How Pirouette Kids brings more than nursery rhymes to board books
Sarah Breitenother is the founder of Pirouette Kids, which creates interactive musical board books introducing babies and toddlers to classical, blues, folk and music from around the world. Breitenother shares how the idea took shape, how search helped bring in customers, and why managing inventory and costs matters when making physical products.
A distinctive product can help a small business stand apart, but it still needs careful financial planning. Breitenother advises starting with small production runs, keeping costs low and understanding expenses from manufacturing through marketplace fees.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
The idea for Pirouette Kids actually came from my own children. I’m French, and when my kids were little, my mom would bring them musical board books from France. They absolutely loved them, and I loved that they weren’t just playing the same nursery rhymes over and over, but real music I could enjoy too! When I tried to find something similar in the US, I was surprised by how limited the options were. So I decided to create my own!
What makes our books different is that we introduce little ones to real music across different genres, from classical and blues to folk and world music, with songs that parents won’t mind hearing on repeat.
We also work exclusively with human illustrators. With so many AI-generated illustrations appearing in children’s books today, that’s something I feel strongly about. I believe children deserve real music and artwork created by real artists.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
I spent most of my career working in digital marketing and growth, so I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to launch Pirouette Kids. Funny enough, my first customer who wasn’t a friend or family member actually came from a LinkedIn post I shared announcing the launch!
After that, I focused on what I knew best: search. I knew how important it was to reach people who were actively looking for products like mine, rather than just building a following on social media. So I started with Google Shopping, paid search, and building up my SEO to start ranking organically on Google.
Today, I sell through my own website, Amazon, and a growing number of independent retailers. Google is still one of my biggest customer acquisition channels, especially for my website. Amazon has also become an increasingly important source of new customers, particularly during the holiday season and major sales events like Prime Day.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
One decision that really shaped Pirouette Kids was choosing to focus on different musical genres rather than traditional nursery rhymes. It would probably have been easier to create books featuring songs everyone already knows, but I wanted to introduce children to music they might not otherwise discover. Our classical music book has become our bestseller, which has been really encouraging and has influenced how I’m developing new titles.
As for mistakes, I’d say underestimating how complicated inventory management can be when you’re manufacturing physical products overseas.
There’s a long gap between placing an order and having books ready to sell, and you’re making decisions based on what you think demand will look like months from now. Order too little and you risk running out of stock. Order too much and you have cash tied up in inventory.
I’m still learning to get that balance right. It’s very different from the digital businesses I worked in previously, where you can often make changes almost instantly.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed is the rise of AI-generated children’s books, especially on Amazon. It’s now possible to create and publish an illustrated book in a matter of days, at a fraction of what it used to cost. I think that’s also changing expectations around how quickly new books should come out and how much they should cost.
For a small publisher like me, that’s a challenge. I work with professional illustrators, and developing a new book takes months. It’s a much bigger investment, both in time and money, than generating illustrations with AI.
But it’s not something I’m willing to compromise on. I want Pirouette Kids books to feature original artwork created by real artists, just as I want children to discover real music performed by musicians.
So rather than trying to compete on speed or price, I’m focusing on creating books that feel special, that families will want to keep and pass down to younger siblings. I think there’s still a place for that, even as the industry changes.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
I’d tell them to start with a product they genuinely believe in, but to start small. If you’re manufacturing physical products, order the minimum quantity possible. You don’t really know how well something will sell until it’s out there.
I’d also say keep costs as low as possible. Don’t waste money on fancy packaging or hire an expensive agency to build your website when you can do it yourself with Shopify and a few apps.
And really understand your numbers from day one. Manufacturing, shipping, storage, advertising, marketplace fees… It all adds up quickly, and margins can be much smaller than you expect.
Finally, ignore the noise around brands that seem to go viral overnight. For most businesses, growth takes time, and it’s rarely a straight line.
Thank you to Sarah Breitenother and the team at Pirouette Kids for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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