When Providence high schooler Evan Perez realized that relying too much on computer screens could cause adverse effects for his younger twin siblings, he decided to do something about it.
With his friend Adrian Bautista, he launched a business called Color Your Life, which allows children to use AI technology to create personalized coloring books featuring pictures of their favorite real-life moments.
The idea recently earned Bautista and Perez first place in a national youth entrepreneurship competition. Bautista graduated from the MET High School last year; Perez is currently a senior there.
Morning Host Luis Hernandez spoke with Evan about Color Your Life. They were joined by Dr. J.D. LaRock, president and CEO of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), the nonprofit that organized the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge.
Interview highlights
On how he and Adrian got involved in the entrepreneurship challenge
Evan Perez: Our school (The MET High School) has an entrepreneurship center, and our teacher, Jodie Woodruff, the director of the entrepreneurship center, is an NFTE teacher. So we learn how to formulate a business plan; we learn how to pitch that business plan, then we get to move forward within the NFTE competition. So we won first place in Regionals and then we went to New York this October and we won first place there, too. And now we’re headed to Globals. So it’s really exciting.
On how he and Adrian came up with the idea for Color Your Life
Perez: My main passion is actually in psychology and education. So for me, entrepreneurship is really an amazing outlet for me to be able to solve a problem that I recognize. And this problem was in my own family. I have twin siblings and they have their tablets, and we didn’t recognize how it could harm them… We realize that excessive screen time in children can really have harmful effects, such as overstimulation, mental illness, and a lack of focus. And so when it comes to entrepreneurship, we entered with a problem already in mind, and it started off as a journal about mental well-being that eventually progressed into something more activity-like, something big, such as Color Your Life.
On how Color Your Life works
Perez: We are a subscription service that sells personalized coloring books. Families upload their pictures and then we convert them using our proprietary software into produced booklets that we deliver. And so not only is it an alternative source of entertainment to help balance that screen time in children, but it’s also valuable keepsakes for families to cherish.
Families send us their photos; they could be of vacations, it could be of memories, and it’s a 20-page subscription. So every month you’re receiving these coloring books delivered at your door. Not even just for kids, but also we want to get into nursing homes with the elderly, especially with dementia – we’ve heard this feedback from judges at the competition – so that they could color their memories through therapeutic activity.
On the long-term vision for Color Your Life
Perez: Our vision is for children and families across the country to be able to enjoy our product, to be able to cherish their keepsakes and color their memories. Our goal to do that is just by keep growing, keep scaling, by winning, and performing as best as we can in these competitions, and then working to build off of what we’ve already launched. We’ll be looking to scale in the fourth quarter.
I feel, personally – and I share the sentiment with my partner Adrian – (like) we’ve already won. So we want to keep working and we want to keep listening to the advice from our mentors. With their guidance, we could really innovate and scale and look towards investors and have access to all of these opportunities.
