We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shanti Grossman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shanti, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have been crafting and sewing for as long as I can remember, but my first taste of themed party planning started in December of 2009, when I turned my house into a winter wonderland inspired by Elf, and threw one legendary party! With paper chains and snowflakes hanging from every inch of ceilings, the house quickly turned into a scene from the movie.

Dawning a homemade Jovie the Elf costume, I served spaghetti to the guests, with syrup being an optional topping (you should try it, it kind of tastes like pancakes!) All four main Elf food groups were out for the snacking; candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. And the 7 layers of the candy cane forest could be found throughout the house. Guests joined in the fun by visiting the Elf hat making station, a toy building contest, a children’s book writing activity, a marshmallow eating contest, and more. Needless to say, the party turned into an all encompassing experience, and everyone had a memorable night that is still talked about years later.

Fast forward to 2013, and as good friends do, Shanti hosted Heather’s baby shower. Heather expected a cute party, but was truly blown away when her house was transformed into an under-the-sea extravaganza. When the shower was over, Heather said, “We can’t just keep throwing these cute themed decorations away. You should package them up and sell them to other people wanting to throw themed parties.” Just like that the seed was planted and the idea of Party at Your Door was born.

Since then Party At Your Door has grown, and then grown some more. We’ve helped over 30,000 customers celebrate the memorable milestones in their lives in over 50 states and 15 countries! With 8-15 employees, depending on the season, there is never a quite or dull moment around the studio, as we make your custom party decor dreams come to life!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Running a small business is not for the faint of heart. Add in the small profit margins and detailed work of creating custom and personalized handmade items, and things can get intense at times!

Some of the more challenging things to balance are customer’s expectations of having handmade, custom and personalized items made to order, while still wanting it delivered on a timeline like huge corporations like Amazon, Target and Zappos can deliver. Because we live in a “2 day delivery” world, we do our best to have all orders in the mail within 1 business day, which means we hustle every minute of every day to get the custom party decor created and out the door.

Even though we move fast, we also make sure to enjoy our work and support our employees along the way. All of our employees are the primary care givers of children, which requires a lot of flexibility from everyone! From sick days to field trips, school parties to summer breaks, we are constantly juggle schedules, covering extra shifts, working late nights or early mornings, all so that we can be present for all those special mom moments that seem to pass too quickly these days!

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

Party At Your Door launched on Etsy in 2015, but has expanded to a stand alone website, partyatyourdoor.com, and offers both personalized products on Amazon Handmade and also non-personalized, ready to ship party decor on Amazon Prime.

The most challenging part of existing on different platforms is learning what customers need and want from your business on each different marketplace. Our shopper on Etsy and partyatyourdoor.com have very similar expectations for products and turn around times, while Amazon shoppers have different needs and expectations.

Once you’re able to learn what customers want, and deliver those needs, then you can continue to grow your business. At the same time, as a business owner you have to realize you can’t be everything to everyone, so you have to learn when to say no and walk away from opportunities that don’t serve your business’ goals.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

One of my favorite things about Party At Your Door is that customers come back year after year to order decor for different milestones in their lives. We get to help celebrate some of the most important days in a person’s life and it is such an honor to know that they chose us to bring their celebration to life with custom decorations that will be captured in photographs and cherished for year and years to come.

Contact Info:

• Website: partyatyourdoor.com
• Instagram: @party_at_your_door
• Facebook: facebook.com/partyatyourdoor
• Other: partyatyourdoor.etsy.com

Image Credits
Laura Morsman Photography (Circus and Little Cutie photos) Kelly Power photography (Dinosaur Themed Photo)