.
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