We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alyssa Manoleas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alyssa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My greeting card business wasn’t really an idea but more of an evolution that starts from my childhood and my family. You know those books where your parents write your favorite things down, what your favorite colors is, and most importantly what you want to be when you grow up every year? Well, mine always said baker or artist.
Growing up I lived with my mom and my grandma, three generations under one roof in Florida. My mom has just a touch of artistic ability and would paint and do crafts with me. In the background was my grandma, who was from the Greatest Generation, always keeping a her box of greeting cards ready to write letters and send out cards for all occasions to friends and family in her impeccable cursive handwriting. My mom became the same way giving me a card or even two for every occasion, even Halloween.

Fast forward to my adult years I technically became an artist. Some time in the 2000’s during the age of Project Runway I got it in my head that I wanted to be a fashion designer so I graduated from art school with a bachelors degree in fashion design and had a 10 year long career. During those years all my creativity would go toward the company I was working for leaving barely any left for me. Eventually in 2013 I started a little side hustle on Etsy selling art prints just to take a little of my creativity back using my at home photo printer. All the while my mom would send me greeting cards and little gifts for Valentines Day, Birthdays, and other random holidays.

My mom and grandma moved to Connecticut and and the 5 year mark in my career as a designer it was the perfect time to move as well and try to get a job as a designer in New York City. I ended up getting a job and moving back in with them, reconnecting with my grandma and her love for stationery. We weren’t a religious family but my grandma lived for Greek Easter. I wanted to make her smile so the first card I seriously designed was for her. It said “Χριστός ἀνέστη” which means “christ has risen” in greek aka Happy Easter. Watching her open the card that I made just for her and the joy it brought to her face was the moment I knew I had something. I could make people happy though my art. Again in 2018 I started to feel that burnout again and made a choice to start taking my online shop seriously. I jumped right into exhibiting at a trade show knowing absolutely nothing. I eventually found a stationery community that helped me slowly navigate the stationery world and build a business.

Ultimately, I don’t feel like my business is solving any direct problems and it really isn’t anything new. I didn’t even know if it would work or if people would even like my artwork. All I knew was that I made my grandma happy with one card so maybe I could bring that same joy to others as well though my illustrations and encourage human connection.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Alyssa Manoleas and my business is Grey Street Paper. I specialize in creating colorful and charming illustrations with the truest sentiments. Sometimes witty, sometimes sassy, sometimes sweet. Grey Street is a nod to the DMB song with the same name, because a void of color , a lack of laughter, and feeling like you’re the only one out there just won’t do.

I knew nothing about greeting cards when I first started my business other than my grandma instilled a love for them in me and I could make her smile with one. I just wanted to make others day with a piece of art. What started as one card for my grandma is now a line of over 325 greeting cards plus gift items like stickers, pen sets, pencil sets, magnets, and key chains.

I think as much as I am an introvert, real human connection matters. Technology is great but there is a feeling of connection that you get from a card in the mail that a text message or email can’t give to you. It’s real, you can touch it, hold it, hang it on the fridge or hang them in your cubicle at work and be reminded that there are people out there that care about you. ( I actually did hang all my cards up in my cubicle when I had one.)

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I’ve always had a side hustle throughout my career as an apparel designer. My first side hustle was a freelance print and pattern designer and then my second one was my Etsy shop that I opened in 2013. It always started with needing a creative outlet from my design jobs.

When I finally got that fire to start taking greeting cards seriously in 2018 I would wake up at 6:45am to take the 7:38am train into New York City, work from 9-6, take the 6:32pm train home, get home between 7:45-8pm, eat dinner, and then stay up until 2am working on my business and do it again every weekday. On weekends I would mostly stay home and keep working all day. I exhibited at the National Stationery show twice in 2019 and kept trying to build my business and learn everything that I could about selling product in the stationery and gift industry.

At the end of February in 2020 a large online retailer found me, at the time I was still a brand new business with only a few accounts. I am so grateful to them. They kept me going throughout the pandemic by ordering from me regularly all year. This gave me the capitol to continue grow. At the end of 2020 I landed my first Key Account which has propelled me even further.

With all the effort I have put in to building relationships with with small shops all across the United States and Canada plus my relationships with key accounts I’ve been able to focus on my business full time. I sell to customers on my website as well as wholesale. Grey Street is a full fledged brand now. Woohoo!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Even though I felt creatively stunted at my corporate design job I always felt like I needed to climb the corporate ladder to be deemed successful. I had my side hustle (at the time) but I still wanted to grow and be promoted and get to that VP of Design level.

When the pandemic started in March 2020 I was in a mid-level position so I was one of the first people to be furloughed due to budget cuts. I was left in limbo for almost 5 months and then permanently let go in August 2020. (Right before my birthday!)

Even though I had my business that was starting to thrive and something that I was proud of, it felt like the world was crashing in on me. Luckily I had a solid support system, my fiancé gave me the gift of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life/career. I had to make the decision of finding a job and continue to work toward that successful career as an apparel designer or pivot and give that up to take my chances building my business.

Needless to say, I pivoted.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.greystreetpaper.com
• Instagram: greystreetpaper
• Facebook: greystreetpaper
• Other: Tiktok: greystreetpaper