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

Hi Kate, thanks for joining us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

The pandemic and shut down was hard for everyone. I was living in Brooklyn at the time and we weren’t even allowed to go into our studio so I was running everything from home and fulfilling orders from my living room. We’d make quick runs to the studio to restock before coming home but otherwise it was a lot of busy work. Photographing my line, working on the website and all the back end work I rarely have time to do. All of my wholesale orders and custom jobs were on hold so I was entirely relying on the orders coming through my website and Etsy.

Until…

I was suddenly picked up by Barnes and Noble with the largest order of my life, around 50,000 cards. I was so excited to get back in the studio, things were slowly opening up and there was a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just me printing so that’s over a hundred thousand runs through my one press with me printing one card at a time, one color at a time. Some of the cards that were picked up were four colors and with the turn around time with printing, packing and shipping I had just enough time.

Until…

My press, Goldie, broke. The press I had started my business with had been damaged before I bought her and I just never realized how badly until I started on this huge endeavor. I was only a third of the way through the printing with no way to finish the order. I started looking for a new press and outsourced what I could to keep the production going while packing when my studio flooded with raw sewage. I had JUST had all my paper and envelopes delivered and luckily I had put everything up on a shelf or I have no idea what I would have done.

I did find a new press pretty much right away and had it delivered but it also was broken so we were still down another week but this is where the story turns around. The new press (Jude) was repaired and I was able to get going again. Since we were trying to keep our contact with people outside our bubble low, my husband, my best friend/studio mate and myself packed the order and somehow got it out in time.

It was the craziest, most hectic and stressful time for my business. I learned so much, so fast but it was so bananas.

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 Kate Murray and my business is Quick Brown Fox Letterpress. I pretty much have always been involved in printmaking. I studied printmaking in college at Pratt and then started a master printer training program. After this, I went straight into working in letterpress shops. I worked in two different studios for almost the next 15 years so this really is all I’ve ever done and ever wanted to do.

I always had a dream of having my own studio, my own presses and my own designs. The year or so before I launched my business, I stockpiled designs, made plans and just kept dreaming. When the opportunity to buy my first press came up and a friend gave me an amazing studio space near my apartment, I couldn’t pass it up.

I like to say, my greeting cards specialize in good puns and bad pick up lines. I’m always hoping to inspire a laugh or a smile, especially one you can send through the mail.

One of the most important aspects of my business and ethos is to mentor and pass along the info I have to as many people starting their own line as I can. There’s room for all of us, we all have a different view and story to share.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

My business definitely started as a side hustle. I was working days at an amazing letterpress studio in Brooklyn then I would head to my tiny studio after work and crank out as much work as I could at night until I had to pass out.

Within the first few months of being open, I launched at my first trade show, the National Stationery Show in NYC. I felt like I had to go all in right away so I wouldn’t lose my nerve.

From there, I took on every job that came my way. I did wedding events, I took on custom clients, I kept pushing at trade shows. Finally I got a large order with a Key Account that made it so I could quit my job and focus full time on the business.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I do manufacture almost everything I sell. There are a few things I don’t make in house but anything not made in the studio (the gift wrap, journals and stickers) are made in the US if not in NY State.

I knew when I wanted to start my business that I wanted to make as much as I could in house. Working in print shops until I opened my business was a great training ground to see what could be done. I definitely pushed myself in terms of what was being printed, in terms of the number of colors per card but I don’t regret it. I love bright, colorful cards and my designs lend themselves to a lot of colors.

After designing a few cards with a lot of colors (11 colors on one card!) I did start learning new techniques with registration and overlap to help me achieve the same result with a lot less work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.quickbrownfoxletterpress.com
• Instagram: @quickbrownfoxlp
• Facebook: @quickbrownfoxletterpress