We recently connected with SaVonne Anderson and have shared our conversation below.

SaVonne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Growing up in an entrepreneurial family, I always knew that I wanted to run my own business. My father has been a full time entrepreneur since I was seven and I watched him buy homes, travel the world, send my brother and I to college, and create a life he loves on his own terms. He is the reason why entrepreneurship has never felt out of my reach. I didn’t know what type of business I wanted to build, so when I went to college, I studied design, digital marketing, and black culture to nurture my existing skills and passions. I also joined teams at small start-up companies to get hands-on experience with building a business from the ground up.

Sending handwritten notes in cards has always been how I show love to my family and friends. I send cards for birthdays, holidays, accomplishments, and just because. I would look for the cards that reflected our experiences but usually had to settle for less. There weren’t cards with black faces. There weren’t any messages that reflected my sentiments authentically. And in the event that I did find a card that I loved, it definitely was not made sustainably. Even though stationery is a multi-billion dollar industry with billions of global consumers, women like me were occupying a gap in the market.

As an advocate for environmental justice, I also wanted to make sure that my company didn’t perpetuate climate change and pollution, since these problems disproportionately affect black and brown people. All of our products are made from recycled paper without excess waste or pollution, and we use our platform to make information about sustainability accessible to our audience.

SaVonne, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Newark native, graphic designer and creative entrepreneur. I founded Aya in 2019 while working as a graphic designer at a NYC art museum, looking to pivot into entrepreneurship. As a lifelong lover of greeting cards and stationery, I was too familiar with the feeling of walking down the greeting card aisle and not finding anything that looks or sounds like me. And as an advocate of environmental justice, I was also aware of how much waste product-based businesses create. Aya was how I would meet a need for folks like me and make an impact on the world.

As the founder and CEO, I am involved in every aspect of the business: creative direction and product design, marketing and sales strategy, operations and shipping logistics, budgeting and accounting, and usually the hand model and photo editor too! I truly believe that good business, good design and good ethics can (and should) coexist—and Aya is proof of that.

To date, SaVonne has been recognized in Forbes, Refinery 29, Black Enterprise, and 21Ninety for her work as an entrepreneur. Aya Paper Co. has been featured in Allure, Time, CNN, Parade, Architectural Digest, and many more.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started my business while working full time as a graphic designer. I had a 9-5 and took on freelance clients but was feeling really unfulfilled in my work. I was doing a lot of digital design for clients and at my job, I was doing a lot of the same projects over and over. I started my business to break out of that monotony and explore product design. I opened up shop in July 2019 and by December, I was participating in pop up events almost weekly. The product was a hit and store owners were asking if we offered Wholesale. I was getting invited to opportunities that interfered with my 9-5. Honestly, I wasn’t making a lot of money with the business yet, but I knew that if I had the time, I could do big things. So in February 2020, a few weeks before COVID lockdown, I quit my job.

When all of my events were cancelled because COVID, I didn’t sulk or wait around for things to get back to normal. Instead, I spent a month pivoting our business model to be a primarily e-commerce business. That included: updating our website design, auditing the UX, creating an email marketing strategy, and posting more online. In addition to strengthening our e-commerce platform, I also added a team member in March to focus on wholesale and bulk orders.

Now, we have reached over half a million dollars in sales and been in hundreds of stores across the country from small gift shops to Nordstrom and Kohl’s.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Email is king! Before being an entrepreneur, I knew that email is the best way to have direct access to your customers. Social media is dependent on another business’ success, but email is the only way you can reach customers directy. So when I started my business, I put all of my family and friends on the list. At my very first event I started collecting emails from anyone who stopped by my table. From day 1 I set up my website to solicit addresses from visitors. We have automated email flows set up and send weekly campaigns to our ecommerce customers and wholesale clients. Keeping in consistent contact with customers is great, even when they don’t always shop. Because whenever they think of getting a gift or card, they will think of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: ayapaper.co
• Instagram: @ayapaper.co
• Linkedin: @ayapaperco
• Twitter: @ayapaperco

Image Credits
Headshot: Photography: Shanté Carlan