Here’s to the story of Jenny Woo, 42, the founder of Mind Brain Emotion, a company that sells intelligence card games.
According to an interview published on Business Insider, Jenny moved to the US from China when she was 10. As a student, she learned to maintain a positive attitude in difficult situations and develop authentic relationships. Eventually, she got inclined towards human development, thus, building a brand that could teach emotional intelligence.
At 15, Jenny started working in dim-sum restaurants, and also Denny’s whilst having various entrepreneurial projects on her side like scalping concert tickets in high school and selling photo-booth props and custom event designs on Etsy.
Later, she held jobs as a human capital consultant at Deloitte, a manager of talent strategy at Cisco Systems, an MBA career coach at UC Berkeley, a director of a Montessori school network, and a fitness trainer.
In 2018, Woo left her job at the Montessori school to start Mind Brain Emotion – having experience in child development as a former school director, she knew the significance of learning and teaching social and emotional skills.
Started as a side hustle, Jenny says that the idea of building such a company triggered her when she was a student in a classroom where once an instructor grouped students in pairs and had them draw poker cards with ice-breaker questions on them. From there, Jenny knew that a deck of cards was a perfect, simple, and tactical medium for teaching social and emotional intelligence.
Jenny, a mother of 3 kids under 3 at that point while working in schools and colleges, witnessed a lack of resources that could help students build social and emotional skills. And that too backed her passion to start Mind Brain Emotion.
Together with embarking on her journey of Mind Brain Emotion and making passive income, Jenny was lecturing at the University of California, Irvine, running an online course on EQ, and also offering freelance business consulting – making a total of four income streams at a time.
Woo spent around $1,000 from her savings to start Mind Brain Emotion. She singlehandedly made 11 different EQ-focused card games to help people of all ages build relationship skills, critical thinking, and even learn how to deliver good job interviews.
According to CNBC Make It, the company brought over $1.71 million in revenue last year – averaging roughly $32,900 per week, and around 42 percent of the revenue is the profit.
The product that Woo created is not exclusive to children, but targets people of all ages. The idea behind creating universal EQ card games goes in sync with Woo’s professional life. As a professional who trained managers for communication skills, and helped Cisco employees who were aiming to become C-suite executives, Woo witnessed that even corporate people lack EQ skills like social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, and relationship management.
Woo also got an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Before Mind Brain Emotion, Woo started a party decoration side hustle called PropMama when she left Cisco. At that time, Woo had three preschool-aged children. Eventually, the nature directed Woo towards their Montessory school in Southern California to research child development, and thus garner the school’s administrative director role – whilst running PropMama and freelance consulting for select clients.
Having multiple income streams seems really melodic, but according to Woo, it wasn’t easy.
“Juggling part-time jobs and side hustles aren’t easy”, “It’s a lot of sheer grind and not knowing the payoff.” said Woo to CNBC Make It
Unfortunately, Woo got laid off as the budget cuts hit the Montessory school. However, still having interest in education, she applied to Harvard University’s Mind Brain and Education program. She got accepted and moved to Boston with her family.
At Harvard, Woo researched and learned about EQ. For three moneths, she developed the game at Harvard Innovation Labs by buying sample decks of cards and testing them in local classrooms.
To fund her startup, a month before graduating from Harvard program, Woo launched a Kickstarter campaign for the deck with a $1,500 goal, and thirty-one days later, it raised over $10,000. From there, Woo launched her EQ game on Amazon.
In 2019, Woo launched a second Kickstarter campaign that raised $7,500 and at that time her business brought in six figures.
Woo brought her family back to Southern California, and enrolled in a PhD program at the University of California, Irvine. She got graduated in 2022, and is now a lecturer at the Univeristy.
Woo revealed that she hires friends to help her handle Mind Brain Emotion’s administrative tasks in order to keep her working hours minimal. She also added that she does not hire anyone for fulltime roles as she wants her children to take over the business in the future.
Woo also hosts videos on the Mind Brain Emotion YouTube Channel to teach children on emotional intelligence skills.
Speaking of the importance of emotional intelligence, the Mompreneur says,
“the essential things that never go out of style,” said Woo to CNBC Make It, “We all need [EQ skills] in order to be happy, fulfilled, purposeful and, honestly, decent, good human beings.” Woo concludes
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