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

Courtney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Courtney Taylor and Chelsea Gheesling started Bundled with the goal to support local makers, create an inclusive work environment, and spread kindness through the art of gifting.

Each product and vendor we work with is carefully selected by us and each bundle is hand packed by our team of adults with disabilities. We partner with a non-profit organization in our area, Services to Enhance Potential, which provides these team members with job opportunities for genuine career growth. We support small businesses by using as many local vendors and ma+pa shops as possible. We are proudly women owned and operated, championing the success of women and working moms in our workplace.

From start to finish, the experience with Bundled is guaranteed to be simple + fast, yet full of care.

Courtney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Courtney Taylor and Chelsea Gheesling are both working moms who started Bundled, a premier online gifting company based in Michigan, with one simple mission: to be authentic in everything they do and to build connections through gifts you will actually use. At Bundled, Taylor and Gheesling partner with more than 50 small business owners across the state of Michigan to wrap, personalize and ship both personal and corporate gifts. Bundled is 100% women owned and has been certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. We have been friends since middle school and lived together in a cute little condo after college. Our journey began one evening, over a glass of wine, when we discussed starting a blog called “Chick in the Mitt,” which was all about discovering Michigan. We ate, drank and shopped and got to try some really amazing products made in our home state. A few years into the blog, we decided it might be a great opportunity to start a gifting company that bundled all of the amazing Michigan products into gift packages.

Our company’s capability statement is as follows, “Bundled is a women owned gifting and fulfillment company that employs individuals with disabilities + supports small businesses. We are the experts in saving you time and making the recipient feel appreciated by offering unique gifting and shipping solutions.”

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

What started as a little personal gifting company side hustle in 2015, has launched into a rapidly growing company. Now, we specialize in personal and corporate gifting, have built an automated app, and offer kitting and fulfillment services.

One of our largest work-related struggles was learning how to grow the business to a point where we were both able to step away from our full time jobs. For many years, we were both working Bundled as a side hustle (and starting a family – each of us having two little ones during those years) and putting every dollar back into the business. It was extremely challenging to find a work-life balance while keeping a growth mindset. We finally realized that in order to grow, we needed to bring on team members who had a passion for our mission, an eye on scaling and the patience to work for a startup. Once we were able to bring on team members who could take the day-to-day responsibilities off our plate, we were able to get to the place we are today. We still feel like we are just getting started and cannot wait to see where our current team of 15 will take us!

We started as a team of two. At the time, it was completely manageable for us to pack and ship bundles on our own (we quite literally began in Courtney’s basement). And then, it felt like we needed to scale our business overnight to match the rapid growth we were experiencing. We made it a priority to hire great employees who were also great people and experts in their field. It’s so important to know when your own cup is full so you can lean on another person to catch your overflow.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

1) Start small Bundled was not an overnight success. Our thriving business as we know it today started as a side hustle. We love to reflect on our company’s very humble beginnings to where we are now with a full team, warehouse, amazing clients, etc. It’s so rewarding to look back at how much we’ve grown.

2) Your pillars are your foundation
We’ve had the same mission since day one: Put women first, support small businesses, employ individuals with disabilities + foster an equal opportunity work environment, and remain family-focused. These are the things that have kept us grounded in both good and uncertain times.

3) Stay consistent
Keep up the hard work even when you don’t feel you’re reaping an instant reward. Nos turn to yesses by being brave and bold. Consistency is the ultimate key to success.

4) How you treat your employees is how you’ll treat your customers
We’ve found that pouring into the wellbeing of our team members has had major, positive impacts on our overall business. While we love to push our employees to grow and excel, we also love to celebrate wins and call out accomplishments in the process. We hope to foster an environment that works hard and plays just as hard.

5) Chase your passion
When you’re chasing your true passion, work becomes something you get to do instead of having to do. We feel so lucky to be creating and pursuing the lives we envisioned for ourselves many years ago by staying true to ourselves doing good.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bundledmi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bundledmi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bundledmi
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bundledmi/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bundledmi

Image Credits
Alicia Hansen Photography (https://www.facebook.com/aliciahansenphoto/)