Diversity, Children’s Products & E-commerce with Peter & May, Berlin Founders of Kidsimply

04/29/24 • 33 min

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In this episode I talk to May and Peter Kamya, the Berlin-based founders of Kidsimply. Peter is originally from the UK and May’s family immigrated to Germany from Thailand when she was five years old.

Kidsimply is an online shop selling diverse and inclusive books and toys. Through the KidSimply brand, and inspired by raising their child, Peter and May want to celebrate cultural diversity, but most importantly send out a message to ALL children that their experiences matter.
In this episode of The Germany Expat Business Show we talked about:

💪 How ‘learning by doing’ is part and parcel of starting a business

📱Working with influencers to spread the word

📦 How Peter and May approach order fulfilment and stocking inventory

💕 Balancing values and mission with brass tacks business outcomes

⬅️ What to outsource and what to keep in house

💁‍♀️ The value of getting to know customers and their community and in-person markets

🏪 Staying online vs. opening a brick and mortar shop

🛒 Their experience using both WooCommerce and Shopify

🫶 How they navigate being partners in both life and business

✏️ Using translation tools in combination with manual translation, writing and editing

📥 Their experiences with founding a Ltd. in the UK and a GmbH in Germany, including impacts on cash flow

🇩🇪Their hope to one day expand to markets in Köln, Hamburg and other cities in Germany.
Visit and follow Kidsimply here:

Kidsimply.de website
Kidsimply on Instagram
Kidsimply on Tiktok

You can find this episode and all episodes as well as show notes for each at https://thegermanylist.de/the-germany-expat-business-show-podcast/
Starting or running a business in Germany as a foreigner? Already running an online business in Germany as an expat? Wanting to grow your German-based business? Working as a freelancer in Germany? You'll love my guide with over 30 resources for expat business owners in Germany.

Like the show? Have a burning question? Send a text?

💪 How ‘learning by doing’ is part and parcel of starting a business

📱Working with influencers to spread the word

📦 How Peter and May approach order fulfilment and stocking inventory

💕 Balancing values and mission with brass tacks business outcomes

⬅️ What to outsource and what to keep in house

💁‍♀️ The value of getting to know customers and their community and in-person markets

🏪 Staying online vs. opening a brick and mortar shop

🛒 Their experience using both WooCommerce and Shopify

🫶 How they navigate being partners in both life and business

✏️ Using translation tools in combination with manual translation, writing and editing

📥 Their experiences with founding a Ltd. in the UK and a GmbH in Germany, including impacts on cash flow

🇩🇪Their hope to one day expand to markets in Köln, Hamburg and other cities in Germany.
Visit and follow Kidsimply here:

Kidsimply.de website
Kidsimply on Instagram
Kidsimply on Tiktok

Previous Episode

Growing up in Ukraine to Finding a Passion Filled Side-Hustle in Munich

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Tetyana Pirker came from Ukraine to Munich in 2002. She studied psychology in the university of Munich and afterwards she started a career at Accenture as IT SAP consultant.

After many years SAP consulting he looked for a ‘soul business’. After the birth of her first child in 2017 she discovered her passion; photography.

Tetyana works for both business customers but also she loves weddings. She has 2 kids, lives in the north of Munich and still works part time in the consulting while she is developing her photography business.
In this episode Tetyana and I discussed:
🇺🇦 Her experience migrating from Ukraine to Munich as a 19 year old
❤️ Even though she landed a good job at a consulting firm, she was missing work she was passionate about
📷 Turning her passion; photography into a side hustle
🤝 How she got permission from her full-time job to launch her photography business
🤓 How much there is to learn when launching a business (Taxes! SEO, Building a website!)
🎨 Balancing managing your business with also being a creative
🗺️ How Google Maps has been helpful for getting the word out about her business

🚀 Why it’s important to just start and not worry about everything being perfect

Next Episode

Building a Large and Loyal Audience with Jen + Yvonne of Simple Germany

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I stumbled across Jen and Yvonne of Simple Germany through their YouTube channel, and boy am I glad I did!
Jen was born and raised in Guatemala and sought better quality of life due to LGBTQ+ rights and security concerns. Yvonne was raised in Germany but always wanted to explore the world and worked for many years on a cruise ship (side note: This is the second Germany Expat Business Show guest that worked on a cruise ship!)
Jen and Yvonne met in Düsseldorf where they became partners in life and business. Together they became the founders of Simple Germany where they create English content to empower internationals to settle into life in Germany more smoothly.
They’ve got some eye popping stats including: A devoted following of 55k YouTube subscribers, 15k newsletter subscribers, 3M Annual website visitors and 1k happy customers

In our conversation we talked about:

How their own experiences as immigrants and a native German led to the creation of Simple Germany.
How they were able to leave their corporate jobs in 2022 to focus full-time on Simple Germany after starting it in 2020.
Their business model which primarily relies on affiliate sales.
How they build trust through YouTube and SEO efforts, emphasizing authenticity and human connection.
Content creation on Simple Germany has evolved into inspiring stories of successful immigration to Germany, providing hope and empowerment to others.
How through Simple Germany Jen and Yvonne aim to inspire people to realize that a life abroad is possible and that they have control over making positive changes for a better life.
How they ventured into creating digital products like templates and e-books to offer more detailed resources to their audience.
The challenges of finding the right e-commerce platform in Germany, particularly with regards to European regulations like displaying final prices including VAT and variable VAT rates.
How and why they ended up getting married three times in Germany!

The Germany Expat Business Show - Diversity, Children’s Products & E-commerce with Peter & May, Berlin Founders of Kidsimply

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:03.185

Hi , I'm Eleanor Meyerhofer , a native Californian designer and digital strategist . In October of 1999 , a few years after graduating from design school , I flew from San Francisco to Munich with a fistful of Deutschmarks , a dial-up connection and an extremely vague plan . Twenty-plus years later , after a 10-year stint at a global agency agency freelancing and launching two online bus