When Bronwen and Johnny returned to New Zealand to start their family, they found themselves constantly on the hunt for beautiful, meaningful greeting cards-only to be met with uninspired designs and imports that didn’t reflect the local spirit. What began as a simple desire to have cards on hand for life’s little moments turned into The Paper People: a heartfelt, homegrown business creating sustainably printed, thoughtfully designed cards that help people stay connected. From their cosy home studio in Dunedin, Bronwen and Johnny are proving that a small idea, paired with passion and purpose, can go a long way. Here Bronwen talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind their business, their biggest breakthrough, the challenges they have overcome, and their hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
Johnny and I met in London, having both lived there for some time, but we made the decision to move back home to Auckland to get married and start a family. And once you have babies, there seem to be a lot more greeting cards in your life! We were constantly running to the shop last minute for birthday cards, congratulations, new baby announcements-you name it. But everything we saw felt uninspired: pink or blue, a bit rude or just boring. And most of them weren’t even made in New Zealand.
We thought-surely we’re not the only parents in this boat. We wanted to see Christmas cards that showed summer scenes, and Made in New Zealand on the back. We wanted to make it easier for families like ours to have access to beautiful, locally made cards, printed sustainably with FSC paper and delivered straight to your door, so you are always prepared for any occasion with a bunch of cards in the drawer. And that’s how our online greeting card store The Paper People was born.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I grew up in a really creative household and have always loved painting and screen printing – I have been a freelance graphic designer for a long time. Johnny worked in merchandise planning (he’s now in procurement), so between us, we had the perfect mix of skills to get things off the ground for next to nothing.
My cousin owns an ecommerce retail business and I often turn to her for advice. After creating our first logo, a very simple website and a couple of children’s card designs, she told us to just go for it, so we did.
We found a wonderful local printer who could print our cards with compostable ink on FSC-certified paper, and we made a commitment from day one to give back-donating 5¢ from every card sold to tree planting through Million Metres (now part of the Sustainable Business Network) to plant native trees around the waterways of our beautiful country .
Then we discovered that setting up a website and coming up with card designs was the easy bit! The challenge was getting people to find us so they could discover our beautiful cards. So Johnny learnt all about SEO (search engine optimisation) and Google ads to get some advertising going, even taking some night courses. We also did a business course together, which helped us a lot with setting up our marketing avenues. The course was also a big chunk of money so we felt accountable to ourselves to really make things work.
The hardest part of running a business is to just keep going, to believe in yourself and what you are doing. Every little bit of effort helps move you forward. It was really a matter of not knowing what we needed to know until we needed to know it, so very much learning as we went, which we are still doing every day!
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
After a few years living in Auckland we decided to move to Dunedin with our children who were one and three. We had family there and were looking for somewhere with less traffic and cheaper houses, though we still love Tāmaki Makaurau and visit family and friends there a few times a year. Not long after we moved, Covid hit.
We were still in very early start-up at this stage and wondered if that was it for The Paper People, as so many businesses were shutting down. We felt so lucky to be in New Zealand for this period, but we were really feeling for our friends and family in the UK and the rest of the world. We wondered what we could do to help from our little studio in Dunedin. People were stuck at home, isolated and unable to connect and we realised that perhaps we could help people keep in touch from overseas by adding personal messages from customers into cards and sending them direct. They could send real cards to family and friends in New Zealand without needing to leave the house.
We had loads of cards, we had a printer and had lots of stamps. The courier was doing daily pick-ups from our door, and we started to add little gifts like book tokens and locally made chocolate that people could send with their cards as well. Since then, this part of our business has really grown.
People all around the world can come to our site, choose a card, add a personal message and choose from a range of gifts that we then personally wrap and package and send off to their loved ones. In just five minutes, you can make someone on the other side of the world’s day and we think that’s wonderful. It really makes our day too. We also got our first wholesaler after moving to Dunedin and that meant a lot to us. Someone was willing to support us and represent our cards in their store.
We now have around forty-five wholesale customers who are helping spread the joy of The Paper People cards from the top tip of New Zealand, right down to the south. Bookshops, museums, art galleries, gift shops and flower shops; our cards can be found in more and more places as people discover us. We have designed our first baby countertop card stand with more in the pipeline. We also sell to a lot of businesses who like to keep a stash of cards handy for their own colleagues and customers.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
The best thing about The Paper People is that it is a business that both Johnny and I are a part of. And most of the time, it’s really fun. It does mean the odd dinnertime becomes a bit sidetracked with business talk, but generally we leave this until after the kids are in bed or the odd call during the day, as Johnny still works a 9-5.
Working from home means I have a lot more flexibility at juggling my graphic design clients with packing orders, and I love to draw in the evenings while relaxing on the sofa with a cup of tea. Our daughter Tillie is now ten and loves to help me come up with designs while Huxley is quite interested in the all the cardboard boxes we have lying around! They also love that we have boxes of chocolate at home for emergencies and tons of games that they get to trial out before we sell them online.
As we grow, the business is taking up more physical space as well, but we are still managing to run everything from our home studio. I just need to keep the kids away from my lovely washi tape and coloured pens!
