Take it from Big Bank Hank: “You have to have a goal, because if you aim at nothing ... you get nothing.”

        Sound advice, but financially, just how do you reach your goal?

        “Whenever I get some extra money,” Hank beams to his friends, “like allowance ... or doing stuff for my pop or working in my uncle's store, I deposit it in my savings account and let it earn interest until I have enough to get the things that I want.”

The powers behind Mini Moguls are Keith Brown (left), Rohena Miller, Carole Cobb and James Marshall. (Courier-Journal photo) | ZOOM |

        Smart kid, Big Bank Hank, who's not even a teen-ager yet. In fact, he's not a kid. He's a comic-book character.

        A group of Louisville entrepreneurs have breathed life into Hank and about a dozen other culturally diverse characters to teach youngsters about money management. They're also building what could become a multimillion-dollar venture.

        The creator and driving force behind Mini Moguls Inc. is James Marshall, a financial planner who wrote the story lines for three comic books about 10 years ago.

        Along the way, he has assembled an artist, an educator and a marketing expert, and the close-knit colleagues have spent countless hours, nights and weekends, working to fulfill a dream without giving up their day jobs.
       

Kids had interest

        Chapter One, Mr. Marshall said, began in 1989 when he was an insurance agent in Washington, D.C., and mentoring youngsters in schools.

Big Bank Hank stars in a comic book that teaches kids how to invest. | ZOOM |

        “I noticed that young people had an interest in investing but had no knowledge,” he said. “I saw a need.”

        That year, he wrote three stories dealing with savings, investing and entrepreneurship.

        In 1993, Mr. Marshall — a Louisville native and graduate of Western Kentucky University — moved back to Louisville to take a job as a financial planner. He owns Marshall & Associates, a financial planning branch of American Express Financial Advisors.

        After spending several years trying to find a way to illustrate his stories, “it really got off the ground” about two years ago, after he found an artist and someone to elevate his work into a teaching tool.

        In 1997, he finally persuaded Keith Henry Brown to illustrate the comic books.

        “At first I said no, but he was persistent,” Mr. Brown said. “Every time I saw him, he would ask about doing the books. He badgered me — but in a good way.”

        Mr. Brown studied art in New York in the 1970s, worked for Marvel Comics for a couple years in the 1980s and is print and graphic design manager for Churchill Downs racetrack.

        He left Marvel because “I got tired of doing other people's characters. I wanted to do my own characters.”

        Mr. Brown and Mr. Marshall became acquainted in the early 1990s when both did some free-lance writing for Action Pact, an African-American magazine.

        “When I found out what they were about — teaching kids — that's what really turned me on,” he said. “Then I got into the characters, based on his words, and it was like an epiphany. I was really doing good helping kids learn about money, not about some guy in his underwear saving the world.”

        He started on the illustrations in November 1998, working “whenever I had a minute, at least 25 to 30 minutes a night.” Overall, he estimates, it took about 50 hours per book, and it took about a year to complete all three.

        “I'm a real advocate for multiculturalism,” Mr. Brown said. “People of color need to understand that what they do as kids can affect their future.”
       

Teacher came aboard

        Also in 1998, Carole A. Cobb came aboard. An associate professor in the School of Education at Bellarmine College, she “added legitimacy to the books,” said Mr. Marshall, who had become her financial adviser in 1996.

        Ms. Cobb is a certified teacher with 22 years' experience with a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. For the comic books, she created accompanying student activities, worksheets and teacher guides.

        “I made it an educational tool,” she said. “The ultimate goal is to help students learn at an early age that they can control their financial situation rather than let the system control them.”

        The last piece of the puzzle is Rohena Miller, president of Niche Marketing, a public-relations and marketing firm that specializes in image building and brand establishment. Her clients include Blue Chip Broadcasting, Active Transportation Co. and USA Track and Field, a sports association in Indianapolis.

        “My role is to get the word out,” said Ms. Miller, who's been a friend of Mr. Marshall for more than 20 years. “I'm an entrepreneur, and to teach kids at an early age is very exciting.”

        Mr. Marshall “is the financial expert,” she said. “I'm the marketing expert, and Cobb is the educator. I make it look good. Cobb makes it sound good. James just makes it good. We work well as a team. We bring a lot to the table.”

        What they also brought to the table was seed money — more than $75,000 of their own.

        And a lot of hours and commitment.

        Mr. Marshall devotes about 15 hours a week to the Moguls. That's in addition to the 65 hours a week he spends on his regular job. “I'm doing it because I believe in financial planning.”
       

Aggressive promotion

        The comic books are marketed through Mini Moguls Inc., which was incorporated in 1999.

        “The characters portray kids who are small, they're young, and they want to be moguls,” Mr. Marshall said. “Hence, Mini Moguls.”

        To sell the books, Mr. Marshall and company have hit the road, promoting the books at educational conferences and trade fairs.

        “We're getting orders from all over the country,” Ms. Miller said.

        So far, Mr. Marshall said, Mini Moguls has sold about 1,900 units, enough to reach about 57,000 students. (One unit consists of 30 three-book sets.) And the comic books have gone out to six states: Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas and Illinois.

        “Our biggest orders — about 150 students — were in San Antonio,” Mr. Marshall said, but pending deals with several schools in Chicago have the potential to reach 5,000 more students.

        For now Mini Moguls is concentrating on its current products, but more are in the works.

        “By next year, we hope to be a household name around the country,” Ms. Cobb said.

        Mr. Marshall is trying to make a five-minute, Saturday-morning television cartoon based on the books, is thinking about having a CD-ROM and has begun thinking of a new comic book — Zoe, the Counting Countess, to teach 5- and 6-year-olds how to count.

        Because of marketing costs, the company is still losing money, Mr. Marshall said, but projections are for the enterprise to start making a profit by the end of June.

        Looking a couple of years down the road, Mr. Marshall said Mini Moguls could generate about $5 million a year in revenue and be worth about $25 million.

        “We anticipate that in about five years this company can be sold off, and then we can punch out with a nice sack of change and be free to work on something else,” he said.

        Mona Mo' Money would be proud.

        “All business, large and small, is based on the same principles,” she tells fellow character Big Shirley. “Buy low, sell high and present it to the people in a way that is appealing to them.”

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