EVOLve_17: Emily Martin [5/25/2022]
Emily Martin, CEO of FriendTales in New York
At FriendTales, we are building a stigma-free universe for mental health teen entertainment. Why? Because the whole team was impacted by negative mental health at a young age.
Twitter: @FounderEmily_
This interview is part #EVOLve Series with one of our @posi2ive community members. Interviewees have been active in our weekly *VC Impact* community roundtables on Twitter Spaces [each Friday 3:30pm PT] and community. In each self-paced and self-authored interview, we ask impact Founders / Investors what they are doing to change the world, and why they’re motivated to focus on their area of impact. Hope you all enjoy!
The Interview
Top Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
3: Good Health / Well Being
4: Quality Education
5: Gender Equality
Impact verticals your venture focuses on:
- Health and Wellness
- Social Good
- SocialTech
Please share what you’re building, your professional background, and what inspired this venture.
At FriendTales, we are building a stigma-free universe for mental health teen entertainment. Why? Because the whole team was impacted by negative mental health at a young age. We understand the emotions that happens as a teen is confusing and feels uncontrollable, we want to teach them that their emotions are normal and how to manage it.
What’s the impact focus of your venture? And how do you plan to measure impact?
Mental health attention is something we want to measure over time, our comic books are going to grow-up and develop with the pre-teens and hopefully help them along their journey. As we keep adding more comic books, we are going to try to keep the attention of the teens to follow the characters journey.
What’s driving your impact focus?
The fact that mental health is a concern right now but we want to make sure mental health is concerned long term because even if the world goes back to normal, it doesn’t mean your mind will. You may be physically ready but you might not be mentally ready.
What are some obstacles standing in the way of the impact you have planned?
Number of comic books developed and making sure we keep engagement over time. We want to make sure we are putting out regular new comic books that keep the current generation engaged.
How do you stay motivated?
Getting feedback from the kids and their parents is probably the most rewarding part. I love seeing the heart warming feedback we get.
Tell us about your market, customers, and team.
High-level — The market U.S. youth aged 6–17 experienced a mental health disorder is a $1.5B industry, expected to grow 20% CAGR.
Our customers is pre-teens starting in middle school right now but will expand to high school and college students
We have an ever expanding team! 9 of us! 7 of us are female! Most of us are international. My co-founder, Billy Sagulo, is the Chief Creative Officer and I am the CEO. We both have 10–15 years of experience. Billy in art + storytelling. I have experience in business, marketing and advertising.
How do you keep yourself healthy — e.g., mentally, physically, emotionally?
Mentally: Running, I find that moving helps me feel like I am releasing my emotions with every step and think about things.
Physically: Kickboxing, I find this helps me focus on something else (PS, I’m not very good so I focus on form and less about my life outside the gym)
Emotionally: Talking, when I was younger I was scared to share my emotions because I believed if you talked about it, that meant it was real. I didn’t want it to be real, so I kept my emotions inside. Talking and keeping people aware of what I am feeling is important and healthy to do.
What are you currently educating yourself on?
I decided recently I want to become a therapist, not only for the mental health startup, but I love talking to people and want to learn more about the psychology of humans. We have clinical advisors now that help us with our startup but I am applying to educating myself on CBT practices and more!
What books, podcasts, or newsletters should our community read — to better understand your area of impact?
Lots of places!
Podcasts: NPR, IdeaCast, OnBeing, Yeah, That’s Probably an Ad, etc.
Newsletters: Angellist, Adweek, Trendera, etc.
What do you do outside of work, that you like to brag about?
I teach a Sip n’ Paint class in NYC! It’s a lot of fun! I get to teach adults paint while they drink, it’s very funny and add a release of emotion, and makes me feel like I am giving back.
How can the @posi2ive community support your efforts? (*Not public solicitation, nor securities offerings)
Help us promote our comic books and raise awareness of our startup. We are still small and trying to raise awareness now. We want to touch concerned moms as our GTM strategy and I hope some of the posi2ive community are moms.
Copyright 2022, all rights reserved. If you’re a Founder / Investor focused on VC Impact, we’d love to invite you to share your story here (#EVOLve) with the posi2ive community. If you’re an LP or GP in venture, we’d also love to have you apply to our private VC Impact Capital Community.
