Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amanda Seyfried, Maureen North and Anne Hoehn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Anne, Amanda & Maureen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The idea for Make It Cute first came up in the height of the pandemic. We were all hunkered down at home with our kids and our houses were constantly strewn with toys- most of the toys were brightly colored and plastic. We love our kids but didn’t like how the homes that we worked so hard to design pre-kids were just taken over with potentially toxic toys. Being stuck at home for so long, to find some sanity we decided that we needed a creative outlet. Maureen suggested we jump on a zoom with a glass of wine and talk through some business ideas. Most ideas were rejected but when the cardboard playhouses I had made for my kids years ago came up as an idea, it was like a lightbulb went off. For the OG playhouses, I took big furniture boxes, cut out doors and windows, glued on trim, shingles and a roof, and painted them in colors I loved. I liked having it in my main living space because I liked the look of it, and my kids were obsessed with playing with it. Making these playhouses for other people to enjoy was something I always wanted to start but coming together with Maureen and Amanda to produce the idea was so much better than I could have ever imagined. The more we thought about this idea, the more excited we were because it really checked all of our boxes. It was something that both kids and parents would love, and was also a responsible product for the planet. We didn’t feel right about producing yet another kids’ product that would just end up and live forever in a landfill or the ocean some day. Making our product out of corrugated cardboard means it is made from recycled material and is also 100% recyclable on the backend. There are a lot of playhouses on the market and we tested a ton of them, all made from different materials. We knew we could do so much better. Ours is wildly different from any of the other cardboard playhouses on the market. We spent two years of intensive design time to make sure ours checked all of the boxes that other playhouses on the market didn’t. Amanda and I both really love the design part – both structural and aesthetic design. Our brains were constantly thinking of ways to make sure the final product was super durable and folded flat quickly. A top priority for us has always been making sure our playhouses are easy for the customer – easy to set up, easy to fold and store, and an easy play solution for your kids. Maureen is incredible at the operations part. She’s a get sh*t done type person and doesn’t stop until she completes her task. She’s also our company’s internal therapist; so many times we would feel defeated and Maureen would say just keep going, we can do this. Amanda has this wildly creative brain (which probably doesn’t come as a surprise). She pushed our product design so incredibly far, and that’s why it’s the amazing product that it is today. This may come as a surprise but she’s also a celebrity (haha), and has helped us with exposure right from the start. She’s really proud of the product we made which helps a lot. That’s a long answer but my husband always tells me I’m not really good at short versions :)
Anne, Amanda & Maureen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Make It Cute™ is a chic, earth-conscious, parent-friendly children’s lifestyle brand that exists at the intersection of home decor and play (we call it Play Decor™). Our company is founded by three childhood best friends and mothers, we’ve been best friends for over 30 years. The three pillars of our brand are sustainability, style, and ease of use. We’ve been uncompromising in these values since we started the company.
We just officially launched June 15, 2023 with our first two products; two different styles of premium, corrugated cardboard playhouses. We have the Cottage and the Modern Farmhouse; they were based on architectural styles that we love. Our playhouses are all of the following:
– made from at least 50% recycled materials
– 100% recyclable
– simple three-piece assembly
– set up in less than a minute
– store flat in less than a minute back in the box, under a bed or in a closet
– made safe in the U.S.
– ASTM F963 tested for toy safety standards
– made from heavy-duty reinforced corrugated cardboard with foldover edges
– opportunities for endless imaginative play
– a tree is planted for every playhouse purchased through our partnership with EARTHDAY.ORG’s The Canopy Project
– hand-illustrated designs
We spent two years perfecting our designs as we really wanted them to be beautiful and durable, but also incredibly easy for the parent or caregiver straight from the box. When you receive your package, you’ll pull out the floor, the roof and then the base of the playhouse. The base is set upright, the floor piece slides in place and the roof sets on top clicking in place in all four corners – within a minute, kids are playing inside. We absolutely love seeing “customers” videos of their kids seeing it set up for the first time and diving into play immediately. It’s magical, and makes a really impactful gift. It also gives the parent or caregiver time back because the kids are entertained for hours. It offers a functional, developmentally-appropriate space for kids to come up with so many imaginative play scenarios. We’ve seen sleepovers, book nooks, grocery stores, farms, truck garages, secret hideaways, obstacle courses, along with the obvious one – playing “house”!
We also knew that many people have had corrugated cardboard playhouses before and had to design ours in a way that it was much more durable than anything else available to ensure it is safe and also lasts a long time. Ours has tons of points of reinforcement, along with double- and triple-ply material, and even trim (like a real house!) added around the doors and windows so there is a safe surface for kids to put their hands for play. In our ASTM F963 safety testing process we learned that the fully built house can withstand up to 140 lbs of weight – it’s not recommended to try this out but shows how durable the structure is.
We worked with an incredible illustrator named Sophia Vincent Guy who hand illustrated every inch of the playhouses. She helped us bring our vision to life, she’s amazingly talented. Because the designs are so beautiful, not only are they fun for kids, but parents and caregivers also love having them in their homes.
Our relationship with EARTHDAY.ORG and The Canopy Project is also really important to us. For every playhouse purchased, a tree is planted. The Canopy Project is a deeply effective campaign that has planted tens of millions of trees in areas of the world heavily in need of reforestation; we’re grateful to be a part of this.
Our first two playhouses are just the start of the creation of the Make It Cute world. There are so many possibilities that are already being brought to life behind the scenes and we can’t wait to share them with the world very soon!
How’d you meet your business partner?
The three of us have actually known each other since we were little. Maureen and I met in the sandbox in preschool and became fast friends. We met Amanda the following year in Kindergarten. Amanda has this vivid memory of walking into the Kindergarten classroom and seeing Maureen and I sitting at a table together and just knowing that we would all be friends. So we’ve all been best friends since we were five. Fast forward 30 years and we were all pregnant with our first child at the same time. We helped each other through the ups and downs of the baby years with a constant text chain. Now our kids are all in the 2-6 age range. We all have very different professional backgrounds, and we’ve never actually worked together before this, but our skillsets have come together very nicely to create this business. We complement each other extremely well. Actually, Maureen and Amanda have worked together in the past. In middle school they worked at the JCPenny photo studio. We’ll share pics from that someday- they’re pretty great.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
Our PR team secured Amanda a spot on Jenna & Hoda’s TODAY Show segment to talk about Make It Cute before we were ready to launch. It was such an amazing opportunity but we were panicking because we hadn’t planned on launching for another few months. We love a good deadline though so we decided to say yes first and figure out the details next. Our PR team convinced us to go for it too. We decided to use the segment as the first day we were accepting pre-orders. It gave us a little bit more time to finalize our production and work out the kinks. Amanda was so great on the segment (as always) so we were really happy we took the opportunity. Sometimes I think you just have to jump in and start. It was nice to have a deadline, because I don’t think we would have ever felt perfectly ready. Luckily the feedback on our product has been super positive from the start.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://makeitcutekids.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makeitcutekids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakeItCuteKids/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/make-it-cute/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo-p3ksgxrnFK7UpaFa6efg
Image Credits
Winnie Au – all lifestyle and Cottage product images Alexis Mears – Modern Farmhouse images and assembly video on our website