Dreams and Delivery
Real stories from tech pros who deliver at work and dream beyond it. We cover the tech landscape in an age of AI with layoffs and opportunities that come from change.
Dreams and Delivery
Nicole Rykbos: Sealybooks - Creating in Your Own Voice
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This is a conversation about creating from identity instead of approval: what it looks like to weave your grandfather's WWII story and your family's traditions into work for the next generation, how to use AI as a tool without losing your own voice in it, and the unglamorous research (licensing fine print, ownership rights) that protects years of creative work before you ever publish a thing.
At nine years old, Nicole Rykbos was already building databases for her family's business and making up stories to entertain a houseful of cousins whenever the Nintendo broke. Decades later, those two instincts collided into Sealybooks Studios, a catalog of children's books, music, and animation rooted in Filipino culture, built nights and weekends alongside a full-time tech career.
Bonus: Nicole is currently developing a cat-themed fairy tale series that teaches kids, parents, and grandparents how to spot scams — proof that even the most serious lessons can start with a love-bombing cat prince.
About Nicole Rykbos
Nicole Rykbos is a tech PM and the founder of Sealybooks Studios, where she writes, produces, and animates children's books, music, and family content rooted in Filipino storytelling. She built her career across health communications, healthcare, and fintech before turning Sealybooks from a side project into a full creative catalog. Beyond her own books, she partners with the nonprofit Team Only Stronger on child safety storytelling, including "Warrior Princess Bunny," with proceeds supporting their mission.
Connect with Nicole: Sealybooks.com | Instagram @sealybookstudios | YouTube @sealybookstudios
About your host
Christine Kahn is a Staff Technical Program Manager with 12+ years leading AI platforms and program delivery at Intuit, OpenTable, 20th Century Fox, and Realtor.com; and a musician and soundbath practitioner outside of it.
Connect: linkedin.com/in/christinekahn | christinekmusic.com | bio.site/dreamsanddelivery
© 2026 Dreams and Delivery LLC. All rights reserved.
Welcome to Dreams and Delivery, a podcast for tech professionals and real stories for people who deliver at work and dream beyond it. I'm your host, Christine Conn. By day, I'm a staff and technical program manager at Big Tech. And by night, I'm a musician and a sound bath meditation practitioner. Welcome to Dreams and Delivery. This is a conversation about what it looks like to stop creating for approval and start creating from identity and the tools, mindset, and creative infrastructure that make it sustainable alongside a full-time career. Nicole Reichbos is an author, publisher, producer, and animator behind Seely Books, a creative universe of children's books, original music, animations, and family-friendly content rooted in Filipino culture and storytelling. She's also a tech PM, a musician, and someone who spent years figuring out how to build a body of work that's genuinely hers. Nicole, so nice to see you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Christine. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Nicole and I worked together back in FinTech. Over the years, we kept in touch when we realized that we had music and the Filipino culture in common. And it's just so nice to reconnect with you and see what you've built during this time. So if you could walk us through your path, how did you end up in tech and when did Sealy Books start taking shape?
SPEAKER_01When I was nine, I started actually building databases for my family's group purchasing organization, which was later sold to Metassets. And apparently, because normal kids were playing outside, I was having fun color coding and organizing data inside for my family's company. So that's how I got started in tech. So as they were building that company, I kind of snuck in and would build databases and help with like website design back in the 90s when I didn't really know what was happening yet. So kind of got my foot in the door there. And then at the same time, I was constantly writing my own stories and poems to entertain my family of 34 first cousins and 11 uncles and aunties constantly, or to entertain my brother and sister whenever our Nintendo wasn't working right and you know, hitting things and trying to blow into the Sega wasn't working, then I would make stuff up for us to do because that's all you could do back then. And then professionally, I ultimately studied health communications and got my master's in health administration, but also tried to keep the creative side of that. So I would still make books on the side. But then eventually, once my healthcare and fintech career started to adjust a little bit, then I started to actually do more with Sealy books. So it started as a side project and then slowly became something a lot bigger. Eventually I realized I wasn't just publishing books, I was really creating a home for all my stories and music and animation and ideas that could really help people learn or laugh or just relax. And I always had a way of organizing and entertaining when I was growing up. And this opportunity kind of developed and really allows me to bring all those skill sets together, which is great. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Can you share a bit of how your cultural identity gets woven into your creations?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I am half Filipino, and so much of my childhood was shaped by my large family gatherings with a lot of rice and karaoke and music. And as I started to help my brother and sister, help them with my nieces and nephews and help raise them, I started to notice that a lot of the media content didn't have a lot of the Filipino culture influences that I wanted them to learn about. I grew up with it. They don't have the experiences that I had, mostly because back then we had to just physically see each other. Whereas right now it's all Zoom calls with their aunties and uncles, right? So I wanted them to learn more about their Filipino culture and have more pride in knowing where their family and like this Filipino culture pride like came from, right? Because my grandma and grandma grandpa like passed away. I want them to know about the story about how my grandpa fought in World War II, was a cook in World War II, and all just from that moment, that's what brought him to America, right? And so it's really noticing how to bring those stories and history to life in a fun and entertaining way that is easy enough for a kid to digest. Because if a kid can digest it, then someone older can digest it and grandparents. And so that's where where it really came from, especially since, like I said, my grandma's not with us anymore. So I want all of her stories to still stay with them. I want them to know that it was really hard living in the Philippines during World War II. This is what it was like. This is what your grandma gave you, you know. So there were times when I was talking to a couple of my nephews and I told them that they're a one-quarter Filipino, and they just said, What's that? Like, you know, and they're like, No, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm like, yes, you are. You have to know where you come from because our family has worked so hard just to get where we're at. And I think also just helping them to build that gratitude more. Because a lot of the younger generations don't have that anymore. I guess that's where it came from, where the motivation is.
SPEAKER_00I I love hearing the story. Uh, your grandfather was a cook. You know, I had no idea. I remember you mentioned that you were thinking of maybe making a cookbook down the line. And I wonder if if that would have some of his recipes, possibly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, possibly. I mean, I I don't have any of his exact recipes, but I think that's probably where my love of cooking came from. So I experiment a lot with patisse. I don't know if you cook with patisse. It's like a fish sauce. And so I've yeah, I'm I feel like I'm cooking a lot of my southern comfort crock pot recipes and then mixing in a little bit of Filipino influence with it. So I'll make a chicken cine gung, maybe that's chicken noodle soup, but with a cine gung packet. Or I'll make a southern meatloaf with uh a lumpia package. So it's like lumpia tasting with the meat, but then I'll use the Filipino banana ketchup on top. So it's like a Filipino meatloaf.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and for for those who don't know what lumpia is, it's kind of like an egg roll or Filipino style of egg roll. Yeah, yeah. I've noticed you're just really intentional about what you're creating and just you're building the whole infrastructure for not just the books, but even beyond it. And I just love how you have that instinct to dream big and strategize for future growth. Because even when we were chatting recently and I was telling you about my podcast, you'd given me some great suggestions of hey, you could totally write a book about some of that someday, or you could write a course about how to build podcasts to help other creators. And I I've actually been starting to document my process a little more intentionally after that. And I'm testing out a Claude skill that I'm building that I could share with other creators. So you got the you got the gears going, but uh I love how you just do it naturally. And um maybe you could share, share more about how you know how you built this and how AI has helped you and and some of the intentionality about your process.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I guess the process really just comes from where the need is, whether it's the story that's needed or a lesson that's needed. And it started really with my small group of friends. So a lot of my friends are having kids right now, and a lot of them are struggling with oh, so and so can't share very well, or so-and-so doesn't know how to say please or thank you very well. And so the creative side, I kind of pulled those ideas with what the need is within my social circle. Sorry, within my social circle to then develop, okay, where are they at right now? What are they using right now? So for instance, my sister uses her phone and pulls up YouTube to put in front of her kids whenever we're at the restaurant. And that tells me, okay, it looks like parents are going to need an animation and possibly even a book to get them away from screen time for a little bit. And so it's really just figuring out what's needed and then what is the most efficient way to procure that? For example, with my animations, I did a lot of research on what would the best animator product be? Where can I own the licensing after subscribing to it? Those are things that I have to think about. And then on top of that, how much time is it going to take for me to produce this? Is this something that someone else can learn about or that someone can use? So a lot of it goes into if you go back to the project management. I have my idea. For example, with my sister and her kids not learning to say please and thank you. Okay, have the idea. Let's test it out. What's going to work? Let's have the book, let's have the animation, which one of these? So it's really doing things to test. I'm constantly testing things out. And then maybe I'll expand upon it if it's really, really successful or if I'm getting a lot of people that like said idea or said project. But yeah, it's really trying to be strategic and really knowing that AI tools are tools. Anything creative behind it, there it's called a prompt engineer, right? So the AI prompt engineer, they're the ones that are behind it and fueling it and creating it. I I think a lot of people don't understand that it's not entirely AI created, a lot of these things. Like a lot of it is you come up with a story, you have the idea, and then it kind of helps guide you towards the best path moving forward. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And and going back to creating in your own voice, you you train the AI to have your tone and to craft things a certain way, and you're giving that feedback over time so that it really sounds more like you and your message. But yeah, definitely it's it is a tool, you know, that can can help things move faster. Like I'm using this Riverside FM to record this session and you know, testing it out to see, well, this is going to help with the sound quality. But you know, it it's it's like you said, it's just constant testing and iterating and seeing what sticks. But I love how it just starts from a need and an idea and something that is, you know, meeting what is part of your your belief and mission, which I think is a good segue into how you're partnering with uh the team only stronger. Could you tell us more about that partnership and and how that came about?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, so Team Only Stronger, they are great partners. And my cousin is actually the one who developed this team. They're a local, not-for-profit organization in San Diego. And I was just trying to come up with a way to help them in any way that I could. So they're really trying to help reduce and prevent child abuse in the communities. And I know it's a very like touchy topic that nobody wants to talk about. And so I helped them create a story. I think it maybe took me a couple of days about body safety. And I I talked to his daughter, who was um unfortunately impacted. And that's why he created this whole team, not for profit for her, to give her strength and help her and help her share her story in preventing this from happening to other kids. And so I helped her create the story, and then she actually created the illustrations for this book. And I asked her, What's her favorite animal? And she said, a bunny. And so I was like, okay, let's do warrior princess bunny because you're stronger from this and you're gonna be a warrior now. And that, yeah, she just loved it. And I think it sold over a hundred books or something on Amazon. So I gave them that story. All the proceeds for that story go towards team only stronger. And I created an animated story for them too. If they wanted to share that, so then they'd have the book and the animation if they wanted to just show it. But I think helping people even a little bit in that way, it just makes all this work worth it, right? Even if just like one kid actually understands this is not supposed to happen, that means I'm a success, right? And so I'm integrating team only stronger information in all of the books and trying to integrate them in all the animations I'm doing to help with that message and and help get that through to other communities just to help for the future. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for sharing about that. Yeah. I don't know how you balance it all between your tech work and all of the creating on the side. Any tips that you would share with others who want to do a little more of the same?
SPEAKER_01I would say do a little bit at a time for everything that you do. So for instance, in my music, I might create develop one song a day, and then I might develop one story a day, or maybe write one page for a book a day. It'll eventually come together. And a lot of people just give up because it's really hard if you try to do it in one day, right? But uh just giving yourself a little bit of grace, I think, is advice I would tell people. 1% better looks different to other people, right? So if you say this person worked out for an hour, so that means they worked out. Well, to me, working out is doing maybe 16 squats, and I called, I checked that, check that off the list, and that tells me I worked out. I did something to work out, right? And so, especially for overachievers and type A personalities, I'm reaching out to you and saying, give yourself a little bit more grace. I know it's hard to not be hard on yourself, but just do a little bit each day, and that will help your brain check the task list off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is about consistency, right? And just kind of forming that muscle, building that habit a little bit at a time, then just gets easier and easier to thread it into your day-to-day.
SPEAKER_01And rewarding yourself with like a boba or a snack also helps. I love food, so that helps you.
SPEAKER_00What's exciting you for Seely books? What's coming up next that you've been working on?
SPEAKER_01My goodness. I am very excited, which I'm I'm working on it right now. It's a lot, but I'm in uh the process of creating a uh scam fairy tale book with cats. So my gosh. It is going to be fairy tale rhyming stories that teaches kids, parents, grandparents about what could potentially happen with tech. So, for instance, one of the stories is about the love bombing. So there's a love-bombing cat prince and the princess, and how what do you do? You're not supposed to click on it, you're not supposed to give them any information. So at the end of each of the fairy tales, it'll tell you the tech safety tips of where you might see this, what not to do, and then it'll list them all at the end of the story. But then I want to create an animation for that to help parents, grandparents, kids learn about tech safety and scams because there's nothing right now that helps teach them about scams and it's impacting so many people, but people don't want to say, well, I've been scammed before because it's kind of embarrassing, you know? Like, and so I want to help try to save maybe one person from getting scammed in the future and gonna deal with cat stories. Very excited about it.
SPEAKER_00It's so important for children to learn this, to make this accessible to them. I was just recording the episode before this, and we were talking a bit about how he has a child and what is learning going to look like for them. And you know, he's two years old right now, but he's hoping that by the time that he's in school, maybe some better systems are in place to protect the learning. Because with AI, it's very easy to skip the learning part and just say, Well, why do I have to do this when I can just click a button, you know? Versus there's still an element of thinking that needs to happen to build that skill before you can really leverage all of these tools.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But it's almost like we need to have like a 90s camp where kids don't have AI, you're gonna have books, you're gonna have to research with the books, go to the library, you know, print things off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's it's so hard because there's there's an element that you can't control. Like they're going to see these these iPhones and and other devices everywhere they go. And my brother and my younger sister both had children this earlier this year, and already I see the child's desire to just look at that bright screen while they're looking, you know, they're using the phone themselves. And it it's just so hard. I don't know, I don't know how how parents are going to do it now and keep them shielded.
SPEAKER_01Because on one hand, you want them to be in front of the tech because that's how they're going to potentially learn in elementary school, right? They might have an iPad or a laptop instead of the books that we carried. So you want them to learn about the same time. You are like, how am I going to shield them from XYZ?
SPEAKER_00It's almost almost like guardrails. I think back to us growing up with with computers and YouTube and everything, and having at least screen time limits or something around that where parental controls could be added. But yeah, it is definitely an interesting space to solve for. And I'm glad that we have someone like you creating good content for it and you know, helping to tell those stories that that children need to hear and help them get ready for the real world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I know this book that I create's probably going to be out of date in a matter of months, but at least I can share what stories have or could potentially happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01To help them learn.
SPEAKER_00One thing that I wanted to ask you to share here was about how when you were exploring licensing tools to use, you came across one where if you stop the subscription, it wouldn't allow you to own your your content anymore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So whenever I was trying to look for a music tool, for example, there are music tools where you have to keep the subscription in order to continue to own the license. Wow. So I learned about that actually watching a YouTube video on AI music platforms. And so if I hadn't done that, then I would have never learned that if I stopped the subscription, then I no longer own the music. So all this hard work producing, distributing it, I don't own it anymore after. And so I had to kind of like backtrack and say, okay, let's start from the very beginning and let's find a different platform where I will still own the license and I will still own the music even if I stop my subscription. And so I found another platform where I can actually physically download the license for each song. So I own it and have it, which is really reassuring. So I guess my advice is to really read the fine print and do your research. And in creative work compounds over time, which you well know with all of your creative endeavors. So it's really worth understanding exactly what rights you're keeping before investing a bunch of hours into a project. I know it's not the most exciting part of creating things, but I would rather share this lesson with someone to step back and read the fine print first rather than doing all this work and then having to backtrack and getting disheartened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wow, definitely into your research, my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00One thing that that I have been thinking about lately is I saw a friend recently post about how she learned that her music creations had been used to train an AI model without her knowledge or consent. And I mean, it just begs that question of what is really okay here and how can you make sure that your work is protected as an artist? I don't know what the answer is, but it's definitely just been on my mind lately of, you know, in some ways I'm really happy to use these these AI tools because it allows my flow to go faster, but I do wonder is that going to remain my content or once I train the model, is it just basically out in the universe? And I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's yeah, that's something that I've always thought about too. And with these music platforms, I've noticed that there's uh an ability to publish something which on on that platform, which can help bring more visibility to your name, but then that also gives other people the ability to take that song and maybe replicate it or do something else. So I've been kind of leery about publishing my work directly on the platform. So I guess maybe that's my way of trying to avoid that scenario and just distributing it directly on a separate platform. I don't know if that works.
SPEAKER_00Great insight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not exactly.
SPEAKER_00It's hard because a lot of people are already on those platforms. And especially starting out, you want to make sure you reach as wide an audience as you can. At least that's what's been on my mind. But I do think of, say, Taylor Swift, who ended up re-recording some of her albums just to get it off a certain publisher. And perhaps down the line when we have notoriety and fame, then we can consider getting off the platforms to protect our intellectual content better. But I'll definitely keep researching on this. And um, thanks for sharing your your tips and how you're making it work for you. Where can people find you if they want to get in touch and if they want to read your books, listen to your music?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the easiest place to go to is SealyBooks.com. So that's the hub where my Amazon link is all my YouTube channels, SealyBooks and my Jazz Castle Ambience, or they can connect with me on LinkedIn. And there's also a link on there for only stronger.org. If they want to learn more.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Thanks so much, Nicole.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00To everyone listening, if this resonated, subscribe and share it with someone who needs it. I'm Christine Kahn. And this is Dreams and Delivery.