Melissa Clark-Reynolds was doing her grocery shopping recently when she got a reminder of the power of the new media. Among the candy bars at the counter she spied a Kit Kat and her first thought was not of chocolate, but of that anti-palm oil campaign on the internet in which an office worker unwraps the bar and chews bloodily into an orang-utan’s finger.
For Clark-Reynolds, one of our most successful serial entrepreneurs, the checkout-line insight was a timely shot in the arm. Her latest venture, a children’s social media website, is inspired by her hope that technology can do similar things to change the way kids view the world.
Described as a virtual world for children focused on sustainability, generosity, community and fun, MiniMonos.com (the Spanish means ‘little monkeys’) is not some dreary exercise in preaching environmental orthodoxy to pre-teens. In fact, it’s impossible to imagine the vivacious Clark-Reynolds signing up for sackcloth and ashes. Rather, the idea is that values will be taken up naturally by kids as they tend the lagoons of the MiniMonos virtual world. It’s an enterprise that finally brings together Clark-Reynolds’ proven entrepreneurial talents with her environmental convictions. Before MiniMonos, she was one of two New Zealanders trained to give The Climate Project presentation, based on Al Gore’s slideshow from the film An Inconvenient Truth.
“I thought ‘I have all these skills around technology, I have a passion for what kind of world my youngest child is growing up in, and at the same time the virtual worlds and social media networks are all starting to converge’. It feels like a business whose time has come.”
High profile entrepreneurs tend to have a story
that follows them. For Clark-Reynolds it’s always been rags to riches. She was the sparky solo mum who grew up in a violent home, became the youngest woman to attend university in New Zealand and started her first company because she couldn’t afford to raise her family on a wage. By the time she turned 35 she’d made her first million, with health and safety and ACC consultancy Fusion.
But at 46, with her son Rupert now 28, a 10-year-old daughter Grace at home and an “awesome partner”, not to mention two decades of business success under her belt, she feels she’s outgrown that story.
“I remember the fantastic court-appointed lawyer who saved my life when I was a kid and I’m still grateful to him. I’m grateful to various social workers and teachers who intervened and I continue to give back. If anyone in that space wants my help, I’ll turn up. But it doesn’t define me any more. I’ve overcome it.”
The story now is of the business entrepreneur who became a social entrepreneur — although Clark-Reynolds says she struggles to see a separation between the roles. “I’m an entrepreneur and to me that’s someone who creates something outside of themselves where there was nothing.”
Similarly, she rejects the notion that pursuing business goals necessarily comes at the expense of environmental and social goals, or vice versa.
“For me, business goals are part of sustainability.
Not only that, I firmly believe that you can do well by doing good.”