Kassi Kincaid on Making Kids Want to Read | Rock Solid

Intro: Welcome to Rock Solid, the Round Rock Business Leaders Podcast. Join your host, Bryan Eisenberg, as he explores the journeys of entrepreneurs and companies across Round Rock, Texas. From startups and nonprofits to large organizations, each guest shares their passion for doing business in this thriving community. Let’s dive in.

Bryan: Hi, it’s Bryan Eisenberg. Welcome to Rock Solid. Today I’m joined by a Round Rock native, someone who as an author inspires me, but someone as an entrepreneur that I so appreciate what she’s doing. Welcome to the episode, Kassi Kincaid.

Kassi: Thank you so much, Bryan. It’s such a pleasure to be here.

Bryan: Thank you so much. You know, I want to take you back a little bit actually to begin with because you started working in the preschool that your mom started here in Round Rock.

Kassi: I did.

Bryan: And you’re working as an administrator. So I want to take you back to like you were, you know, age 21, 22. What would that version of you think about what you’re doing today?

Kassi: You wouldn’t believe it. I mean, it would not believe it. When I graduated college, I was 22 and I went straight to work for the family business, which was the family preschool. And when I went to college, I went to school for business, I had no desire to be a part of the school. Not because I didn’t love kids or believe in what my mom was doing. I just knew my giftings were not to be a teacher, especially a teacher in like a two-year-old classroom, right? And so I was super happy my sister was the director and I was like relieved.

I was like she can take over the family business and I can spread my wings and fly. And at that point, I was really focused on corporate America. And so halfway into my college career, I had to do an internship like most everyone has to do, right? But I really didn’t want it just to be a checkbox on my degree plan. And so just really thinking about it, really praying about it, I came upon Make-A-Wish Foundation. And that internship was so pivotal in my life. I realized that I did love working for nonprofits and for their missions, like the behind the scenes work of my business administration degree that would really just make an impact in the world.

And that was my whole pivot. And then maybe later that year, I’m trying to remember the timeline, I was in the car with my mom. And I just remember it’s one of those crazy life circumstances or conversations that just happened in everyday life but really change the trajectory of your life. And she said, have you ever thought about being the business administrator of the school? The typical setup of preschools and daycares, there is a difference and we can talk about that later.

But you have the director and they’re in the office. They run the school. They’re not in a classroom. It was very unusual in my family because my sister, her background was in education and her degrees are in education. That’s what she loved. She didn’t love the business side of it, but she was doing both. It was very unique. So my mom and my sister were doing kind of like the business side of it. She was in a classroom full time. That’s where she wanted to be. And so I didn’t think there was a different structure.

And then there really was. And so from then on I was planning to go straight from college into that role.

Bryan: And you’ve turned this into something that has lofty goals, which we’ll talk about in a moment. But I want people to understand, you know, you’re not there trying to create an environment where people have to read a book because there’s lots of programs out there where people read a book to kids in school, right? But what you’re doing with Book Days is something very different than that. You’re actually trying to create people who want to love to read. Explain that process and how that idea came to you.

Kassi: Oh, that’s such a fun story. So, about a year in, I loved what I was doing, but the pressure was starting to really get to me. And it’s an extremely high pressure environment or industry. And you know, taking care of 80 plus little humans every day and their families and staff

Bryan: and yes.

Kassi: Yes, everything. And I was a rookie. I was 22 years old and I’m like, oh my word. I loved what I was doing, but it was becoming a lot. And so I knew I needed something to reconnect to the purpose of why I was working with kids. And to me, I found that to be children’s books. And my sister already had an idea that she was kind of playing around with pairing kids’ books with experiences. And I realized that I had a sphere of influence over the events of the school. And so I was like, you know what?

I can make this whole thing my own. And so I started tinkering with the idea myself of bringing books to life for kids. And so after a whole year tinkering, we finally settled on what I felt really landed in the pocket. And I named these events Book Days because they were day based around a children’s book. It would take all morning, the activities, the dynamic reading. And yeah, that was what it was. And so we brought in Pete the Cat. So for the listeners who do not know who Pete the Cat is, it is like the Taylor Swift version of a children’s book character.

The kids fly out of their minds. And so my sister found a company out of Ohio that makes children’s mascot costumes. And they partner with the publishers to do that. So they look like they walk straight out of the book. They are so realistic.

Bryan: That’s so cool.

Kassi: So it was so fun. We had never used them before. I had never known of them before. And so I’m like, yeah, let’s do it. And that was really the birthday of Book Days. And we just celebrated our eight-year birthday anniversary, whatever you want to call it, eight years ago is when Pete the Cat came into my life in that way and how we just started doing these events every month. I looked back about four months later and I go, you know what? I think I’ve really stumbled onto something. And boy was that an understatement.

Bryan: Well, you know, I’m a big fan of two things. One, how challenging that environment is because, you know, my wife and I own a home care agency and I’ve consulted in just about every industry imaginable, from tech companies to Garmin. I’ve helped people sell to Disney and Google and Microsoft. And I’ve never seen an industry as chaotic as the home care industry. And I imagine preschool’s probably very similar because everyone’s got a little bit more chaos going on than they need to be.

So that first of all is really inspirational. But I also know that launching this, and I do want to get to those goals because I know the impact that you want to have and need to happen, that also doesn’t always go so smoothly. And you recently shared on social media an interesting event about when you had to have some help with Pete the Cat and going around a couple different places with Pete the Cat in the costume. Can you share that?

Kassi: Oh, yes. It was Book Days’ most devastating story. So yes, from what I described to you, we started doing public schools, Title I public schools. And I call it Book Days’ most devastating story because, right, people connect, admire maybe the accomplishments, but it’s those stories that

Bryan: Are the real.

Kassi: Yes, they’re so real. You wish it didn’t happen, but people really connect with it. And so that’s why I shared it that day. But the Kendra Scott Foundation sponsored the tour. And it just happened to be they didn’t go to every school, the reps didn’t, but they went to this one at the beginning of the tour. And it was so grassroots, Bryan, that I sometimes didn’t have somebody to go with me to do all of the acting and performances of these books. And so I just had to rely on volunteers from the school. Like how can I do this?

This matters. I’m going to find a way to make it work. And so what that looked like, I borrowed my mom’s van because the trunk was so big. And I drove around Austin ISD by myself. And so the librarian of the school that day, she was going to be the volunteer. What I didn’t account for was that of course, if it’s not one person, they’re just kind of wearing the costume and that’s their sweat in it. And when you’re sharing it with four different people it gets a little gross.

Bryan: It’s a little gross to sweat.

Kassi: Not used to that. It’s a preschool environment, but yes, still. So you know, that was my error on that part. And she just had a meltdown that day. I mean, you know, it’s one thing to be like, this is gross, I’d rather not do it, but it’s for the kids. I had plenty of people say it’s for the kids. Like yeah, we’re going to take one for the team. She just had a meltdown, like a legit meltdown, crying, all the stuff. She threatened to quit her job as a librarian. And like okay, that’s fine. I can take it. I’m used to meltdowns.

She did it in front of the Kendra Scott rep. And it was just one of those mortifying moments to where you’re like, I can’t do anything in this moment, smile and wave, and just deal with it. And that was Book Days’ most horrific moment. They were very gracious about it. They kind of laughed about it in the parking lot, but me as a professional growing this program and the credibility of it, I was mortified. Thankfully later on that same tour, we toured with Derrick Johnson, the all-time leading tackler of the Kansas City Chiefs.

I did have somebody to go with me that day. [inaudible] The reps were there. They’re loving on social media. It all worked out. But yeah, I mean, that’s how grassroots it was.

Bryan: I’m curious, you know, you went for your business degree. It probably didn’t prepare you for that moment, but you probably learned something very interesting that you’re using moving forward from that experience. What was that big takeaway?

Kassi: From my business degree?

Bryan: No, from this experience. Like, you know, business degrees can prepare you for the normal everyday thing. This is not an everyday normal. And how did you learn to adjust from that experience?

Kassi: I learned that you just have to pivot. And you have to have almost the calmness, the stability, because situations are not all rainbows and roses. And if you keep your composure, then that will help the whole situation. And you can’t account for everything that’s going to happen to you. I’ve never had somebody melt down like that ever again. You know, who knows? It might happen in the future, but now I have teams. So that’s a whole different story. But really, you just can’t account for it. So it’s how you act in the situation more than other people.

Bryan: What you’re doing is also impacting students on a visceral level because they’re experiencing the book. They’re experiencing the character. They’re experiencing people reading it. And I’m sure you’ve seen lots of moments where somebody’s reading to a classroom. What’s the moment that you saw somebody out in that audience where you knew you’ve hit on something grandiose?

Kassi: There have been a couple different moments that just really hit. One of them was a girl. And with Derrick Johnson, sometimes we go back to the same schools like once a year. And a little girl came up to me and she said, do you remember when you brought the mouse to my school? And this is 14 months after the fact. And I’m like, wow, yes I do. And then on a bigger scale, we were finishing the Del Valle tour and we were doing Pete the Cat. It was our last stop and there’s like background music that goes with the book that I play before we even come out.

And you could hear the kids chanting, Pete the Cat, Pete the Cat, even before they had ever met Pete. And just those moments like this is why I’m doing it. Kids have told me this is the best day ever. Like that’s what we’re going for.

Bryan: It’s shocking to me as an author. I think the number is close to 80% of adults never read a book after high school. It’s something like that. We’ll have to verify the exact number, but it’s a very high number. And it’s why book sales have been on the decline for a long time. This mission, which touches on your goal, because you’ve been doing it here kind of locally with a few grants, but now you’re about to try to hit 100,000 students throughout Texas, which is phenomenal.

Why is it so important?

Kassi: It is so important to me for two reasons.

Bryan: Well, not only to you. To every listener and every person in the state, why is this so important?

Kassi: This is so important for the state of Texas because 40% of elementary school students are not reading on basic levels. And that means these are the future employers. This is the future of Texas that’s rising up. These are the future leaders. And statistics show that if kids are not reading on grade level by the fourth grade, they’re exponentially more likely to drop out of high school, enter the criminal justice system, and live on welfare. So this is a massive problem that we have. And I feel like Texas is seen kind of generally as just this up-and-coming state, and we are.

And yet we have Tesla here, and we have Google, and we have Facebook. And you know what? In a bird’s-eye view of the Tesla factory are Title I school students that don’t have enough money to buy a book at a book fair. It is such a problem in the state of Texas. I have seen it personally in Central Texas, and I know that this is meant

Bryan: And we’re one of the fastest growing counties in the country.

Kassi: Yes. So this is why I am so passionate, Bryan. I love and believe in kids, and it is these kids that are the future of our state.

Bryan: I want to take it even deeper than that because I’m getting ready to do a TEDx in January. And I’m actually headed to speak at another event tomorrow, and it’s also about AI. And the commonality here is we’re all now walking around with all the knowledge of the world literally at our fingertips. We had this conversation with Brett Hurt on the podcast recently as well. And the problem isn’t the answers. The problem isn’t access to information. The problem is wanting to ask all the right questions because most people I know have very simple chats.

Maybe they ask for a recipe. Maybe they ask someone to help them rewrite something. But they’re not using it because they want to learn something completely different. You can learn anything today. And that to me is such a power of the moment. But if we don’t instill what I’m talking about in the TEDx talk, playgrounds for kids, we can’t see them succeed.

Kassi: It does all go back to the core of it, which is all kids can learn how to read, but what makes them more likely to want to read?

Bryan: That’s it.

Kassi: The Texas Pre-K guidelines state that the first step to reading is really getting that love of reading. And that’s our specialty. You mentioned that there are so many amazing reading programs that give away books and read one-on-one with the kids, but our specialty is coming in there and giving them a core memory that they will take with them for the rest of their lives. And on this tour, Bryan, I don’t want to get too far ahead of you, but on this Book Days Texas tour, we’re not only going to be supporting them with the show, with a state-of-the-art literacy library from professionals from around the world.

There is budget to give every single child on this tour of 458 schools their copy of the book to take home. So it is access and it’s engagement.

Bryan: I’m curious because this month is also the month we lost Dolly Parton, who’s famous for giving out millions of books. What do you think Dolly would think about what you’re doing?

Kassi: I think she would absolutely love it. Ironically, she was my idol. Not because of her music industry and career, but because of her heart for books. And I was devastated when she passed away. I had actually tried to get in contact with her two years ago when we were first going down this path of a bigger tour. I want to go straight national, but I was advised to take over the state of Texas first, which makes sense.

Bryan: One bite at a time.

Kassi: It was on my to-do to reach out to her brother-in-law. I had contact with her brother-in-law to tell him about Book Days Texas the day she died. And I was hoping to at least get it in her sphere if I couldn’t get it directly to her. But yeah, I really wanted to get her involved.

Bryan: Because I think beyond just obviously her love of giving books away, the whole showmanship of what you’re doing epitomizes who she is. So I think it would have been a natural fit.

Kassi: It would have.

Bryan: Maybe something will still happen there. As you’re growing this out, I know one of the big things is you do want to have the budget and there’s some grants for that, but there’s also opportunities for local businesses to get involved. Like you said, here we are in Central Texas. There’s lots of these Title I schools who don’t have the opportunity for kids to have the books. And you don’t have to be a large foundation to support this. You can be the local pizzeria shop that has a passion, or even someone who’s, I mean, I’ve known attorneys who’ve written books because they want to teach certain things and maybe they just want to sponsor us.

What does that process look like?

Kassi: So the process is like you said, this is not just a program. What we’re doing is a movement. We’re getting the entire state of Texas behind us, whether that’s individuals, local businesses, corporations, foundations. This takes everyone. And so what does that look like? Really just finding the people and the organizations that connect with this particular mission. Everyone has what they’re really into supporting. But finding those people, and yes, law firms have already been sponsoring local schools.

What that looks like, of course you can sponsor more than one school, but one sponsor provides our program to one school. And then it gets them involved. They get to come to the school the day of the event. They get to pass out the books. They get to be involved. And so it’s just finding those organizations. So yeah, we’re looking for sponsors in not only Austin, which is already getting sponsored, and we’re really excited about that, but we’re also going to nine other regions, 10 including Austin. We’re going to South Texas.

We’re going to El Paso, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio. Go down the list, Lubbock, Tyler. So we’re hitting the state north, south, east, and west, and there are schools enough for everyone to get involved with.

Bryan: I know, like we said earlier, you’re the daughter of someone who ran a preschool, but your dad was also an entrepreneur. He ran a custom cabinet business here in town. And I’m curious what lessons you took from them that’s enabling you to think about scaling this up the way you’ve been scaling it up.

Kassi: 100%, two things come to mind. And it was really funny. I want to touch on the entrepreneur thing because that is the last thing I ever wanted to be. Last thing. I was asked that question point blank in college by a professor in front of the whole class, and I said absolutely not. Those words still ring in my ear. But the two lessons from my parents, if I could boil it down, is one, make sure God’s leading you. Because they are such a big people of faith. They knew that their success came from the Lord. But two is just work incredibly hard.

And I’m really proud that I come from a family that has the legacy of just working really hard at all the different things. And yeah, God and hard work, that’s the golden recipe. You know, I can talk to a million people, and if I was doing this by myself and not convince one person to give me a dollar for this, I know that this is where God’s called me. And you know, when it’s God’s plan, you can’t fail.

Bryan: You’ve grown up in Round Rock, and I’m curious, looking at the environment here now and how much has changed, obviously the Dell Diamond, you were probably an infant when

Kassi: It was here, I think. Yeah.

Bryan: Like pretty close. You know, Kalahari has joined. There’s so much going on around here. What are the things that surprised you the most from being a little kid in Round Rock to what you’re seeing today in Round Rock?

Kassi: Well, the toll roads were a huge highlight as a teenager. That was pretty much the biggest thing here when I was a kid, besides the Dell headquarters. That was like the grand poobah of Round Rock. I love that it still has its charm. Like the Round Rock water tower, the Dell Diamond was probably the biggest social highlight in Round Rock. I’ve loved it that it has grown and expanded. Kalahari, how many events, and that’s such a family place. I will have to say, I live in the country. It’s like 5 minutes from a Walmart now, but when my grandparents bought the property 52 or 53 years ago, it was in the boondocks.

No telephone line, like in the boondocks. And so it created a really great place to just be in the country to do country things like, you know, shooting snakes and all those, you know, kind of just country living. It’s grown around us, so you can’t do as many country things as you used to, but it is still the haven that I’ve known and loved.

Bryan: What’s the one thing you think our area still needs?

Kassi: I think it needs a better downtown Round Rock. And maybe a little bit more family. I know there’s been a lot of restaurants down there, but I think a section of it is a little bit 6th Street vibes. It’s not my vibe, but you know, expanding that a little bit more. Maybe a few more shops. I’d like to see that grown a little bit bigger. I know the library is gorgeous. Really just a centerpiece now, the newer library. But yeah, I think I’d like to see that a little bit bigger and better.

Bryan: It’s funny because there are people who resist that change to downtown, but it needs to keep growing up a little bit more. You know, every day there’s another new restaurant and new shop opening up, so I’m excited to see where it’s going. For people who want to get behind the mission, but they don’t really know how, maybe they’re a teacher somewhere in the state, maybe they’re even listening from somewhere else and they think this sounds great, let’s get you successful here so we can bring it to our state, what would you want to share with them that could help accelerate where you’re going?

Kassi: Absolutely. So we’re on two different levels. There is the fundraising right now, but there is also the awareness piece to this. So we’re tackling both at the same time, which is very unusual. And so right now, this is growing basically word of mouth. So-and-so knows so-and-so who can help. And networks are just everything right now. And people willing to make introductions, even if you don’t have a business that can financially sponsor a school, it is just as important to connect the dots.

And so that is incredibly helpful. You know, they can contact us through the website. My email is easy to find through the Book Days website. I mean, that is invaluable. Find me on LinkedIn. Let’s have a conversation. I have people all the time connecting us on text or connecting us on email, and you just never know where that will lead.

Bryan: So I will just put you on the spot as a last question. Who would be the one person you’d want to absolutely connect with if we’re done here today? You know, it’s a Friday afternoon. What’s the one person you’d love to connect with?

Kassi: Oh, wow. Before she passed away, I’d say Dolly Parton. So yeah, I haven’t really replaced that yet. And I have been working on this. Uzo Aduba. If you’ve seen any of her things on social media, she has picked up the mantle of kids books and inspiring a love of reading in kids. It would be Uzo Aduba.

Bryan: Fair enough. If people want to get in touch with you, I know you mentioned LinkedIn. Are you on any of those social media where they can see some of the stuff that you’re doing?

Kassi: Absolutely. So LinkedIn, I’m on there all the time. Instagram, kassi_kincaid. We also have our official Book Days Instagram. And yeah, you can reach me through the Book Days website too.

Bryan: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Kassi: Bryan, thank you so much for having me. This was such a pleasure to be here today.