Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to N’jeri Agyeman & Serwa Groves . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, N’jeri Agyeman & thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

As business owners who birthed our business amid the pandemic, we already knew what challenges might lay ahead and how perseverance would be an intricate part of our story, especially during such a unique time.

Zaria Cards is currently “scaling up” and is still very new to the stationery industry. However, the goals that we continue to achieve such as:
-getting our first wholesale deal with a global brand like Urban Outfitters
– Our feature in Stationery Trends Magazine and other leading stationery outlets
– Raising money during the pandemic to continue our regular course of business, like printing, etc.
– & most recently, receiving our first grant

Have all been a strenuous journey just as much as it’s been exciting.

We think the most important thing to state is that our accomplishments have not happened in a domino effect or right after each other, despite how it might come across on social media. There are still moments when all we have is our hard work and no achievement on the other side to balance the sweat we’ve been putting in. Those moments can be discouraging, but when we get a “yes,” we realize why we’re still here and pushing to reach our goals.

Moreover, when you have a goal, and you’ve put actionable steps behind those goals, it makes the journey a little better — something we’ve learned from our mentors, which we feel is also important to have as business owners and individuals in general. It’s essential to surround yourself with people who are “doing it too,” who are where you want to be, and who will champion you when you need it most. The saying “it takes a village” applies just as much to business and achieving our goals as it does to other aspects of our lives.

Zaria Cards is learning; we’re still making mistakes, and sometimes we have to go back to the drawing board; we’re still figuring this whole thing out. Our first wholesale deal came very early for us in the game. On the outside, it might’ve looked so monumental; & believe us, it was. We are genuinely thankful and still beam at such a fantastic opportunity, but the reality of business, especially in the beginning, is you’re just trying to break even.

So after, it was like, “what now?” How do we keep this ship moving and continue to build revenue for a new business outside our B2C model? It was quiet after that for a long time, and we’re so blessed to have recently received our first grant. Something that we’ve committed ourselves to keep applying for since the start of our business. As a Black women-founded brand, it hasn’t been easy when it comes to funding opportunities, so this is a big deal for us. We are just thankful for all the lessons we continue to learn and the ability to keep going. Growing a business, the ups and downs of revenue and resources, and the early start of a company is not easy. So, we want to shout out to all the entrepreneurs, small business owners, startups, and our fellow stationery friends because we’re really making it happen regardless of the circumstances.

Zaria Cards is here to stay, and we’ll keep pivoting when we need to so that we can grow. We see big things for our brand and know we will get there with perseverance and building a good business model.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Zaria Cards is a greeting card brand that specializes in one-of-a-kind handwritten + illustrated greeting cards made to give a scrapbook feel—like a family member, loved one, and/or friend sat down to personally design a greeting card just for you! Our cards are authentically handmade, designed in-house, and produced. At Zaria Cards, we are not afraid to “color outside the lines”; we celebrate being unapologetic in our imperfectly perfect handwritten and hand-illustrated greeting cards.

Our cards are meant to look what we like to call “lived in” which means we wanted to create a brand where the illustrations and writing weren’t perfect. Greeting cards that look human and real. We didn’t see this in the stationery industry, and we wanted to fill that gap.

We want our community to see themselves, their experiences, and the beauty of our culture in Zaria Cards. To feel like they too can relate or simply be inspired by our cards. We want everyone who discovers Zaria Cards to join us on our journey; we’re still growing and plan to expand our product line to many other exciting things.

Zaria Cards is meant to bring more joy to your day, to help you through all the moments, not just special occasions, but the small ones too.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner. 

Zaria Cards is founded by co-owners N’jeri Agyeman and Serwa Groves. We are a mother + daughter duo and wanted to bring our love for writing and illustration to the stationery industry.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

This is definitely a big one, especially for the stationery industry. Finding the right printer is like finding the perfect brand of peanut butter to go with jelly for a PB&J. You really can’t have one without the other. It took us a long time to find a printer to get started. It’s one thing to have the work look amazing when we have everything sketched out but producing the product for the masses to appreciate is another crucial aspect of the business. It’s like you have this perfect card, but when printed, if the colors aren’t right, the printing isn’t clear and sharp, or the texture of the cards isn’t right, we have to start over again, which costs money.

Finding a printer starting out was challenging and took a lot of research and trial and error. Some of our favorite stationery brands in the game didn’t necessarily have their printer listed on their site, haha, which is understandable. It’s a very important relationship.

We are lucky to have found our printer. But honestly, as we grow and expand our product, we must continually go back to the drawing board and research printers to find a home that can do all that we’re looking for. Our goal is to improve as we grow; this includes the look and feel of our product when it’s in the hands of our community. We are constantly striving for better. Evolution is important!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zariacards.com
• Instagram: @zariacards
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zariacards/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zariacards
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeAhpuR4ldXa5ChADOyoIvw/featured
• Other: Wholesale Inquiries: https://zariacards.faire.com or https://www.zariacards.com/wholesale