Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Teschl

Hi Nicole, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?

Born and raised in Toronto, ON, Canada – I grew up loving to draw. Ever since I was a little kid my parents would buy me blank notebooks which I’d rapidly fill with doodles, “tattoos”, typography, sketches, you name it. My school notes were always covered in random shapes, lines, and colour – I listened best when my hands were busy. That hasn’t changed to this day, I’m still a big visual learner, leaning into graphic organizers and doodling to help consolidate my understanding of things. My academic background is in the sciences, but my passions extended into visual art, education, and the environment.

SowSweet Greetings was born in February 2020 by a happy coincidence (nothing to do with COVID). I had just moved home from East Africa where I was working a contract position for a social enterprise in travel and tourism, and had begun substitute teaching for the Toronto public school board (I am a science teacher by trade). Two years prior I had completed a certificate program at Seneca College in “Art Fundamentals” where I created a collection of extremely cheesy illustrated puns as part of a culminating activity. In 2020 I finally decided that these were too good not to share, and I could definitely create more – but on what medium?

Using the tool that every great millennial entrepreneur begins their journey with (Google), I researched options for “eco-friendly paper made in Canada”. Being an Office superfan, I thought I knew my way around the paper industry, but I was quickly humbled. When the search brought up “plantable paper” I could not believe what I was reading. It had to be too good to be true. I quickly placed a small sample order, and after dusting off my grandparents’ old HP Deskjet, I got to work testing out the product. Thus was born SowSweet Greetings.

The business began as a way of getting my puns out into the world in a way that helps, not harms, the environment, while simultaneously sparking joy and fostering authentic human connection. I viewed it as a passion project, and nothing more – it wasn’t until I started to realize just how unique the concept of putting greetings on seed paper was that I began to consider the idea of trying to make it more than a side hustle.

Since it’s onset, SowSweet Greetings has seen substantial growth, participated in some incredible initiatives, and gotten national attention. In early 2021, we were featured on one of Toronto’s largest social media news platforms – BlogTO – followed immediately by a CNN 6pm news feature. Later on that summer, we had the opportunity to be guests on a local Toronto TV gem – Breakfast Television – where we played a version of Battle of the Puns with legendary host Dina Pugliese. The following year we were winners of a $20,000 Pizza Hut grant, hosted our very own sustainable market (The Local Loop) and participated in the world-renowned Toronto Christmas Market (Distillery Winter Village). In 2023 we participated as vendors in the One of a Kind Spring and Winter shows, as well as launched a plantable painting mini-workshop series with Toronto Flower Market at a Volvo EV launch event.

It’s been an incredible 4 years for SowSweet and we are ‘sow’ excited to keep the momentum going in 2024!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

Owning a small business, especially in today’s current economic climate, is no easy feat. While I wouldn’t change a thing about the last four years, it’s not been all sunshine and rainbows.

To begin – the greeting card industry is a highly competitive landscape. Big players like Hallmark and Papyrus have a pretty firm grip on the distribution to large scale organizations (ie. grocery chains, super-centres, etc), which are nearly impossible to break into for small businesses. This largely has to do with the scale at which a small business would have to operate in order to service these larger clients – you need some pretty intense (and highly expensive) machinery, space for storage, and more than a few hands on deck – all eating into already fairly small wholesale margins. At this point in time I am still hand-printing the majority of my orders, with help from those who I affectionately refer to as “SowSweet Angels” – my mom and some friends. I will occasionally outsource larger-scale printing jobs, but this can get expensive.

Even on a smaller scale, it can be tricky to establish new wholesale agreements, and sustain existing ones. Small retailers are more likely to partner with you than large ones (who will usually exclusively work with distribution agents rather than owners directly), but even these relationships can be difficult to maintain. Store owners have had their fair share of hardship in the post-COVID era and I’ve seen several of my own stockists close up shop completely. Others sometimes struggle to make the wholesale minimums work, and then there are some that are just so overwhelmed with staff shortages and build up of inventory that you can’t even get in touch with them. All the more reason to shop small!

Finally, there’s the cost of advertising. Social media is both a blessing and a curse for small businesses – where you have the opportunity to reach a large number of individuals with minimal spending but (in my opinion) maximal labour. When it comes to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc. I have come to learn that consistency is absolutely critical, and an absolute struggle to properly achieve. I will consistently get your order to you on time, exactly how you ordered it, with a cherry on top – but making daily videos and posting on 3+ different platforms is another story. There is the other route of setting up digital advertising with Meta or Google, but this requires a larger financial commitment. Deciding where to place your time, energy, and dollars can be tricky, especially when you may not see results for weeks or even months to follow.

To summarize, owning a small business is all risk and sometimes reward – you are often making decisions without all the information, and on the fly, hoping for the best. I have spent four years trying out different strategies and while some have worked out, others haven’t. But that’s also the beauty of entrepreneurship, there is really never a dull moment (except when you are logging receipts, that’s dull), and as long as you’re working hard to not make the same mistake twice, every mistake made is a step forward!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

At the core, I consider myself to be the creative director behind SowSweet Greetings. Over the past four years I have personally illustrated a collection of over 250 different cheeky designs (you can explore them all on our website), in addition to bespoke and commissioned work for valued clients. This is my favourite thing to do (draw), and it is my eventual goal to make it my ONLY job at SowSweet one day. For now, I still have do to all that pesky other stuff businesses need to keep running, like marketing, sales, bookkeeping, etc.

SowSweet Greetings aims to solve the problem that the greeting card industry often presents with regards to generation of waste and accumulation of “stuff”. Often consumers may state, “I never know what to do with a card someone’s given me, I feel bad throwing it out but it’s just taking up space!” With a SowSweet plantable card, card-givers and recipients alike can feel good about their purchase: card-givers know the greeting card may have a second life and is sustainably sourced, while receivers know that they may either plant the card or toss it into the recycling from where it came.

From the beginning, it was my intention to create a product that is eco-friendly, breeds positivity, and promotes authentic connection, at a time where people need it more than ever. Over the last four years of growth and development, SowSweet has been – and continues to be – committed to maintaining brand integrity in being 100% Canadian and 100% zero-waste.

The vision is simple – to put smiles on faces, and flowers in the ground. The mission to supplement this is to create a unique and memorable collection of plantable puns, providing consumers with an environmentally friendly, all-Canadian product to share with loved ones in the place of the traditional greeting card.

You can find our product online at www.sowsweetgreetings.ca or follow our journey on social media!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sowsweetgreetings.ca
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sowsweetgreetings/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sowsweetgreetings
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sowsweetgreetingsinc.8851

Image Credits
Images all belong to SowSweet Greetings Inc.