I get asked a version of the same question a lot: "so how did you end up doing this?" Usually followed by "and how do you have time for it with three kids and a full client load?" (Short answer: I don't, not really. Longer answer below.)
Paper Goods didn't start as a business plan. It started because I've always been the person who buys a beautiful notebook and then feels too precious to write in it. I love stationery in a slightly unreasonable way. Good paper, a card that actually says something instead of just "Happy Birthday" in gold script, wrapping paper that makes the gift feel like an event rather than an afterthought grabbed at a petrol station. I wanted more of that in my own life, and I couldn't quite find it in the way I wanted.
I already had a foot in this world through work. I'm a Pinterest strategist by trade, and I'm an OBM (Online Business Manager, for anyone who's never heard the term and is now picturing something far more corporate than it is) for a few long-term clients, mostly other creative business owners. So I spend a lot of my working life inside other people's businesses, helping them run smoother, look better, get found. At some point I thought, well, I understand how this works, why not try it for myself.
That's the honest version. Not a lightbulb moment, not a "I quit my corporate job to follow my passion" story (I never really had the corporate job to quit). Just someone who liked stationery too much, understood a bit about how small businesses actually work, and had enough stubbornness to give it a go alongside everything else already on my plate.
And there is a lot already on my plate. I've got three kids. My eldest is 21 and doing his own thing now, which is a strange and lovely stage where you go from managing someone's entire life to just... phonecalls and hoping they're eating vegetables. My other two are 9 and 7, which is a different kind of busy, the kind that involves a lot of forgotten PE kits and last-minute costume requests for World Book Day that I definitely knew about two weeks in advance and definitely did not act on until the night before.
So Paper Goods happens in the gaps. Early mornings before school runs. School hours when I'm not deep in client work. The odd evening when everyone's finally asleep and I tell myself I'll "just quickly" sort orders and then look up and it's been two hours and I'm now deeply invested in redesigning the packaging for the fourth time.
I don't run this like a big slick operation, and I'm not trying to right now. There's no team behind me packing your orders, it's me, in my sons bedroom (which is now my office while he’s away), usually with a cup of tea that's gone cold because I got distracted. If you've ordered from us, there's a genuinely decent chance I hand-wrote something on your package, not because it's a "brand touchpoint" (I promise I don't think in those terms) but because it felt like the right thing to do.
What I actually design and sell, if you're new here: gift wrap and greetings cards that don't feel like an afterthought, undated planners and notebooks for the grown-ups and the kids in your life, and small paper crafts and gifts for when you need something thoughtful without needing a whole shopping trip. I'm also working on a few bundles at the moment, more on those soon, but the short version is: less last-minute panic, more "oh, I've actually got that covered."
If you're a fellow small business owner reading this and wondering whether you've got the time, the setup, the right circumstances to start something of your own: I didn't have those either. I had a stubborn love of nice paper and an evening or two a week. Turns out that was enough to start with. The rest you figure out as you go, usually while also finding a missing PE T-shirt.
Kate x
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