We were lucky to catch up with Meghan Hopkins Sokorai recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meghan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

I started And Here We Are after almost 10 years in corporate graphic design. I’d come to a point where I felt stuck in the middle of the corporate ladder
and not really sure if I wanted to keep climbing it. At the same time, I fell back in love with the tactile nature of running a letterpress and creating physical goods instead of digital files.

I’m glad I started my business when I did. During my corporate career I was able to observe the backend processes of businesses from small to huge.

Meghan, 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?

And Here We Are is a woman-owned and operated letterpress stationery and known for our irreverent illustrations, offbeat jokes and eclectic use of color. Our products are sold in over 450 stores across North America + Europe

I founded And Here We Are in 2012, originally creating custom wedding invitations in a tiny Brooklyn NY apartment and renting press time at a nearby letterpress
studio to print them. I found my niche making modern, graphic and often silly invitations for some very cool people, and was able to garner quite a bit of press.

In 2015 my husband and I relocated to Columbus, Ohio, and I bought my first letterpress (a Vandercook SP-15 ). At that point, I started to experiment with creating my own products and selling them at local craft fairs. I pivoted fully into product design in 2017 and moved the studio out of our home to a large studio space downtown and ramped up production. In 2021, we relocated again to our current home: a studio/showroom space on the South side of Columbus. Since then, we’ve grown to a team of 6.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

When I became pregnant with our second child. I started planning my maternity leave as early as possible. For months I worked long hours getting our winter release designed and printed months ahead of time and lining up work schedules with my staff and getting all of my ducks in a row. Two weeks before my due date, two of my staff gave notice, and the photographer lined up to shoot our catalog backed out. I had to figure out how (or whether) to keep the business afloat and still balance my personal life.

I realize now that it was probably naïve of me to think i could ever be able to fully step out of the business for a full maternity leave. I ended up shooting that catalog myself on set with a two-week-old baby strapped to my chest (it wasn’t great). I was lucky enough to have one assistant who came through in a big way, which kept the orders flowing out.

Our sales were slower that season but my stepping back didn’t kill the business.

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

I learned letterpress printing in my mid twenties and fell in love with the process, but never would I have guessed at the volumes I would end up printing. I started out creating custom wedding invitations in our tiny Brooklyn NY apartment and renting press time at a nearby letterpress studio to print them. I was lucky enough to find a community and a mentor there who taught me the process and the machines.

In 2015 my husband and I relocated to Columbus, Ohio, and I bought my first letterpress (a Vandercook SP-15 ). At that point I started experimenting with creating my own products and selling themat local craft fairs, and launched my first full line of products at the National Stationery Show in 2017. As our wholesale business grew, I invested in a larger presses and learned how to use them myself until I was able to hire some help. press and we now print close to 100,000 cards per year.

Contact Info:

• Website: and-hereweare.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/and_hereweare
• Facebook: facebook.com/andhereweareltd

Image Credits
Brian Kaiser Photography, Saltbox Photo