Alumni Highlight: Planning Ahead
When Kyle Cole was a student at Northwest University, he studied as a history major before going on to get his Master’s in Business. It was at Northwest where he met his future business partner, Nick Vitellaro, who he shared a dorm with and was studying in the communications department at the time. It was Nick’s idea in 2018 that began their journey of creating a company together. At first, they had considered the idea a fun side project, but as time went on, it became clear that it needed to be more. Their Kickstarter became fully funded, artists were hired, their products continued to stay in high demand, and soon a full-fledged company was born.
The company is called Hero’s Journal, and as the title suggests, they sell a variety of journals and daily planners, with a twist. Each product follows the cartooned story of a character that stands as a placeholder for the reader. Every documented day in the planner or journal depicts a new piece of the hero’s journey, allowing the reader to follow this shared story until the end of the year. Their journals and planners have various storylines focusing on a hero called “Yew,” partaking in weekly quests within fantasy narratives. Currently they have two main storylines called “Istoria Magic Academy” and “The Legend of Istoria”, and they are working on a new story line featuring a sci-fi narrative.
Although the company had only just got off the ground before the events of Covid-19, the product demand remained steady throughout the past two years and has since garnered an increase in sales. In light of this success, Kyle and Nick have had to dodge offers from various corporate publishing companies. Kyle asserts that for both him and Nick, “we always say no because they want to take over production immediately. We care a lot about the overall look and feel of these journals because, at the end of the day, we want this to not just be a journal that you use, but as a way of telling a story. And we like to keep a close eye on the overall production quality of our products.”
To learn more about Kyle and Nick’s company and products, go to https://theherosjournal.co/