North Beach Paper Co 2018 Q2 Update
Developing a vision, making products, figuring out packaging…and a bit of what it’s like to work on a business project as a married couple.
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In May, Amanda announced the beginnings of North Beach Paper Co, a venture we’ve been working on together. It’s a passion project that piques many of our mutual interests, and one that we see a lot of potential in as we’ve continued with it. We feel we have a unique opportunity to improve people’s lives through art and design, and learn a lot about our relationship with each other in the process.
We’ve both struggled with working on side projects in the past. Having a creative outlet outside of your 9–5 can be exciting and inspiring, but not making progress on these goals can also quickly become demoralizing. We’re writing this post and future updates not only to keep ourselves accountable, but to also provide a glimpse behind the curtain to anyone else considering or actively working on their own side business. Message us anytime if you need inspiration or motivation- we’re here for you!
We’ve yet to (fully) launch, but here’s a quick Q2 2018 progress report on what we’ve accomplished so far as we build a business as a married couple:
We’ve refined our focus and picked an initial direction
For years, Amanda and I struggled to find a project to work on together. The crux of the issue lied in our inability to find a project about which we were both equally passionate. Not having this mutual excitement and drive is a death knell, not just for the business, but for maintaining our sanity while we were working together. We would start a project that one person was more excited about than the other, fail to set goals and expectations, and ultimately shut down or pass on the idea after a few arguments. After going through this a few times, we both vowed to only work on a project together if both people were equally invested.
North Beach Paper Co is where we’ve currently found that, and after a few brainstorming sessions, we figured out where we want to start. Our initial products will consist of high quality, well priced paper goods, including art prints, greeting cards/stationary, and more. Amanda is creating a set of original art prints and patterns in gouache. I’m working with her to figure out product creation, production, packaging, and a little of everything else.
We’re both excited by the changes that have happened in the past few years in the direct to consumer space, and thought it would be a fun place to do some work.
Also, paper companies are doing well and growing. One of our favorite art/stationary companies has generated over $300M in revenue since launching five years ago, and art and printing startups have raised substantial capital in the last 5 years.
We have outlined our goals
To give us direction and focus, we’ve developed goals for every quarter of 2018. Three goals each. If we hit two out of three each quarter, we’ll consider that a success. We borrowed this simple but effective model for goal setting from my company, Doximity.
This past quarter our goals were to:
- Create 9–12 works of art (prints, patterns, etc)
- Create at least 2 product types (art print, folded card, wrapping paper, etc)
- Develop a compete packaging and unboxing experience
We checked in on these goals every week and setup a mini-roadmap for each to keep us on track. We ultimately ended up hitting two out of the three goals, both figuring out how to produce and package archival-quality art prints and note cards.
The point of working on North Beach Paper Co is to work on something together that we enjoy, and a part of that is making sure we set aside dedicated time to move things along. Apart from the regular evening and weekend conversations that happen, we set aside 2–3 hours every Saturday to check in our progress to goals and plan for what’s next.
Coming up
In Q3 (July-September), we plan to do a lot of fun stuff. Here’s a sneak peek:
- We plan to launch an online store
- We plan to ship at least 10 orders. Send us a message if you want to help us hit this goal early ;)
- Amanda is planning to develop holiday designs, so that we’ll be ready to go for the end of the year
This project has been an incredible amount of fun so far, alongside being a wonderful learning experience. Send us a message if you’d like to continue getting updates, or if there’s anyway for us to help you with a project you’re working on!
Email: sebastianmdeluca@gmail.com + amandacdillon@gmail.com
