Wild Webbies LLC

Wild Webbies®  is a unique, first of its kind, triple bottom line, Green, educational game and social interaction site for Tweens and their extended families teaching, in a fun and immersive way, how to “go Green” and reduce carbon footprints while saving endangered species’ habitats.  We also encourage subscribers to go outdoors and re-connect to Nature and exercise to stay fit mentally and physically.  Subscribers play Green games to earn virtual Green Bucks.  Upon earning a specified number of Green Bucks, they are invited into our Green Mall where they have access to real-world, discounted, cool, environmentally-friendly products and services from some of the top-ranked Green retailers in the country.   (Groupon.com is valued at $1.35 BB)  Wild Webbie’s site is patent-pending. 

Our business model is based on the two, most popular Tween, animal-themed sites, Webkinz valued at $2BB and Club Penguin, purchased by Disney in 2007 for $350MM.  However, unlike Wild Webbies, neither of these sites is Green or educational.  

Katie Cargill, JD, MA (Company Founder; Product Development, Sales and Marketing) Katie was a judicial law clerk for the 20^th Judicial District and for the 10^th Circuit.  She was the founder of Brief Busters, a unique concept for providing legal research and writing services to law firms, where she oversaw the work of 30 attorneys.  She continued her entrepreneurial endeavors by focusing on creating sustainable companies, including Wild Webbies.  

Bob Koenig (CEO/CFO)  Bob has 30 years of financial experience both domestically and internationally.  His background ranges from multi-billion dollar corporate roles to successful start-ups and consulting.  Bob has served on several Boards, both in the US and Europe, and has an (Executive) MBA from the University of Denver.     

Mark Baldwin (Lead Game Design Consultant) Mark has 30+ years of expertise in the computer Game Industry as a game designer and developer, consultant, manager, producer, educator and expert witness.  He is an educator and teacher active in development of undergraduate and graduate programs and curriculums for new technologies in computer entertainment and software engineering and development.  Mark was cited by the Computer and Gaming World as one of the top 20 game developers in the world. 

Dr. Susan Buhr, (Consultant/Providing Educational Science experts to Wild Webbies)  Dr. Buhr is the Director of CIRES Outreach Program, (Cooperative Institute for Research and Educational Science) at University of Colorado, Boulder.  CIRES works in cooperation with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder) CIRES strongly supports and encourages education programs for K-12 school districts, teachers and students in the environmental field.  

Jeffrey M. Quick (Outside Counsel) Jeff graduated Harvard Law School cum laude in 1997.  His expertise runs the gamut of corporate finance and acquisition transactions. He has represented issuers and underwriters in initial public offerings, secondary offerings and debt offerings and issuers, investors, and placement agents in private placements, with aggregate transaction values in excess of $3 billion.

Norman Gershenz, (Ecosystem/Wildlife Education Manager/Consultant) Norm is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Center for Ecosystem Survival-SaveNature.org in San Francisco.   He has worked with countless zoos, aquariums and museums in the US.

Dr. Marshall Haith, Ph.D, M.A.: (Children’s Game Development Consultant) Marshall Haith is Professor Emeritus and John Evans Professor at the University of Denver.  Dr. Haith’s expertise is in perceptual and cognitive development, and his research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, The MacArthur Foundation, The March of Dimes, and The Grant Foundation.  Dr. Haith has published numerous books and articles and has served as consultant for Children’s Television Workshop (Sesame Street), Bilingual Children’s Television, Time-Life, and several other organizations in his career of over 40 years.

Janette B. Benson, Ph.D. (Children’s Developmental Consultant) Janette B. Benson is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Denver.  Dr. Benson’s expertise is in cognitive and sensorimotor development in infancy and early childhood, and her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, The MacArthur Foundation and the March of Dimes.  Dr. Benson has published several articles, book chapters and has edited several books.  She was named as the 2000 CASE Colorado Professor of the Year, a Carnegie Scholar, and was recently honored by being named as a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Ernie Medina, Jr., (Health Promotion/Exercise/Lifestyle Specialist)  Ernie earned a Masters of Public Health in Health Promotion and a Doctorate of Public Health in Preventive Care from Loma Linda University School of Public Health in 1993. Since then, he has worked as a preventive care specialist in lifestyle medicine at Beaver Medical Group focusing on weight loss for adults and kids, stress management, and smoking cessation. Dr. Medina is also a clinical associate professor at Loma Linda University overseeing doctoral interns at the clinic. In 1998, Dr. Medina started to research the new field of "exergaming", the use of video games that require the player to move in order to play the video game. He helped start an exergaming gym based on this technology in 2005, and in 2009, helped co-found and is the CEO of MedPlay Technologies, which creates healthcare programs utilizing exergaming. He is involved in several exergaming research grants and sits on numerous boards, including Exergame Fitness and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He is a frequent speaker at video game conferences and health and fitness conferences alike, and is focused on merging the next generation of games for health technology with electronic medical records to enhance lifestyle behavior modification interventions.

Millions of grandparents – in particular grandmothers, play computer games with their grandchildren.  95 percent of the grandparents said the games provided an opportunity to “bond with, or better relate to” their grandchildren.  Nearly one-third indicated they played “family-friendly” puzzle, word and simple action games in their homes.  70 percent said they see casual games as providing valuable educational benefits.  They also saw benefits such as hand-eye coordination, learning and mental workouts.  94 percent said that at least part of their game-play interaction with their grandchildren was cooperative in nature – working together to solve puzzles, complete levels and so forth.  49 percent of grandmothers saw an increase in their grandchild’s level of interest and/or understanding in spelling, reading, vocabulary and/or history as a result of casual game play.  These benefits were observed far more frequently in children between the ages of 5 and 12 than in children aged 13 to 17.  66 percent of grandparents said they would welcome the use of casual games in their children’s schools.  For children with disabilities, the most common benefits of playing casual games were skill-building, hand-eye coordination improvement, positive reinforcement, stronger concentration and increased confidence.  (Grandparent News, Millions of Grandparents Playing Video Games with Grandkids, Aug. 30, 2007).

Global Market

Wild Webbies® will aggressively market its unique services to the families in the United States.  Additionally, we will include families in the Northern European market:  Norwegians, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, German, British and French.  These groups all speak English, are extremely game and family motivated and computer savvy. 

Market Opportunity

Research shows that the Tween extended-family will be drawn to our site for the following reasons:

• 65% of children aged 6 to 12 really liked the idea of linking a brand with endangered species.

(www.ZamWorks.com, 2007)

• 87% of Americans feel they are “concerned” about the environment.  
• 90% of Americans say it is important for companies to be mindful of their impact on the environment and society.  
• The environment has remained one of the top three concerns that consumers say they most want businesses to bear in mind. 
• 83% of consumers feel they have a more positive image of a company that supports a cause they care about. 
• 30% of American adults make purchasing decisions based on their personal, social and environmental values.  
• 76% of consumers would switch to a company associated with a good cause, if price and quality were equal.
• 66% of adults said they would switch brands – and 62% said they would switch retailers - to support a cause they care about. The demand for Green products and services is likely to increase within the next 15 to 24 years, as the 71 million members of Generation Y-born between 1977 and 1994-grow into positions of power as heads of both households and businesses.  They are the first entire generation to have been taught in school about the consequence of human actions on the planet’s vitality.  Our studies show that these younger adults, who will be the buyers of tomorrow, are much more willing to spend money for environmental products than their parents were. (Boulder Daily Camera, Eco-Friendly Tourism Takes Flight, July 29,2007)

Other Marketing Strategies

• Generate “free” publicity through publisher’s policies of marketing new businesses:

                      Parade magazine:  inserted every Sunday in nationally syndicated newspapers

• Initiate Tween discussion of our website on YouTube, FaceBook, etc.
• Green Retail support advertising campaign from inception of year one
• Attend game shows and functions that sponsor “Green” companies
• Publish articles written by educational and scientific consultants to the company
• Seek-out relationships with schools regarding our educational, science and math-based content and PE programs for obesity reduction thru exercise
• Personal appearance, endorsement by noted “Green” celebrities on FaceBook, YouTube encouraging Tweens and their families to join Wild Webbies’ Green initiatives and website
• Promote our site in Ranger Rick magazine
• Enlist the support of Moms and Grandmothers to market our site thru FaceBook, Twitter etc.
• Use our connection to the 200 zoos and aquariums that attract 175 million visitors a year to promote our site