We were lucky to catch up with Kate Pitner recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kate, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I have worked as a freelancer and contractor in the creative field for the past 25+ years. Taking risks, especially in a creative business, is to be expected, however nothing prepared me for the journey I’ve been on as I set out to create my greeting card company and its accompanying mobile app.
Risk taking is very multifaceted: There’s the financial investment and risk of losing money; the ego and pride vulnerability and the risk of failing and looking stupid; the physical trials and the risk of succumbing to stress and compromising your health and wellness; and finally, the relationship stressors and the risk of losing people in your life because you’re not physically or emotionally available for them as you once were.
In my case all of these spokes of the ‘Risk Wheel’ have been present for my creative career, especially in my most recent venture.
Money, ego, pride, stress, wellness, and relationships are real and present costs that must be faced head on when taking a risk in anything you feel called to do. What I’ve learned over the years, however, is that the only way to get through the inevitable challenge of risk and believing in yourself, is to make peace with each of these parts as they are happening. For example, when there’s a big investment of money needing to be made, or you need to press publish on a marketing campaign or social announcement, or you hire your first employee or contractor and you don’t know how it will work out. These are all real risks and no doubt scary (I’ve faced them all), but once you stop ignoring and burying the feelings these challenges present and decide to face each one directly, the more readily and easily you can clear the path ahead and progress to the next phase of your journey.
Taking risks is never easy and most often a really un-fun part of life, but I like to remind myself that I’d rather live a life that pushes me to see what is next rather than be stalled in one place by fear.
The one thing that has helped me through fear based thinking is to surround myself with a lot of support. From my husband and sons, to my sister and extended family, as well as a small group of truly good friends who really know me. You don’t need a lot of people in your support circle, just your core group who can provide a buffer when risk-taking becomes raw and scary.
One of my favorite Brené Brown quotes sums it up nicely: “When we are willing to risk venturing into the wilderness, and even becoming our own wilderness, we feel the deepest connection to our true self and to what matters most.”
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My quick answer to this question is – I am a creative entrepreneur who makes art and illustrations for products and just launched my own greeting card company and mobile app to help people stay connected stylishly in a quick and easy way to the people they love.
How I got to this point in my business is a windy road of crazy tangents and side streets.
Like a lot of little girls, when I was young I loved to draw. I incessantly colored, painted, and sketched pictures for anyone who would receive them (my family being my primary recipients). At around age 7 I got the idea that I wanted to make greeting cards and I created my own little company called ‘Katy Kards’, logo and everything. I loved how cards could make you feel so warm and special when received. The art on these greetings were magical to me and I would spend hours studying them, trying to figure out how I could make something similar for ‘Katy Kards’.
Greetings like these were little bridges of love from one person to the next and I knew I wanted to create that same feeling with my own cards. It got me thinking about art as a possible job (at least as much as an elementary age kid could imagine). I’m pretty sure though, this is where the entrepreneurial seed was planted in me.
Through my schooling years I pursued courses in the arts and when I went to college I studied writing, design, and visual arts. Ultimately I focused more on design, pursuing a degree in environmental design with an emphasis on interior design and architecture. By the time I graduated, however, I was not as motivated to work in commercial design and decided instead to switch paths and work in the entertainment industry. I had just married my husband and moved to LA from Northern California to start our lives together and it seemed like a good fit for me to make that pivot.
Working in Hollywood was fun and my resume grew with experience in marketing and show merchandising, script development, and a little production, but when my husband and I decided to start a family I knew I needed to step out of that busy schedule.
At this time my career and life as an entrepreneur started to take shape.
The idea of my little greeting card company resurfaced and I began to think a lot about how I could make that into an actual ‘thing’.
This was a time when the internet was fairly new and all the resources we now have were not available. I went to the library a lot and tried to find any resource (person or book) to help teach me the in’s and out’s of being a professional artist. I started taking any creative job I could find, from teaching art at the community center, making wedding invitations for friends, creating custom Christmas cards for family and eventually for other people who reached out to me. It started small and in the early days it was pretty simple. I hand drew everything and printed my cards on stock that I sourced from a local paper supplier and took to Kinkos to be printed. I even dabbled in hand colored baby announcements that required me to stay up at all hours of the night painting each individual card (hundreds of them)!
At one point a friend introduced me to a couple who were starting up a business and needed art for their product. That relationship introduced me to the world of art licensing. Eventually I signed with a licensing agent and began creating art for manufacturers of products ranging from holiday decor, home and garden items, textiles, flags, and … yes … greeting cards! I remember when I landed a license with Hallmark and I nearly fell over!
Flash forward to today. After many years working in art licensing, both with my agent and as an independent contractor, I am excited to have my very own greeting card company called ‘poppynotes’. The poppynotes collection of cards, invitations, announcements, and greetings of all kinds are accessible on the poppynotes app which launched December 2022 on the Apple App Store.
I decided to place poppynotes on a digital platform rather than in print to fit the need I see that is most pressing for my customers: their desire to thoughtfully stay connected to the important people in their lives in an easier, more accessible, and immediate way.
It feels like a full circle moment for me to be doing this work today because the mission of my first company, Katy Kards, and my mission today with poppynotes is the same – to once again create a bridge of love for people to share through my cards. Whether these greetings are sent by text, email, socially shared or printed, the end result is the same … love and connection.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Design and illustration is my comfort zone and I’m really versed on printing processes and working with manufacturers, but app development was completely foreign to me.
The first thing I needed to do was learn the vernacular of development. Thank you Google! I set out to absorb as much as I possibly could about how app development is done and how using the two main platforms (iOS and Android) work. It was really more like learning a new language. When I came across words I didn’t understand, I’d stop and look them up, keeping a journal of definitions to refer to later. This process was slow but taking the time to do this work helped me build more confidence in myself to take it to the next step.
The second biggest resource that helped me came when I bumped into a neighbor while walking my dog one morning. He is a tech backend app developer who was working on a large video game app. He couldn’t help me with my project directly but I asked if I could take an hour of his time to throw some of my questions I still had about the process of developing an app. He graciously gave me many hours over the course of 4-5 months, clarifying terms that I had written down in my journal as well as giving me a structure for how the development process works. This was invaluable information for me and started to make the intangible seem more and more realistic.
One of the biggest take aways from our conversations was his advice to create as much clarity for my vision as possible before hiring a coder/developer. He explained that when working with a coder it was important to provide as much visual and directional reference as possible so that 1) the end result of the project would be clear, and 2) the budget could be adequately established based on the scope of the work before development began.
Being a visual person this made total sense to me and the first important resource for this phase was teaching myself Adobe XD to create an interactive prototype I could share with prospective developers. I really wish I had understood and known how to use that application before because it took me a few weeks to begin working with it comfortably, but eventually I got in a rhythm and it solidified a lot of the processes and steps required when creating app work flow. The prototype I made not only established a visual reference but also helped me work out my branding.
The next thing I was advised to create was a Flow Chart for the app. I probably should have done this step before the prototype creation (would have made my process a little faster), but because of what I discovered in the prototype creation I was able to put to words and in a graph how I imagined the flow would look for the app. The resource I used to do this was draw.io.
My neighbor also told me to create a ‘Business Requirements Sheet’ to overview all of my expectations for the app in phases so that the development could be broken up into clear and concise milestones and contracts. Rather than just rattling off my wishes to a coder this simple step made my needs and priorities really clear and has helped me exponentially move into the next phases of my development with much more ease.
Last but definitely NOT least – it is important to establish yourself with an excellent Intellectual Property Attorney to make sure all your hard work is structured properly and protected. This has been my number one priority since day one and I am so grateful for my attorney and all she does for me. I know this is an expensive part of the journey but I’ve heard of many people who cut corners on trademarking, copyrighting, contract and licensing set up, and really regret it later. As much as you can and as soon as possible get your work and business plan reviewed by an IP Attorney. You won’t regret it.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Hands down the most rewarding part of being an artist is seeing how my work brings joy to the lives of others. Whether my art is on a Christmas collection of gift items, textiles, wall-coverings in a hotel, house and garden flags, or greeting cards, the thrill of seeing my work out in the world is the very BEST feeling in the world. When I receive feedback that others are enjoying and appreciate the work I’ve done I feel like I have, in my own little way, made the world a little brighter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://poppynotes.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poppynotes.greetings/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/poppynotes
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-pitner-7017771b/
- Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/poppynotesgreetings/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@poppynotes.greetings