FamilyMint fancies itself as a classic tech start-up. It's product revolves around new financial literacy software for kids. It's available on the Internet. It's even based in Ann Arbor's
Tech Brewery partly to help boost that tech persona.
Now the 3-year-old start-up is literally taking a page from old technology: textbooks. FamilyMint has just launched a short printing run of 100 textbooks for the
Texas Credit Union Foundation, which plans to use the tomes to help teach financial literacy with kids grade 5 and up in working- and middle-class households.
"A lot of kids in that age range don't have access to a computer or the Internet," says
Bob Masterson, president of
FamilyMint.
FamilyMint got its start creating a Web tool that allows parents to teach their kids the lessons of saving and managing a bank account with the grownups actually holding the money and acting as the bank. It also offers both web and mobile app options. The latest growth is meant to capture the working-class and middle-class families where access to the Internet or mobile technology is far from a given.
"We want to see this grow into a financial literacy service, especially in middle-to-lower-income schools," Masterson says.
He expects this new market will provide more opportunities for co-branding with credit unions, banks and school systems over the next year. FamilyMint has grown itself over the last year. It has added one new hire and now has a staff of four people.
Source: Bob Masterson, president of FamilyMint
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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