Yahoo Finance How BBC host Emma Barnett and her husband are colouring in the streets of London
For this week’s Ambition A.M. founder profile, Jennifer Sieg sits down with the co-founders of hyper-local colouring book series Colour Your Streets. Here’s how BBC presenter Emma Barnett and her husband Jeremy Weil turned an art project into a growing side hustle.
BBC Radio 4 presenter Emma Barnett and her husband Jeremy Weil smile as they tell me an impromptu colouring activity for their five-year-old son had unexpectedly led them both on the journey to entrepreneurship.
The two had just returned home from a stroll through their south London neighbourhood when they decided to print off one of the photographs they took to give their son an evening art project.
Little did they know, their toddler’s immediate interest to learn more about his local neighbourhood by scribbling on some of his favourite Herne Hill landmarks would soon turn into a publishing business – now known as Colour Your Streets – later that same year.
Barnett and Weil founded Colour Your Streets in 2023, a hyper-local colouring book series dedicated to educating youngsters and nostalgic adults alike on UK neighbourhoods, cities and landmarks.
Having now seen direct-to-consumer sales jump 250 per cent and a 400 per cent surge in trade orders over the past three months alone, the co-founding pair seem pretty optimistic about international expansion, too.
“When you have children, they certainly help – help me at least – see the world in a new light,” Weil, 39, says.
“Your children love the areas that they know really well and that really matters to them, the small things mean something to them.”
The beginning of a ‘love letter’ to London
For Barnett, 39, a well-regarded fixture of the British news media and recently installed as a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme, it’s a chance to tell stories.
“I love design and I love telling stories and I love bringing things to life — that’s the part I play in this,” Barnett says, with a smile.
When she started to search the publishing landscape for similar ideas, however, she was surprised to find such a lack of hyper-local offerings.
“I looked it up and thought, well, it must exist to colour in Herne Hill, Brixton, and Dulwich and it didn’t,” Barnett adds.
“Having had exposure to the publishing market, I thought it was fascinating that only very general and generic colouring-in books for children were available.”
The first Colour Your Streets books were dedicated to their own neighbourhood in Brixton and Herne Hill. That has grown to 63 titles across all of London, with some now branching out into Manchester and Liverpool and even Brooklyn, New York.
With interest continuing to grow throughout the UK and beyond, the two tell me they’re adding an average of 10 titles each month.
“We’re going to grow dramatically, we’re probably going to triple what we’ve already got around the UK in terms of coverage of cities and towns and villages,” Weil says.
Organic growth
Who needs a hefty marketing budget when so many Londoners already love London?
A keen interest in the product grew rapidly from the start, especially once the two began hand delivering their first few batches of books to the independent shops around each neighbourhood.
“We started by printing a very, very small number of books,” Weil says.
“The first thing we did was actually take some of those books to local gift shops – it just resonated with them immediately.”
Barnett, who believes the success of their repeating trade customers and growing consumer interest stems from a “real sense of entrepreneurialism” in London, says when an idea is good, the power of word-of-mouth marketing can be a game changer.
The next step on the list is getting their books into the school system.
“We think it helps with their [children’s] sense of location and geography and knowledge and they act as really good talking points,” Weil says.
“Not just the skill to colour in and develop those sort of key motor skills, but also to be able to talk about the areas in a way that mean something to them and the history of the area too.”
What’s next?
Balancing a 5-9 with a 9-5 is no easy feat – with Barnett hosting one of the UK’s most listened to radio programmes and Weil working as head of product at The Economist Intelligence Unit – especially with two little ones of their own to take care of.
Fortunately, with the start-up having hit the ground running already, the future seems bright.
“All the tools that entrepreneurs have at their fingertips to find freelancers, to find printers, you can do it from anywhere and do it quickly and you can do it pretty cheaply,” Weil says.
The two have already secured a trusted line art illustrator and a sustainable printer in the heart of Hertfordshire to meet their current demand, but learning how to manage the growing pains – and at an international scale – is certainly next.
When you love what you do and have an eye for opportunity, however, the two say anything can be possible.
CV
Name: Emma Barnett
Company: Colour Your Streets
Founded: 2023
Staff: 2
Title: Co-founder
Age: 39
Born: Manchester
Lives: London
Studied: History and Politics at Nottingham University
Talents: drawing, asking questions and making a perfectly brewed cup of tea
Motto: Those that matter know, those who don’t, dont
Most known for: getting to the point
First ambition: To act
Favourite book: The Baby on the Fire Escape, Julie Phillips
Best piece of advice: Nap. Regularly.
CV
Name: Jeremy Weil
Company: Colour Your Streets
Founded: 2023
Staff: 2
Title: Co-founder
Age: 39
Born: New York
Lives: London
Studied: Business and Management at Nottingham University
Talents: Cocktail-making, drumming and sorting holidays
Motto: Anything is better than nothing
Most known for: being an excellent human climbing frame for our two children and their friends (and needing more sleep)
First ambition: Running a bar (which I now do with my brother in the City – it’s a live music bar called Syp – come and have a jar)
Favourite book: Imperium – Robert Harris
Best piece of advice: After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it.