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The dog days of summer are officially here in the U.S. While kids wish summer break would last forever, for parents the summer months can deliver serious setbacks to the schedules and routines they worked so hard to adopt during the school year. Enter Ìý– ²¹Ìýone-of-a-kind visual scheduling system for kids created by ºÚÁÏÃÅ merchant, Lt. Col Kelly Robinson.

A Homegrown Brand

SchKIDules is ²¹Ìýhomegrown brand with ²¹Ìýunique product developed when Robinson’s daughter was ²¹Ìýtoddler. Prior to starting the business, Kelly was active duty in the US Air Force, and is still ²¹Ìýmember of the active reserves where she has served for over 18 years. Robinson left active duty when her daughter was born 12 years ago.

As with many moms who leave the full time workforce to stay at home with ²¹Ìýchild, the transition from ²¹Ìýstructured, predictable, independent lifestyle to one of trying to get ²¹Ìý“type A” 3-yr-old to cooperate with ²¹Ìýplan was difficult one. As feelings of frustration grew for both of them from what seemed like ²¹Ìýsimple concept — communicating and getting through the daily routine — Kelly had an “aha!” moment. She thought “What if I get ²¹Ìýpicture board to represent the daily rituals and show her what our goals are?”

Robinson looked for ²¹Ìývisual planner online and in stores and was surprised at her inability to find one. A self-proclaimed Áª²Ô´Ç²Ô-³¦°ù²¹´Ú³Ù±ð°ù´Ï — her commitment to making ²¹Ìýchange at home led her to overcome her dislike of the craft aisle to find materials to create ²¹Ìýscheduler herself. Using velcro to attach pictures and words and ²¹Ìýthick cardboard backing for the board she created the first prototype of what would later become ²¹ÌýSchKIDule, and immediately tested it with her daughter.

It was like night and day communicating with my daughter! She loved seeing the progress she was making and was excited to complete the steps on the board. It made mornings so much better for both of us.

An Accidental Business Owner

Robinson did not set out to create ²¹Ìýbusiness, but she sure found one. After ²¹Ìýfew friends saw the board they asked if Kelly would make them one. One thing led to another and in 2010 she created ²¹Ìýbasic website to showcase the scheduler.

Before she knew it, an email arrived in her inbox announcing her first sale. “I don’t even know how they found me,” Robinson shared “I hadn’t advertised and back then I didn’t know anything about search terms, google indexing or metatags.”

Through the early years Kelly’s market research and search for similar products taught her about the niche she had uncovered. “I was googling all types of terms to see what I would find, ‘picture calendar,’ ‘image schedule’ and ‘kids schedule’ turned up blanks. Eventually I stumbled upon ‘visual schedule,’” she explained. Suddenly her screen was filled with scholarly articles about the benefits of visual aids for communicating processes and milestones with kids.

“I thought, ok – now that I’ve found that this thing has ²¹Ìýname, I’ll find ²¹Ìýbunch of products like mine and I can go back to just being in the military and being ²¹Ìýmom again,” Kelly said.

But instead, when she searched the internet she still couldn’t find any products for sale — just ²¹Ìýlot of information about how helpful they are — especially for kids with special learning needs and sensory issues like autism, asperger’s or down’s syndrome. Locating the special needs niche within the childhood development niche has been one of the most satisfying parts of bringing this product to the market for Kelly.

Ongoing Product Expansion and Refinement

When the sales kept coming, Kelly knew she was onto something. She improved on her original design by trading velcro for ²¹Ìýmagnetized board to improve durability and her brother helped her draw the original images. She still disliked the crafty aspect of the work and started to think about alternative solutions.

She found ²¹Ìýmanufacturer to produce the magnetic boards and continued to create the magnets by hand. “At one point I counted orders and realized I had cut out over 25,000 magnets ²ú²âÌý³ó²¹²Ô»å,” Robinson exclaimed. Though she was receiving more and more orders Kelly was still using her basic website with PayPal to process sales.

One of the key pieces of advice that Kelly shared with us was to go slowly and take baby steps. Make small investments and see how they pay off. She also recommends setting small, achievable goals to chart progress and keep forward momentum going.

When I asked about her tech knowledge and website creation Kelly told me ²¹Ìýstory familiar to many small business owners. To create her first site she searched the internet, found some products that could do the job, and went through ²¹Ìýlot of trial and error to get everything connected.

As orders kept coming Kelly’s kitchen table seemed to be permanently covered in magnets and supplies. Her daughter was now school-aged and she had ²¹Ìýyoung son to test new ideas with. At this point in the business, about 4 years after she began the journey, she still had her first website and ²¹Ìýhad found an ecommerce plugin that had some glitches, but was working well enough.

Automating Production and Distribution

The next step was to find ²¹Ìýcompany to produce the magnets and implement ²¹Ìýdistribution system. Robinson found ²¹Ìýgreat partner in Coleman Assembly & Packing, ²¹Ìýcompany with excellent quality and an admirable  she connected with.

When Kelly’s son went off to kindergarten she finally had ²¹Ìýlittle more time to focus on the business aspect of SchKIDules. She is still the sole employee, but she has manufacturers producing the products and Coleman Assembly to warehouse, pack and ship orders. Robinson still reviews all orders personally, emails them to the warehouse and often designates specific shipping instructions.

New Website & Customer Testimonials

In late 2014, when both kids were in school full time, Robinson decided to take SchKIDules to the next level. She hired ²¹Ìýgraphic artist to refresh the product images and began to build out ²¹Ìýnew  website. Her domain is through GoDaddy and the site is hosted with  where she also enjoys unlimited email perks.

Robinson found ºÚÁÏÃÅ via internet search in the fall of 2015. She was drawn to the ability to customize her store and seamlessly embed products and the shopping cart into the web pages she had already designed. At times Kelly has hired ²¹Ìýweb designer to help with plugins and customizations, but she still handles most of the site changes herself, occasionally with ²¹Ìýlittle help from the .

I love your customer service, I swear it’s the best and I’ve told so many people! When I need something it’s either right there in the Knowledge Base, or I do ²¹Ìýquick chat and the team has me covered.

Positive customer feedback is one of the delights that comes with running ²¹Ìýbusiness (or ²¹Ìýcustomer success organization ;). I actually found Kelly when she sent us ²¹Ìýnote of gratitude following ²¹Ìýrecent support interaction. On the occasions we haven’t been able to help, it’s usually been because the feature either doesn’t exist, or is in development. We’re working on the long-awaited 3rd party admin login rights now, and recently launched  to help bridge other gaps for customers in need.

SchKIDules website has ²¹ÌýÌý– ²¹Ìýgreat addition to any ecommerce site to help build trust with new site visitors and remind potential customers that real people are hard at work for the business behind the screen.

Multi Channel Sales Leads to Leaps in Revenue

As the business has taken off, Robinson has branched out to additional sales channels. She still has the direct order service via SchKIDules.com, ²¹Ìýreselling option for qualified retailers, and additional distribution via Amazon where her products are the top 5+ items listed under “Kids Visual Schedule” on .

As the business grew Kelly shared another important lesson she’s learned along the way — have ²¹Ìýlawyer review all contracts. As micro businesses blossom, and grow into larger companies, the contracts that are signed (or omitted) in the early days can have unintended consequences later on.

Having ²¹Ìýlawyer review ²¹Ìýcontract may seem like an unnecessary step when you’re ²¹Ìýsmall startup — but if you take off you’ll be glad you had good legal advice at the start. Robinson had the name SchKIDules trademarked right away and reached out for legal advice when she outsourced production and distribution.

With ²¹Ìýsolid foundation in place this year is all about marketing and growing sales. Kelly recently tried google adwords and is studying up on SEO. She visits 1-2 local conferences and makes sales calls to organizations in her niche. It sure seems to be working. Right now sales are being boosted by ²¹ÌýBOGO offer that ºÚÁÏÃÅ fans are invited to enjoy.

We’re thrilled that SchKIDules has continued to grow and evolve since joining ºÚÁÏÃÅ. We are excited to see what aspect of her brand Lt. Col Kelly Robinson will revolutionize next.