Q&A: What I learned about storytelling from my insights career

Lousia Kiwana Olafuyi is Co-Founder and Director of Kunda Kids, an award-winning children’s publishing and media company. Previously, she was an Innovation Specialist at Unilever in beauty and personal care and has worked in publishing as well as various roles in consumer research and insights. 

She says that storytelling has been the consistent thread throughout her eclectic career and that her superpower is her ability to use storytelling for good, whether that's inciting new ideas, motivating change or bringing insight to teams. 

We wanted to interview Louisa to hear more about how she’s using storytelling as a superpower as well as learn more about the work she’s been doing to diversify children’s literature.  

The word 'Kunda' means Love in Runyankole, a language spoken in Uganda, where I was born. And when I became a first-time mum in the UK, during lockdown and amid the saddening Black Lives Matter movement that was catalyzed by the death of George Floyd, I was inspired to think long and hard about the values I wanted to instill in my son as he navigates this complex world. 

My experience working in publishing has made me aware of how vital it is to instill a love for learning and literacy at a young age — and that there is a direct relationship between children's exposure to books and their confidence and later attainment levels.

However, when I searched for preschool books, shows and resources that celebrated African culture and global citizenship, they were few and far between.

"I became aware of the lack of diversity in children's publishing and media and set about writing a series of children's books and resources myself, starting with African History for kids." 

Rather audaciously, instead of pleading with publishers to see the value in my stories, I decided to become a children's publisher myself. Three years later, Kunda Kids is now a leading children's publisher, edtech and media company focused on bringing African stories to a global audience. 

It started with curiosity, not confidence. I was curious why there was such a lack of diverse children's content and what needed to change. There's an old African saying: "Do not test the depth of a river with both feet." I started by developing my stories as a passion project while I was still working. 

We sold 10,000 books in our first year, and the demand for my stories nurtured my confidence — at that point, I knew I was on to something. I didn't leap headfirst into entrepreneurship but sought to understand, learn and take incremental steps before taking a final jump. 

My husband and Co-Founder left his full-time job first in 2021 to sustain our momentum, and I left my full-time position at Unilever in November 2022 to grow Kunda Kids into an industry-changing company that now employs a team of 25 people worldwide. 

The biggest challenge has been navigating access to capital as a black-owned, female-founded company. It's a sad statistic that only 22.8% of VC funding goes to female-founded teams, but it's even more shocking that less than 0.02% of VC money in the UK goes to black-female-founded businesses.

"Whether intentional or systemic, navigating discrimination and exclusion from opportunities as a black woman has been a significant and uncomfortable challenge." 

Nevertheless, Kunda Kids was incredibly successful in raising our first ‘friends and family’ round of funding in 2021 ($170k), just from our network and people who believed in us. We then raised a further $700k pre-seed round in 2022, which we injected into developing the Kunda Kids App and our popular preschool animated show Kunda & Friends. 

Aside from fundraising, there have been several other challenges with entrepreneurship, such as growing the right team, managing setbacks, finding the right work-life balance as a parent and running a company with my partner. But along the way, I've learned to give myself grace. No one hands you the rule book, so it's up to you to create your own rules and boundaries and leave room to make mistakes — as long as you can use them to learn and improve. 

Market research and an evidence-based approach to business are among the most important principles I've instilled into Kunda Kids. This includes the art of active listening, championing our data collection processes and fostering an attitude of critical thinking and analysis.

"Many of the best lessons I've learned in life and business have been from being a market researcher."

Insights are key to our decision-making. We always start by unpacking our assumptions and identifying what we do and don't know. This helps us choose the right methodology to identify unmet needs, be it quantitative, qualitative or a mix of both.

Around 8% of our budget goes to learning and development, which we're satisfied with but see as an area for growth. We aim to increase our consumer and audience research investment as we expand into new markets like the US, East Africa and West Africa.

I'm particularly interested in understanding how Kunda Kids resources, such as our app, animations and activity guides, are used in schools. I'm exploring innovative ways to learn about these occasions, especially in harder-to-reach regions in Africa.

The discernment to know who I need to be for the business at every stage has been extremely important. 

In the earlier stages, I wrote the stories, built the website, and wore several hats, including but not limited to co-founder, HR, marketing, IT and customer service. However, with the growth of the business, I've had to learn not only to delegate appropriately but also to have a clear understanding and confidence in the most important attributes I bring to the business. 

As such, my current priorities are mostly around the strategic development of our products, overseeing our creative department, and laying out the long-term roadmap for the business. 

As tempting as it is to jump on Canva or Instagram and tweak small things, I've matured in my management style to empower those around me and focus on doing what only I can do.

Young people are often forced to make career decisions before having an opportunity to really explore what they're interested in or good at. I believe that cultivating the right attitude to work, regardless of how far or close you are to the work you aspire to do, is crucial and starts with identifying your personal values and purpose.

I've been very fortunate to have had incredible mentors. And all of the valuable lessons I learned were about cultivating my aptitude and attitude as a person, which can be applied to, but not limited to, my career, friendship, partnership, parenting and more. 

Success in any venture starts with curiosity and a willingness to learn and adapt continuously. And never underestimate the power of storytelling in connecting with your audience and inspiring change.

It’s wonderful to hear about such a successful and purposeful business and the role that being a researcher has played in Louisa’s career. We agree that we should never underestimate the power of storytelling – perhaps storytelling for good can be a superpower we can all tap into.