{"id":40491,"date":"2025-12-10T12:21:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-founded-a-company-while-on-maternity-leave-in-2022-i-hired-my-husband-and-last-year-we-did-more-than-4-8-million-in-revenue\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T12:21:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:21:32","slug":"i-founded-a-company-while-on-maternity-leave-in-2022-i-hired-my-husband-and-last-year-we-did-more-than-4-8-million-in-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-founded-a-company-while-on-maternity-leave-in-2022-i-hired-my-husband-and-last-year-we-did-more-than-4-8-million-in-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"I founded a company while on maternity leave. In 2022, I hired my husband, and last year, we did more than $4.8 million in revenue."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/693740817ecd1d1da66324da?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Carinne Meyrignac with her husband and two children.\"\/><figcaption>Carinne Meyrignac founded her company while on maternity leave.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Carinne Meyrignac<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Carinne Meyrignac spent her maternity leave in France, where her baby played with musical books.<\/li>\n<li>She couldn&#039;t find similar products in English, so they had them made.<\/li>\n<li>She left her corporate job during her second maternity leave.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Carinne Meyrignac, founder of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.calisbooks.com\/\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Cali&#039;s Books<\/em><\/a><em>. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#039;m French, but I absolutely love living in LA. Still, during my maternity leave, I returned to Paris to be closer to my family. There, my baby adored singing books. She was only a few months old, but they kept her engaged.<\/p>\n<p>When we returned to America, I couldn&#039;t find anything similar. At the same time, I was learning all the English nursery rhymes I hadn&#039;t grown up with. I loved singing rhymes like &quot;Twinkle Twinkle Little Star&quot; and &quot;Patty Cake.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Many French nursery rhymes are surprisingly inappropriate. One popular rhyme translates along the lines of &quot;I have some great tobacco, but I won&#039;t share it with you.&quot; I didn&#039;t want to sing that to my baby.<\/p>\n<p>I liked how most of the English rhymes were happy and upbeat, even if they dealt with dark topics like death (as &quot;Ring Around the Rosie&quot; does). I decided to print music books that were fun, joyful, and distinctly American, based on the rhymes my daughter and I both loved.<\/p>\n<h2>I had 6,000 books printed, and other people loved them, too<\/h2>\n<p>I&#039;ve always been someone to take action once I have an idea. I came up with the concept in October 2016, and in November, my husband and I travelled to China to meet with a printer. I&#039;ve worked in Asia before, and have passable Mandarin.<\/p>\n<p>The manufacturer had a minimum print run of 3,000 copies, and I wanted two titles: &quot;Twinkle Twinkle&quot; and &quot;Patty Cake.&quot; We had been saving for a new-to-us used car, but instead of upgrading, I spent that money on books.<\/p>\n<p>By my daughter&#039;s first birthday in March, I had 6,000 books in my garage. I figured I had presents to give for the rest of my life, but when I started showing the books to local baby stores, people loved them. I calculated how much I would have to make to quit my corporate banking job, but it wasn&#039;t financially feasible.<\/p>\n<p>Later that year, my son was born. I again went to France on maternity leave, but when I returned, I found I could no longer do my job. I was awarded a settlement during mediation with my employer.<\/p>\n<p>It was gratifying to have a court say that I had been treated badly. The settlement also gave me the seed money to launch a business \u2014 which was important, since I knew I had burned bridges in the niche corporate role I was in.<\/p>\n<h2>My husband now works for the business, too<\/h2>\n<p>I was able to leverage my corporate skills, like organization, to effectively grow the business. There were significant adjustments, however, such as not receiving a paycheck every month. Although my husband was still working, I felt a lot of pressure to provide for my family, so that was sometimes scary.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2019 and 2021 the business revenue exploded. It was bittersweet though: my mother had just been diagnosed with cancer. Because I owned my own business, I was able to spend time in Europe with her until she died. I&#039;m so grateful for that.<\/p>\n<p>Another milestone came in 2022, when I was able to hire my husband. I don&#039;t pay him as much as his previous employer, but now the whole family has flexibility. Then, in 2023, I started paying myself.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the business has published more than 50 titles, and last year we did more than $4.8 million in revenue. I appreciate the independence I have, and I&#039;m proud to be building something tangible that I can leave to my children.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carinne Meyrignac founded her company while on maternity leave. Courtesy of Carinne Meyrignac Carinne Meyrignac spent her maternity leave in France, where her baby played with musical books. She couldn&#039;t find similar products in English, so they had them made. She left her corporate job during her second maternity leave. This as-told-to essay is based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}