I've enjoyed watching bilingual children’s book publisher, Bitty Bao (@Bitty.Bao) grow since I first discovered them on Instagram in 2020. Seeing their journey from just three books and a few hundred followers to over 48 book ISBNs, 16.5k followers, being featured on TV and radio shows, and winning the 2024 UPS Store Small Biz Challenge has been truly inspiring. Lulu and Lacey's hard work and dedication is evident, and I'm incredibly grateful they took time out of their busy schedules to participate in this interview!
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Bitty Beginnings
Lacey Benard and Lulu Cheng met and became friends in 2006 as first-year teachers. Despite eventually moving away from each other, getting married, and having kids, their shared passion for education and culture reunited them in 2019 to form Bitty Bao. Lulu sums up their goal in her “Who is Lulu?” blog post:
“I felt passionate about creating high-quality, engaging, and culturally relevant Chinese bilingual books for Chinese speaking families, non-Chinese speaking families, and families like mine. These books needed to include all of the necessary language elements to support each family member wherever they may be in their language learning journey – engaging pictures for the youngest of readers, 拼音(pīn yīn) for non-native speakers, and traditional characters with 注音 (zhù yīn) for those who are native Chinese speakers or learning to read Chinese. And without even realizing it, the first half of what would soon become the motivation for Bitty Bao was sparked...”
Read more about their origin story here.
The First Books
Bitty Bao launched with three Mandarin board books in Fall 2020, featuring Traditional Chinese Characters, Pinyin, Zhuyin, and English. Each Bitty Bao book has multiple educational layers in addition to language learning, while including Chinese cultural elements (especially foods!). The adorable papercutting and black sharpie illustrations make Bitty Bao books instantly recognizable.
Why did you select papercutting as your illustration style? What is the process for creating the illustrations for a Bitty Bao book?
Lacey: Papercutting has been something I have always enjoyed. When I was in middle and high school, I would spend hours scrapbooking by hand. Paper, Sharpie, and scissors, those were my only materials and I made it work. Years went by where I was disconnected from my art, but found myself picking it back up again when I was away at grad school. Missing my friends and life back in LA, feeling more academic and emotional stress than I had ever experienced before, I found myself one day on the subway to a Michaels craft store. I probably spent an hour walking the aisles picking up supplies. Long story short, papercutting art holds a very special place in my heart.
When Lulu asked me to start a "no-time hobby with her" (haha), the only art skills I had to offer her were papercuttings. Luckily, she thought they were cute, and we moved forward with the hand-cut papercuttings in all of our board books.
Introduction of Simplified Characters
and Cantonese Versions
Round 2 launched in January 2021, focusing on Chinese holidays. Following that, Round 3, “the foodie round,” was released in October 2021, introducing the option of Mandarin with Simplified Characters. In March 2022, Bitty Bao expanded further by launching Cantonese versions for some books. Round 4, released in August 2022, featured three books celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. Round 5, “the Taiwan round”, arrived in October 2022 bringing the Bitty Bao collection to 15 books. At that time, each book was available in Mandarin with Traditional Characters, Mandarin with Simplified Characters, and several had Cantonese options.
I remember you created an interest form for those who wanted Cantonese versions and it blew up. Were you surprised about the amount of interest? How did you create the Cantonese translations of your books?
Lacey: Bitty Bao has always been a passion project for Lulu and me in which we didn’t have a solid plan of how, when, or if we would ever expand. As we began to get requests for Cantonese titles, Lulu and I both felt out of our realm. Lulu speaks and reads Mandarin and although I am Cantonese, I unfortunately do not have Cantonese language skills. Regardless, we wanted to see what the interest was in such a project. To our surprise, within 1.5 months of an interest form being up, over 400 families had not only signed up but also sent the sweetest messages of encouragement and hope that we would fill this need for their community. How could we say no? From there, we sought out to find a translation lead (Eveline Yu from Yuto Books & RnR) as well as a supporting team. They worked together to translate the books into Cantonese - Traditional characters with Jyutping, with accompanying bilingual audio files. Today, Cantonese books are some of our most in-demand items that we sell!
Product Expansion into Wooden Toy Sets
Although they had previously released limited edition felt food sets, Bitty Bao launched their first official toy set in August 2022: a 13-piece wooden, magnetic mooncake set designed to complement the Round 4 books, especially “Mooncakes.” Following this, they introduced several other beautifully crafted wooden toys, including a grill and skewer set (no longer available) paired with “Skewers” from Round 5, a Dim Sum set paired with “Counting with Dim Sum” from Round 1, a three-generational Asian doll family paired with “Celebrating Chinese New Year” from Round 2, and an impressive 40-piece hot pot set paired with “It’s Hot Pot Time” from Round 3. All these toys are made from high-quality wood and painted with non-toxic paints, serving as perfect expansion activities to the books.
What challenges did you face in expanding your products from books into toy sets and how did you overcome them?
Lacey: Anytime you add a new product to your line, there are challenges! A new manufacturer that you need to find, vet, and then build a relationship with, a new form of shipping logistics, new ways to design, submit your files, and new specifications to be aware of to make your product functional… the list goes on and on. Toys are no different - the learning curve was steep. The thing about our toy line is that they truly are a reflection of toys that fill Lulu and my own souls and wishes for our kids. We wanted to thoughtfully create and bring to life toys our hearts were aching to have, so where there’s a will, there’s a way! All of our toys are based on the art from our books, so that has always been our starting point. From there, we come up with a concept design and then work with our manufacturer through many pass-throughs until we come to a final design we love. It takes many months to get everything lined up to our liking; we’re extremely picky about every little detail!
Lil’ Libros Strategic Partnership
In October, 2022 Bitty Bao announced a strategic partnership with Lil’ Libros, the top bilingual children’s media publisher and creators of the bilingual Spanish books that were the original inspiration for Bitty Bao.
How has Bitty Bao grown and improved as a result of the strategic partnership with Lil’ Libros?
Lacey: Our strategic partnership has blessed us with two strong and experienced mentors within the literary world. Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein, founders of Lil’ Libros, have literally walked the walk that Lulu and I are hoping to. They’re both mamas of small children creating bilingual products in a world that needs them, yet they haven't historically been embraced and valued by the Big 5 publishing companies and the big box stores. Lil’ Libros has been able to help guide and advise us, help us get into mass distribution, and have been very supportive in connecting us with others who help to bring light to our growing brand.
Reimagined Books
In April 2023, Bitty Bao began releasing reimagined versions of each round of their original books. These reimagined editions are larger and feature enhanced designs, improving both readability and overall visual appeal. Think of them like Taylor’s Versions – the same beloved content, but refined with more experience and skill. As of now, Bitty Bao has re-released 12 books from Rounds 1-4, available in three formats: Mandarin with Traditional characters, Zhuyin, and Pinyin; Mandarin with Simplified characters and Pinyin; and Cantonese with Traditional characters and Jyutping.
What motivated you to re-release your previous books? What did the re-design process look like?
Lacey: Moving into mass distribution meant that it was time for our bitty books to evolve to a more polished, bookstore bookshelf quality print. Wanting to ensure that our books didn’t get buried behind others on the shelves, we increased our book size, worked with a graphic designer to update the color palettes, and received input and support in modifying some of our internal formatting. It was an interesting process to open our books up to feedback from graphic designers (remember, when we created them, it was merely a hobby and limited by my own visual intuition as I don’t have any formal art training). In ways, it was definitely challenging as art is such a personal thing and we were so used to seeing it a certain way; however, at the end of the day, it was amazing to see how beautifully the improvements were for our books, and we love them even more now.
The UPS Store Small Business Challenge
This past May, Bitty Bao won the 2024 UPS Store Small Biz Challenge.
What was the journey from entering to winning the Small Biz Challenge like? What did you learn and how does the win help further Bitty Bao’s goals?
Lacey: The UPS Store Challenge was a wild experience. We entered at the last minute on a whim, were selected as a top 9 finalist, and had a month of weekly social media challenges. We were mentored by the amazing Chris Do. While we were on a flight together to New York for a CBS news interview, we were notified that we made it to the top three, and I would be heading to Miami to compete for the top spot. I cried on the airplane. The weekly challenges had been tough; balancing mom life, keeping regular Bitty Bao tasks afloat, and adding on the content creation and mentoring calls for the Challenge had our plates overflowing. But what we really got out of it was that building a brand is about storytelling, drawing people into what and why you are doing what you are doing, and letting people hear who you truly are. Our time learning from Chris was inspiring and so helpful to us.
I also cried when our name was called at the finals announcing that Bitty Bao had won the Small Biz Challenge. The emotions were high as it was a surreal moment to realize that something that Lulu and I literally built with our two hands in the middle of the night from our homes was getting national recognition because others loved our story, what we were building, and wanted to continue to encourage us to grow. We definitely walked away with a new sense of confidence and overall validation that what we are doing over here at Bitty Bao is supported and loved by more than just our customer base.
Expansion and Collaborations
Bitty Bao has always made board books with Lacey’s signature cut paper illustrations. This past June, they announced their first picture book, “The Legend of Chang’e: A Story of the Mid-Autumn Festival”, created in collaboration with Ling and Eric Lee of Learn Chinese with Tofu.
With the expansion of Bitty Bao now to include new authors and book formats, what is your vision for Bitty Bao in the next 5 years?
Lacey: As our bitty bookmaking journey grew, Lulu and I knew that we wanted to help lift other stories, points of view, authors, and illustrators into the spotlight. We are so excited to announce that Bitty Bao is expanding to picture books and so proud to introduce new voices to our community! Bitty Bao is now a publisher, signing new authors and illustrators to help us create more Bitty Bao books to share with our community.
What in your journey as small business owners are you most proud of?
Lacey: Lulu and I have been so fortunate to have had so many highs in our bitty bookmaking journey in the last 3.5 years. We have sold over 90,000 books to date, we have 16 titles, over 48 book ISBNs, 4 wooden toys, have traveled to various states with our books, have our books being sold worldwide, been featured on the news, radio, and have won a nationwide contest. We did all this without any formal business or art training; we did this as stay-at-home moms of young children, and half of our experience was during the pandemic.
All that being said, Lulu and I would be most proud of the fact that we get to share this experience with our children. Ella, Lukie, Madeline, and Nicolas have grown up with Bitty Bao and seen Lulu and I pour our hearts and souls into every facet of our small business. They have seen the hard work, dedication, time, and challenges. They have been able to learn from experience and observation that if they put their hearts and dedication towards something, they can always find a way to succeed. Being able to share these experiences with them will hopefully inspire them to follow their dreams as they grow older.
Follow Bitty Bao at @Bitty.Bao on Instagram to stay up-to-date on what they're doing next! Shop at BittyBao.com or on Amazon.
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