We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leitia McHugh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leitia below.
Hi Leitia, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The Confetti Post was started from a place of wanting more from my day to day—but the desire to find a fulfilling outlet while also remaining flexible to the care and needs of my young children. My second child was one year old when I came up with the idea to start The Confetti Post, and my oldest was just starting preschool. I had postpartum depression in that first year when my daughter was born. I was looking for a way to express myself and progress with something apart from my life as a stay-at-home mom. However, I wanted to remain very present, not ready to fully give up and was not ready for a 9-5. I had created business plans before in notebooks, but nothing had felt quite right until this idea. I always loved parties and celebrations. One day on Pinterest, I saw the idea of a “party in a box.” A blogger had put together a celebratory care package for a long distance friend. She wasn’t the only one. I saw this idea pop up over and over on Pinterest. I thought it was adorable and such a fun idea. There were some gift box companies out there at the time, and subscription boxes were trending big time. The gift boxes that existed were more serious and chic, and expensive. No one was really doing what I envisioned: a party in a box gift box or care package. I thought this was finally an idea I could execute from home. I thought there was a market with all the flower, balloon, and food basket delivery companies that exist. Add to that, living in a modern society where many of our friends and loved ones live so far away and we cannot always be in person to celebrate birthdays and other life celebrations. Turns out, I was right and our “party in a box” care packages met a need so many people are looking for!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My college degree was in “Nonprofit Management” as I knew I was interested in the business side of organizations for my career. However, the word “business” brought negative connotations for me when I was younger. I could only see “corporate greed” and profit as sole motivations. That’s how I entered the nonprofit world early in my career. However, I learned soon that for-profit businesses can be mission-driven (in addition to profit-driven.) I was drawn to businesses small and large with heart, and a strong pull to ethical business practices. I saw other businesses setting the table for more ethics driven business models.
When I started The Confetti Post, I knew we would be committed to strong ethics in addtion to creating a happy and fun product. We believe in transparency, ethical sourcing, and using our buying power to fuel good in the world. We believe small businesses are the heartbeat of any economy. They fuel creativity and diversity. Our products are a mix of handcrafted items made in-house and curated items from other makers. We make every effort to source all of our curated products and supplies from businesses that produce products that are made in the USA, high quality, fair trade, and/or small batch. Most of our products and supplies fall into one or more of those categories. Ethical sourcing and stewardship are always at the forefront of all of our decisions.
We always choose to work with small, independent makers to bring create the happiest gift packages found anywhere. Many of our makers also give a portion of profits to charity (like us!) and many also take every precaution to create products in a manner that respects the Earth. We love our partners!
We believe everyone deserves to be celebrated, everyone deserves a break from the busy world, and everyone deserves to party a little. We pack as much happy into each care package as possible. We find the most unique products and form them perfectly around a theme so that they feel incredibly personal. This is the gift that immediately brings a smile to your face. It is a gift that everyone takes a picture of because it is just so darn fun. They can’t help but share it and shower the sender with thanks.
We value playfulness and good old-fashioned snail mail. Life is downright hard sometimes. But life is too precious to stop celebrating. We believe in celebrating the people we love as often as possible. We believe in letting loose and being silly to enjoy life fully. We also believe in disconnecting from media and connecting in real life. But when miles separate us, good old-fashioned snail mail feels like the most personal way to connect. We like to say “we send smiles to doorsteps.” Because really, we do.
Lastly, when we say everyone deserves a party, we mean it! 10% of all profit from The Confetti Post is donated to nonprofit organizations whose missions are to ensure every child’s birthday is celebrated. Giving a portion of our profits is nonnegotiable in our hearts. We have partnered with The Confetti Foundation and Box of Balloons to spread party joy.
We are really proud to be a business that meets a big need for our customers, and remains true to our values, all while being profitable!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I started The Confetti Post and being a Mom myself, I envisioned a Mom whose child was away at their Freshman year of college. It’s the first year Mom isn’t with their child to celebrate their birthday in person. She’s feeling a bit sad, and still looking for a way to make that birthday happy. In comes The Confetti Post with a fun “Party” arriving in the mail to celebrate! Aside from that, I mostly envisioned individuals sending to individuals. That is where my heart was, helping our customers traverse thousands of miles and spread love and happy to one another. I absolutely loved reading notes customers sent to one another.
However, over the years as my team gets the joy in fulfilling orders and reading those heartfelt notes, I miss a little bit of that joy and have had to seek out new places for personal fulfillment. We have also seen our clientele grow a lot more in the corporate space. I have learned that while there is a need for individual gifting, the need for businesses to find fun ways to celebrate teams and clients is even greater! And I have found great joy in working with these customers and growing in ways to meet their needs better. Corporate customers are just as tired of the same old same old gifts and we are able to meet a need in helping them deliver smiles and celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other milestones. Corporate could be as simple as the many photographers who use our “Happy Couple Party” to welcome clients or it could be working with a big corporation on a more one-of-a-kind, several-hundred-piece bulk order. Both are fun and exciting—and challenge us in ways to rethink our systems and the products we offer. Starting during the early days of the pandemic, we have had to pivot and pivot again in evaluating our systems and how we can better serve this clientele. We see most of our potential for growth in this area. But will never abandon our day-to-day individual customers who are celebrating their loved ones!
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
By a very wide margin, SEO (search engine optimization) has been the number one way we have grown our customer base, both in the individual space and in the corporate space. SEO is such a long game so it can be a slow build to grow—but it pays off big time when you put the work in. By nature of what we provide, there are people looking every day for fun gift ideas. We find it best to help people who are looking for a solution to their need we meet a better marketing strategy than selling the solution to customers who are not sure they yet have the need. Social Media has not been the most advantageous way for us to gain new customers, even though it does remain important.
I know when I read my first article on SEO, I thought “Nope, that’s too hard.” It was like reading a foreign language. However, I had a blog post take off in the early days and quickly realized SEO was the way forward for The Confetti Post. The biggest thing I have learned as a business owner is marketing is not one size fits all. Social media is not the end all, be all that many think it is. You have to put in the work in those early years to determine what the best fits are for your business. I recommend only focusing on 3 marketing platforms in the beginning because each one requires time and energy to learn. You can only learn if it is working for you when you put in enough effort. Once you learn what is and is not working from those three, then you can add and subtract.
Contact Info:
- Website: theconfettipost.com
- Instagram: @theconfettipost
- Facebook: @theconfettipost