The Joy of CardCraft

When I look at a pair of scissors, I see an opportunity to create meaningful messages. My name is Damola 'D' Omotosho I am the CEO and founder of a card company called CardCraft, where every card is handcrafted. Although you can’t always be present with the people you love, I have imagined a place in which the love you send is always hand delivered. I believe connection is a powerful and impactful way to show love to others. In a society glued to our screens and scrolling through social media, many of us are open to the chance to make the little memories and moments mean that much more.

In 2011, I moved to Portland, Oregon to start my very first job out of college. I had spent 22 years of my life on the East Coast with my family in Maryland. During this time, staying in touch with my family helped to keep me grounded and feel connected to them even when I was miles away. My very first Christmas away was a bit of a challenge though. I have a pretty big family so my two options were to either do all of my Christmas shopping before I left to visit them or rush to get their gifts in nearby stores. I realized this was not going to be sustainable going forward and that is when the idea for CardCraft was born. I started building an app called GiftRibbn that helped customers figure out the perfect gift to give. This is when I realized people would often need to add a card. I then grabbed my pair of scissors and dove into the world of cardmaking. I started to experiment with different types of card stocks, papers, printing techniques and worked until I arrived at the process I use today. Thirteen printers and thousands of greeting cards later, I have proven the concept of full service greeting cards and what started as a hobby, is now a business of its own.

My company is different from our competitors, mainly because we focus on design and recognition of our artists. I started CardCraft with the idea that sharing a portion of our profits with artists would be a key difference from other card companies. We also have maintained our goal of being 100% handcrafted. We have a lot of ideas that include the ability to add a gift card or check, leveraging augmented reality to enhance the experience as well as programming our handwriting Robot to learn your handwriting and make the card more personalized. This is just scratching the surface when it comes to the extensive list of things we can do at CardCraft.

I currently only sell my cards online through my website, Etsy and soon my mobile app, but another goal for CardCraft is to open a physical store one day. CardCraft’s vision is to make sending a greeting card, gift card or check as simple as sending a text message. I want to be the Jeff Bezos of greeting cards. CardCraft has hopes to enable work from home employment. Our cards are handmade, cut, and designed. I would love to see a CardCrafter in each of the 50 states which will create jobs and also enable faster card delivery times. Finally, I want to support artists. I love great design and art. The fact that these cards are designed by a combination of in-house design talent and we enable design submissions mean we may soon or one day be able to offer profit sharing to artists. This way if the economy is good or bad, they have another potential income stream. Greeting cards always get sent!

While I was developing CardCraft and the idea to make sending greeting cards as easy as sending a text message, I ran into a problem with the full service greeting card service. Specifically, I had terrible handwriting. I was asking myself how I was going to build this business that sends handcrafted greeting cards, with my messy handwriting? After lengthy research, I learned I could program and build a robot to ensure cards would be generated with custom handwriting each time, a perfect solution. “Robby the Robot'' is a key part of my story and journey here at CardCraft!

A heartfelt story involves one of my favorite customers. She is an absolute angel. Usually when I send greeting cards on customers’ behalf, the return address is to my office in Portland. However, I once received an order from a customer with very specific instructions that the return address must be her home address. Not that odd of a request, as I did this frequently, however her reasoning was a little different (and very special). The customer regularly sends greeting cards to her aunt who resides in a nursing home. Her aunt has dementia and her request was made to make sure that “Aunt Sis” knew and remembered where her cards were from. This is honestly the most inspiring and heartwarming aspect of CardCraft and the customers like her who use the platform to send love.

CardCraft has been featured in various articles for being the “Best Black-Owned Shop” especially for the holiday season. I hope that as my company grows, I can continue to express happiness and love with a pair of scissors and beautifully handcrafted cards.