This is the full transcript for Episode #308 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Hannah Redmond – Care Package Customizer, Happy Box Co-Founder. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Hannah Redmond 0:00
Some years truly survival is success.
Max Branstetter 0:17
Survival of the happiest. Welcome back to the Wild Business Growth podcast this is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting, not sure if I pronounced producer correctly there, and you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is Episode 308, and today’s guest is Hannah Redmond. Hannah is a fellow Hobokenite and the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Happy Box. Happy Box is your one-stop shop for customized gifting. Think any customized, personal, personizable, I’m sure that’s the word as well. Gift Box, care package for a wide range, whether that’s for personal amongst friends or corporate gifting or choose your own adventure. Happy Box has it all. And this is an extra happy, extra heartwarming story. In this interview, we talk all of the happy box journey, from heartbreaking idea to brightening everyone’s day getting on the Inc. 5000 how the dynamic works, inside of work and out between Hannah and her sister and fellow co founder, Ariel, and everything from running a successful e commerce site to managing fulfillment to where to eat in Hoboken. It is Hoboken Hannah or Happy Box Hannah. Enjoyyyyyyy the showwwwwww!
Alrighty. We are here with Hannah Redmond all the way from Hoboken, New Jersey. This shows that I didn’t do my research enough because I knew you were in Jersey. I did not know that we’re in the same town. So this is a very long distance, remote interview. But yeah, same square mile Yeah, exactly within a square mile interview. Yeah, we’ll never have a farther just interviewed people from around the world. So it’s a great change of pace. But anyway, co founder, Chief Strategy Officer of happy box, one of the happiest boxing companies that you’ll ever come across. Hannah, thank you so much for joining hope the weather’s great and Hoboken, but how you doing?
Hannah Redmond 2:42
Great? Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah.
Max Branstetter 2:45
Of course, we’re gonna get to all things happy box and probably all things Hoboken as well. And then after this, we’ll just like, meet up and go to ShopRite or Trader Joe’s together and get coffee. So before we get into the thick of it, I want to go back to, like, the early, early days of happy box. Ariel wasn’t able to join for this interview, so you’re gonna have to tell this only from your perspective, but I think it’ll be pretty juicy still. Can you tell us about the time your sister got dumped on Valentine’s Day?
Hannah Redmond 3:14
Yes, so that was truly the inspiration for happy box. My sister and now co founder, Ariel got dumped right around Valentine’s day when we were in college, and I wanted to send her something. And I always prided myself as like a good gift giver, and I wanted to create something that was like a hug in a box, a care package. We were long distance. I was in Maryland, going to my undergrad. She was in New York City, going to school, and so I couldn’t just like, give her a hug and make her feel better. So I wanted to create this awesome care package for her. And I went online, and I was like, of course, of course, there’s a way you can customize a care package online. You can customize a car online. But I didn’t find anything. The closest thing I found were, you know, some Etsy makers that had some cute care package ideas, but nothing was like a breakup kit. I wanted her favorite chocolate. I wanted a voodoo doll. I wanted snarky things that would make her laugh. I didn’t want just like a typical like Harry and David, or like star shaped fruit from edible arrangements, I wanted something to really make her happy. You know, I ended up doing it myself. I went to seven stores, as the story goes, in College Park, Maryland, where I went to school and found, you know, fun, quirky things, put this package together, went to Michaels, got some boxes and critical paper, went to the post office and had a really crappy experience. I had the wrong label or something and got yelled at by the USPS. And I remember thinking like, How is this possible? You can do so much online and you can’t customize a care package online like so fast forward, obviously, my sister loved it. And fast forward a few years, I was doing strategy work in ad agency side, and my job was really finding consumer insights, and I kept seeing these insights of customization and convenience, and like the brands that were doing really well D to C, were these brands that were figuring out what’s the intersection of customization and convenience. Consumers want to customize, but they don’t want to do so much work. They want DIY without the DIY. The idea always stuck with me of this idea of a custom care package builder. And so years later, Ariel and I decided to. Just kind of test it, because it made such an impact on her. I mean, she was so thrilled with it, and the fact that we couldn’t really find anything similar in the space. So that truly was the the first happy box, the breakup box. Since then, we’ve just grown, obviously, into much, many more occasions and been much more relevant over the past few years. But that’s really how, how it all started.
Max Branstetter 5:18
You know, we’re past the statute of limitations or period of sadness here, so I think we can say it, but that sounds like one of the best breakups of all time, because whenever somebody gets broken up with, you know, always friends and family, like, of course, everyone close always offers love and support and says, you know, like, this might be a blessing in disguise, but in this case, it literally, like birthed a business and like, whole new career path for you guys and for everybody else there and solving this problem, helping out for so many different businesses and customers out there. So it’s that’s unbelievable, but hold on, breaking up on Valentine’s Day. Who, like, what?
Hannah Redmond 5:55
I know it was a bad situation, but, um, like we always say, you know, from breakup to business, it really changed our lives. So
Max Branstetter 6:02
and from your perspective, because you’re like the original curator of this, what makes like a care package that’s just gonna like stick in somebody’s heart in a warm and fuzzy way over the years?
Hannah Redmond 6:13
More general to gifting is, I always say that the best gifts are things, one that obviously speak to the recipient, that are specific for them, right? Something custom, personalized. That’s obviously, I feel like that’s an obvious thing, but the thing I always look for, and even we still look for when we shop for happy box, like, even our DTC eComm site, are things that are really cool, that you would love to have, but you’d never buy for yourself. Those are the best gifts, the things that when you see them, you’re like, that’s cool, but I’m not gonna spend money on that. Those are the best things to receive. And so if you think about like, quirky stores or little gift shops, like you find those little items that are just a little bit special, a little bit different, but you wouldn’t necessarily spend the money on it today. It’s not like a must have. Those are the best gifts. So that’s kind of the lens I always go through when we’re like, shopping for happy box, or
Max Branstetter 6:55
if I’m doing gifting myself, clearly you’re at the gifting extraordinaire. So as if this interview wasn’t a gift enough, so thank you for that. I have a terrible sense of humor, but let’s get to, like, once the wheels started, like, fully turning for happy box. So you mentioned that, like, you had the initial idea without even realizing this. It was a business idea, and then you’re like, wait, maybe we have something here. So like, what was the inflection point. I just said a very disturbing term. What was the inflection point that, like, turned this into a real business that you’d ultimately make full time one day.
Hannah Redmond 7:32
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I was doing a lot of, you know, I was going to a lot of events in Manhattan, because it’s right here, you know, tech events, entrepreneurship events, so it’s kind of always around this, like energy of like, starting your own thing. And I always kind of figured I would do that eventually. So when this idea kind of landed on us, and we kind of kept talking about it, I think the first thing we did, and again, I was, I just finished my MBA, and I had taken some entrepreneurship courses, and I think I was very like, by the book, you know, MBA, like, I was trained to, like, Okay, do market research, do customer research. Like, even in my full time job at the time, I was a strategist, so it was always about data behind everything. So honestly, the first thing we did was, I remember being out, like, on a ski trip with friends, and I just was asking everyone, like, Hey, would you pay for this? Would you do this? How much would you pay for a custom care package if I did it all for you? Like, if you didn’t have to think about it and you just, like, knew the occasion, knew your friend, knew some stuff about them, but you just had someone do it all for you. And to me, I saw this more as, like, a potential service. It’s not necessarily the products we’re selling or that we were going to sell. And so kind of back to what I was saying about customization and convenience. So that was in the back of my mind. So I know I had something there, but then really asking friends, I mean, I was an M, I’m a millennial woman. I was a millennial woman at the time. At the time I was in my young
Max Branstetter 8:49
still are, Yep, yeah, oh yeah. It doesn’t change millennial for life, I know.
Hannah Redmond 8:53
But at the time was, like, young 20s. I was doing some research on, like, what do women my age spend on gifts, and what was cool was getting your MBA, you have access to the library that your university has. So I was doing like, a ton of research of, like, gift giving behavior, top gifting moments, potential competition. I had a lot of resources at my fingertips, which was great. So I did a lot of honestly research, first to see if this was truly an idea that would make it and then truly, I messaged my friends, I emailed my friends, and I said, Would you pay for this? Would you buy this? And I did a formal survey, you know, of my friends, and I don’t know, probably got like, 2530 people in my network to respond, and it seemed like this was a good idea. And you know, who knows, at the time, maybe my friends were just being nice to me, but, and said, Yeah, I’d pay for that. But, you know, you have to start somewhere. So that’s how we started. And then we decided to test the waters on Etsy just to see, like, okay, would people actually pay for this without it being our actual direct friends and family? So we did put up some, like, curated boxes on Etsy. At the time, you couldn’t really make a build your own. There was no like way to do that on Etsy. I guess you could with a million drop down. But at the time was there wasn’t an easy way. So we’re like, okay, let’s just see if, like, interesting care package would sell. So like, breakup kit or, and we’re doing one this year, an election survival kit, you know, like, things that are a little bit more fun, topical, not your typical Harry and David, not your typical. Like, what we used to say is, like, not your mama’s care package, not your mama’s gift basket, something a little different, a little snarky. So we had a lot of, like, curse words in our stuff, we had a lot of just, like, play on words, fun, snarky, quirky stuff, like a little kitschy and a little different, because we felt that that was really what was missing in the space. There’s a lot of traditional, like, we’ll say vanilla gifting out there, but there’s not really, there wasn’t really fun, fun gifts out there. So those were the first two steps. Really, it was like actual surveying people in our network, our friends, our family, doing some research about gifting, overall, in the gifting space, and then taking a stab on Etsy and seeing if people would buy it. And once they did, that’s when we were like, okay, something’s here because we had no media. Obviously we had no money, so we weren’t advertising. We just had this organically on Etsy. And once we saw that grow, that’s we started our own website, and that’s where we started exploring, how do we build this box builder. You know, how do you build the customization, which took a lot of work, obviously, and effort and money. So we didn’t get there right away, but we tested out the fun curated care packages first to see if anyone would buy them.
Max Branstetter 11:12
Yeah. Well, that’s a brilliant way to do it. And you can see, kind of like, how instantly you were applying, like, your MPA classes, about, like, validating the idea, and then kind of really, like, for you, Etsy was kind of, like the prototype of, like, getting started totally, by the way, Etsy, like, there’s so many amazing creators and small businesses on there. Like, I hadn’t thought about it from this regard. Like, you know, a lot of people become Etsy sellers at some point, but you’re like, a great case study of, like, like, yeah, you can stay on Etsy if you want, or you could turn it into your own thing at some point. But either way, it’s like a good thing to start kind of testing and start selling stuff there, yeah. So it’s really nice how you kind of, like, gradually ramped up there. Yeah.
Hannah Redmond 11:54
It’s nice that you don’t have to, like, build everything you know, doing going on Etsy. You had this organic search capability if, even if you didn’t do advertising back then, it was better than it is now. Now you have to like, advertise a little bit more, but we had this organic search capability, and we’d have to build a website. I mean, that was huge for us. We didn’t know we were doing. I mean, you know, like, we have no capability. Even have a developer. We have that background, like, my like HTML. Background would be from MySpace, you know. So
Max Branstetter 12:19
just hope you’re in the top eight, but I hope I’m in the top eight rather but so let’s get to building something. So when you do have your own site, and you do have your own platform, it’s really nice when you can get it to the point you are now where, like, everything’s streamlined, but it takes a lot, a ton of work to get there. So like, what as you were starting to, like, find developers and like, work on the tech side of that and really work on your Myspace HTML, what were kind of the principles that like you and your sister and team set forth of like, here’s the vision for what we want happy box to look like and how we want it to work. We
Hannah Redmond 12:53
knew we wanted this customization. We knew we needed to make something that was special in the space, because that didn’t exist, like, even to this day, on some of the biggest gift sites, you can’t really customize the way you can on our site. And looking back, it’s funny, we always joke. We’re like, oh, we get why people didn’t do it, because it was hard as hell to do, you know, and even the fulfillment side is super difficult to figure out. But at the scale we were at before, we were advertising and we were just on Etsy, and when we decided to build our own site, it was really about, how are we going to make this consumer experience easy? Because the whole point was, do it for them. Make it easy. We’re doing a service for them. We’ll figure out the rest. So how do we make it as easy as possible for them? So that was like, number one priority is, like, make this a few steps. Make it super easy. Give them lots of options. The second thing, honestly, that I think about when you ask that question, which I honestly haven’t thought about in a long time, is I read like the Lean Startup, and I was like, really watching and listening to people in the space, in the entrepreneurship space, talking about, like, agile development, and how you really should develop an MVP and just create something and then iterate, create something, and then iterate, and then improve, improve, improve. And we really leaned into that. I remember, after I finished that book I read, I would listen to a ton of podcasts of people who are using, like lean methodology. I took like a Coursera course on like agile development, which was like so out of my wheelhouse. But what I learned was just like, start. And I think for me, I’ll tell you, my biggest challenge as an entrepreneur and as honestly, a person, a professional, is I am a planner, like, I want to plan. I want to have the roadmap. I want to have the business plan. And my sister and co founder is like the opposite. She’s like, a creative art school, like she went to like, proper art school, like Parson School of Design, like super, you know, credible, very hard to get into art school. And for her, it’s like, she’s like, never seen a spreadsheet, you know, when we started the business. So it’s like, so for her, it’s like, just create let’s create it. And so the kind of benefit we had is this balance of, I’m the planner, she’s the like doer, together. It’s the perfect combination. It’s a tension, for sure, because we argue about it, still to this day, we argue about it when we’re creating things, we’re developing something, but it’s such a healthy tension when you’re starting a business, because you need that combination. And we’re just lucky, honestly. Me that one our professional backgrounds were so compatible, but then also just that kind of, I don’t know, personality trait or the way we are, like, I will always and forever be a planner. I have to do lists on to do lists, you know. And she just does things and and it works. But I think those were the two things it was like, how do we make this easy as pot, like, as easy as possible for the customer? And how do we do something that we can start it, create it, create it, and then iterate. We don’t have to have the final product right now, because we knew where we wanted to go. Was customized gift boxes at the time. That was like the first big goal, but that was, again, very hard and expensive and took development to get there. So I say a third thing is thinking about, kind of like what I said before about Etsy, find things that exist and make things, make them better, instead of necessarily creating something from scratch. I actually just talked to some just talked to someone who owns a web dev company, and he said that he won’t make something in development, like, even, like a, like a website feature for his clients unless 80% of his clients need it. Because you have to prove that you need it. It’s a lot of effort and time to create something net new. Like, I’m talking like, really net new, like innovative. He doesn’t do it unless 80% of his clients need it. And I thought that was a really interesting was a really interesting like, just number he had like to think about. Because we always are, you know, figure out we’re on Shopify. So we always are trying to figure out, what do we build versus, what do we use an app for and customize? That’s just a big, you know, internal struggle we always have, so but where we kind of land always is, let’s use something that exists and just make it a little better, optimize it with some customization.
Max Branstetter 16:21
I’m wondering, like, your friend you you referenced with the 80% rule, I wondering what happens at 79 like, if that’s a hard cut, but that’s a little teaser, because I do want to get into kind of the dynamic between you and your your sister in a bit. It sounds like you use Excel spreadsheets all the time, and she’s more likely to, like, paint a spreadsheet, paint it together or something, but, but it’s beautiful, starting to see it come together. Of like, what the actual what your website looks like, and how the platform makes it easy for people. You mentioned that the ultimate goal was, like, create your own gift box. What was the big win or a big decision you made that, like, made that possible from, like, the tech side and platform side,
Hannah Redmond 17:05
we side, hustled happy box for five years. And I say five years, I would say that first whole year was just, like, on back of a napkin, brainstorming, right? But, like, we
Max Branstetter 17:14
LLC, a lot of napkins for a year.
Hannah Redmond 17:16
I know, right? A lot of late nights, a lot of light napkins. But um, that first year was just honestly brainstorming and creative thinking of what this would be, and like, kind of just dreaming, honestly. So it’s really, I’d say, four solid years of side hustling, like actual work, like trying to get this done and trying to figure out if this was a real business and not just a hobby. Honestly. I think the moment for us, I remember, I was going to a work conference at it was hosted by, it was an entrepreneurship, actually, school. It was Babson, hosted by Babson and Harvard. It was really cool. I got this opportunity, because of my full time job, to go to this, like, one week of, like, intensive kind of business training, kind of, like a mini MBA sort of thing that they were sending some just like, key people to. And I was lucky. I got to go. And when I was there, I sat at this table with some, you know, some guy who was working on a brand in E commerce. I was working on a lot of very traditional brands off, like not D to C brands I worked on, for example, Snickers and Exxon Mobil. So these, these did not have E commerce presences, so I actually had no e commerce experience. And I was sitting at this table next to this guy, and we were just chatting, and I was telling him about the side hustle I have, and he was in E Comm, and he’s like, You have to be on Shopify. And at the time, I think we had graduated from Etsy to Wix, and I was doing Wix myself. It was WYSIWYG. I could drag and drop things. I don’t need coding. I don’t need developer because we’re 100% against scrappy, self funded company, and to this day, we’re still self funded. But we were chatting, and he’s like, You must be on Shopify. And I was like, oh, yeah, look a day. And he looked we looked at me, and he’s like, no, no. Like, you must move from Wix to Shopify. And I was like, Okay. And so I was like, I’ll look at the Shopify you’re talking about. I had no idea what it was. I’d heard about it, but I didn’t really know. And so I went back after this conference in Boston, I think, and I was just like, hey, Ariel. Like, this guy is, like, really saying we have to check out shop files to, like, do some research. So I did some research. And I was like, oh, okay, this is, like, where I have to be if we’re gonna do ecom. So that moment, I think when, when we moved from like Wix to Shopify, Wix was more like a, almost like a Live Journal. Like journal, it felt very like old school journaly type website. You know, it did not really feel like an E commerce proper, even though they were really trying to get there, and I think now they’re probably there, but the move to Shopify really changed everything for us, because Shopify was best in class, had tons of apps, had some support that we could use. And then I’d say the step that was like the stepping stone, and then we graduated to Shopify Plus, which gives you way more features, way more support, like white glove service, tons of automations and stuff like that. So I think Shopify, obviously the base for many DTC brands and ecom brands is just huge, and was a game changer for us. For sure, this
Max Branstetter 19:45
is gonna burst your bubble, but next week we have on the Wix co founder, I’m just kidding. No, I know. I just, I just want to see your reaction. No, I know. Shopify is so huge. You. But like, that’s such, like, a breath of fresh air when you find that technology or like that right fit of, like, Wait, we can finally do what we want to do with our platform. Yeah, totally. I see you had that aha moment, by the way. Babson, quick aside, my first job out of college, I worked in brand management in Connecticut, and the two schools that the company at the time, Sun products, the two schools they recruited from, where I you, where I went, and Babson. And I, like, wasn’t familiar with Babson, like, growing up in the Midwest, like, I just went, like, I know it’s more of a East Coast school, and I didn’t realize, like, how incredible an entrepreneurship program they have. Yeah, like, I have a ton of friends and, like, former co workers that went there as well, and they were like, it’s, it’s awesome. Like, it was, it was tough, but it’s the amount of, like, big time founders that have come out of there is unbelievable,
Hannah Redmond 20:49
yeah, and the networking I’m sure you get out of there, it’s amazing. Yeah,
Max Branstetter 20:52
yeah, exactly. So if you, if you look at your site today, it’s really impressive. Like, the amount of different types of offerings you have and business, I know there’s like, very easy to get into the corporate, speaker, agency, speaker, whether you call it silos or departments, types of business. And for anybody watching on video, I have an incredible sun ray coming down on top of me as a as in my soliloquy here. But you have, like, the Create your own gift box option. You have your, like, corporate gifting side of things. You have, like, the kind of the pre packaged ones. You have another option, gift by choice. I wanna, yeah, Gift of Choice, Gift of Choice. Gift of Choice, where you, like, set a budget, and then customers can choose whatever they want. So basically, what went into picking or, like, finalizing, what your different lines of of gift boxes are? Kind
Hannah Redmond 21:47
of going back to that, like, lean methodology. I still feel like we’re pretty we stick pretty true to that is that we try something, we launch, even if it’s probably sooner than we should, we test and we see if it has any results, and then we’ll kind of iterate from there all of our offerings. Like, of course, the initial, like, I said, the first initial big goal was, how do we get to customized care packages? At the time, there was one company out there doing it, and they were, I mean, beautiful boxes, beautiful products. They were doing, I think, kind of an elevated version of what we started doing. Like I said, we were starting quirky fun, like, you know, voodoo dolls, like, just different, a little bit different. And so we were trying to fill that, like, kitschy, quirky space. They were doing much more, like what I would give my mother in law, you know, or, like bridesmaids, something a little bit more, again, I say elevated, but, like a little vanilla, like, very again, beautiful has its purpose, but that’s not where we were trying to be initially. So that was the only company that had, like, a quote box builder at the time. Fast forward, post COVID, tons of competitors came into the space. The what we started realizing was, this is great, but we started getting requests. So like, you know, people would be like, Hey, this is great. These curated boxes are great, and the box builder is great. But hey, can I add my logo to the box? Like, what could you guys do that? I you know, yes, I bought for my bridesmaids. I bought happy boxes for my bridesmaids. But I’m also, like, the head of HR at this startup, and want to welcome new employees with something. And that kept coming up. So we’re like, oh, okay, so this, like, corporate stuff kept, like, sprinkling in tests. We would get these email requests. And we were like, Yeah, sure. I mean, my our backgrounds were at agency. Basically, I was brand side and ad agency side. Ariel was agency side for many years. So for us, interpreting brand guidelines or putting a logo on something was like, no brainer, like, we could do that. So we started doing that, and then from the corporate line of business, we started getting other questions, like, Hey, I love this, but can I make it so my recipients and my team can choose from two boxes, or can they choose from the gifts that we put in the box? Or and then we start getting asked for swag. So everything you see on our site, we’re just like, honestly, repeated customer requests that we tested. Realized there was some obviously business opportunity there, but two, we were really just making the service better for our customers. And I think where we really landed where we want to be. Of course, it’s custom gifting overall, if you look at our site, but where we really want to be is the one stop shop for your gifting needs. So whether it’s a personal moment or a corporate moment or an event or you just need swag, where your one stop shop like where your solution we have the self serve capabilities, which we do, where you can buy one box today for someone, or give the gift of choice to one. You can also self serve to 1000s people buy, especially around the holidays. You’d be surprised. Like, you know, we look at the sales of like, an email addresses. It’s , bought 72 boxes for their team, like so, and they’re buying it right on the site. Then we also have this more, I’d say, like concierge, part of the business, the corporate, like agency model, where we service clients with very big budgets, and we do their like year round gifting, or we’ll do like their rewards and recognition programs, or milestone gifting. So every time an employee hits a one year, three year, five year mark, it’s all automated for them. They never have to think about it. We warehouse and ship on demand, and they have a custom portal. So all of these offerings have come truly from. Customer feedback and repeat requests. And sometimes, I mean, Ariel’s really good at this and identifying it. Um, like, we’ll get a request from a client, and she’ll be like, yeah, sure, we could do it. And like, we have no capability, and she’ll go build it with our developer, and like, it’ll take a week and it’s done, and then maybe it’s not the greatest. And we’ll tell the client, like, Oh, yeah. Like, it may be a little glitchy, because we’re just testing some things, but it’s there, you know, and it’ll work, and we’ll just make it better, and then we’ll sell it to other clients. So true, like startup e form,
Max Branstetter 25:31
it’s so cool how it’s like, intrinsic in your business, and like you and your sister’s approach to business that like, pay very close attention to what customers want and see how we can provide it. And an example with your sister there, it’s like, well, technically, we can provide it, but like, yeah, somehow we still will, yeah. So that so find
Hannah Redmond 25:50
a way. Yeah, Ariel’s very uh. Ariel doesn’t say no, you know, like she’s she doesn’t ever say no. So
Max Branstetter 25:57
it’s a big growth driver there. It always helps to have, like, the energizer bunny on the team keep going along. But I think in terms of, like, the logistics of how the business actually works, like, it’s pretty mind blowing, you’re able to do what you do. I mean, on your site, like, the latest number that you’ve you’ve shown is that you provided over 700,000 gifts, which I can’t even count that high, and I think, like, that’s a ton of logistics behind the scenes on the back end to make that all work. Like, I’m not going to ask you to provide any, you know, trade secrets or copy, you know, anything you trademarked, or anything like that. But like, high level, how are you and team able to do what you do?
Hannah Redmond 26:39
Something we like joke about is there was a moment where I remember we were like, we were asked a few times, not often, but we were asked a few times, like, we have some really cool stuff on our box builder, for example. And the way you can shop our box builder, generally, is you have to select multiple gifts, you select a box, you select a card, you go to checkout, so you build this box. And we got asked a few times, oh, you know, I really like that scrunchie. Like, how do I buy just that one scrunchie? And we were like, oh, like, we don’t really have a way to just to buy one product. That’s not what we built this for. And what we realized in that moment when we were trying to make it also work, that you can just buy one product, is we’re like, Oh, my God, we’ve developed this, like, very, like, extensive, difficult system. We’ve made this system where it’s bundling products, and we’ve had to do a lot of custom development to do that, that we’ve almost done the, like, hardest part of E commerce, and the simplest part, which is like, Oh, I like that product. Click Buy. Like, we never even did. So I think we almost, um, because we did this hard, very detailed, custom form of e Comm, like, this bundling of products together and making Shopify, recognize that’s one actual product, and also making it so you can buy 72 boxes and ship them to 72 locations in one checkout. That was difficult to do. We’ve done all this, like crazy detailed custom work in the Econ space that the one to one became very easy. And we were like, Oh, wow. Like we did this, like, really hard stuff first. And back to kind of my comment earlier is like we realized why people hadn’t done this before. Because it was extremely hard to do. It’s still extremely hard to do. I think one of the things we had to figure out, which I feel, one of the things I’m the most proud of at Happy box, is that we’ve created our own fulfillment center, which sounds crazy, I think, to people who are trying to start something, because you’re like, how do you even get there? I mean, I if I asked myself 10 years ago, would I have a warehouse and a fulfillment center? I would have been looking No way. How do I? I don’t know how to do that. Um, but controlling our own fulfillment and building the solutions that work for our business was so important to be successful in exactly what you’re talking about, being able to do all of these different like lines of our business and be able to, um, offer all these different capabilities to our customers and clients. It really comes down to having our own fulfillment and warehouse. Because when we started, we obviously did it ourselves, right? Like I did this in my apartment. I packed boxes in my apartment. We graduated,
Max Branstetter 28:52
packed 700,000 boxes in their apartment. Yeah, not
Hannah Redmond 28:56
that. Probably 1000s. Definitely, like that, the amount of boxes I’ve made and paper cuts I’ve gotten, but, yeah, cardboard paper cuts are like no joke too. We obviously did ourselves at first. We graduated a little bit. We actually my parents had an apartment down the street from us that was bigger, and we used their apartment, our spare room, and their apartment for a while, and then we got our first warehouse, which was very tiny and gross, but that was our first base but having that gave us the capabilities like that, I’m saying like to really customize everything. Because when you go to a 3pm like a third party logistics partner, what we found is they’re not built to customize. They’re not built for flexibility. They’re built for volume. They get paid on volume. They want to pump out as many orders as possible in the quickest way possible, and you pay for it, and it’s oftentimes some sort of base number plus number of items. And for us, it’s like everything is variable, like every custom box is truly custom. I mean, when you think about 700,000 gifts, almost all of those are completely custom. That’s insane, like, if you think about it from and it’s funny, our one of our biggest questions we get when we talk to. Like, people who are interested in investing in us, or people who are interested in partnering with us, they’re like, how do you scale that? And it’s funny, because again, back to we kind of figured out the like, hardest parts, not to say there wouldn’t be challenges in scaling, but we’ve kind of figured out a really good system that works for us, that we’re able to scale up and scale down very easily. And I say that with an asterisk, like, Nothing’s easy, but we figured it out enough that we’re able to offer these capabilities. But I think it all comes down to the operations, and again, something I wasn’t necessarily trained or equipped to do, but I don’t know, when you’re back against the wall, you figure it out.
Max Branstetter 30:32
It’s great words to live by there. Yeah, that’s fascinating on the the own fulfillment, which sounds like a ton of work getting it up and started, and it’s always a ton of work, but like, when you realize you have, like, total control of your logistics, and at least as much as you can control, that’s like, that’s a huge advantage as a company,
Hannah Redmond 30:48
yeah, like one, like, fun anecdote, I think, is, we were talking to a company, pretty big company, and they, they are D to C, so they have their own they use their own fulfillment center. I think they have their own fulfillment center, or they’re using a three PL that they feel comfortable with, right? But they came to us and they were like, I want you guys to do our influencer gifts, because I can’t have something broken go to Jennifer Aniston. And
Max Branstetter 31:09
that really, that’s what I always say, like, because they were doing a
Hannah Redmond 31:13
big influencer and media push, and they were nervous about their own fulfillment center. And I was like, that shows you there’s problems in this space if you can’t trust your fulfillment center or your three PL to put something out there like we can do the most. So I mean, again, we are brand people. We are marketers by background. So for us, everything that leaves our warehouse there is a creative element or creative standard that we adhere to and stand by. And our team knows that, and they’re trained by that, because it’s not, it’s not volume for us, it’s everything is custom and made to order. And that’s, that’s the service we sell. It’s you can trust that when this is going to an influencer or media that is going to be beautiful, the Henry note will be beautiful. It’s not, you don’t have to worry about, we’re not making money on the volume, and necessarily we’re providing a service. It’s different than like the three PL game. So that’s just interesting. So I’m like, you have your own fulfillment center, but they literally went with us for influencer gifts, because they just didn’t trust their own fulfillment.
Max Branstetter 32:06
And you should never trust the sun. My lighting has been pretty good lately for the YouTube videos for the Wild Business Growth podcast, but now for this interview with Hannah, you can check out the video. If it’s not out at the time you’re listening to this, then it will be up soon on YouTube @MaxBranstetter, and approximately half of this interview has the worst lighting I’ve ever seen. From my end, you’re staring into the sun that doesn’t want to make you watch it. I don’t know what will I did edit a lot of my comments on that out of this audio version. But if you are on Youtube, make sure to subscribe @MaxBranstetter to get all the latest videos from the Wild Business Growth podcast and wild entrepreneurs like Hannah. All right, just as I trust you will not make fun of my lighting. Let’s get to some more trust. Well, speaking of trust, let’s pivot a little bit. You foreshadowed this brilliantly earlier. The dynamic between you and your sister, I think, with so many, like, co founders that I talked to, they have like, I guess, somewhat of a similar dynamic. And like, somebody’s kind of more the planner, somebody’s more the creative side. And like, when you have those two elements in founders, like, it’s really, really strong foundation, literally, see how many words I can have with found in you guys, found each other, no but to build a business off of. And so it complements really well. You know, ying yang, use all the idioms you want. But on the flip side of that, your sisters. Sisters fight, civil you know, I grew up with the brother. Brothers fight. You know, every sibling fights from time to time. How do you kind of handle that these days? If you ever just like, you know, I’m not happy with Ariel today, or vice versa?
Hannah Redmond 33:55
Yeah, it’s definitely a different dynamic, I think, than most founders. So it’s interesting. And by the way, that’s probably our most common question is, how do you work together? Like, what’s,
Max Branstetter 34:05
I assume you guys were just in, like, a huge fight, and that’s why she’s like, you know, take this interview I’m not joining.
Hannah Redmond 34:14
It’s definitely one. I think we’re just lucky. Like, luck comes into a lot of this, I think, is that, again, our backgrounds are so complimentary. So like, back in the day before we were happy boxers, right, like we both worked agency side, and even when I was brand side, we would have worked together. We never did, but we would have right, like I was a strategist. So my job would have been taking the business objectives, looking at consumer insights, writing a creative brief, and then she would have executed the brief and come up with creative ideas, commercials, videos, whatever the concepts that would come out of it. So we’re weirdly, like, lucky that our professional backgrounds were so complimentary. That just makes it easier, because we speak the same language. We both worked in ad agencies in Manhattan. We both worked on Super Bowl spots. We both worked on commercials. We both have the same background, so that’s just like luck, honestly, because most I don’t know, most sisters, you know, or siblings. That aren’t necessarily the same career or even realm of career. So that was luck, for sure. And I think the sister dynamic definitely comes into play. We absolutely fight, we absolutely argue. The hardest part, I’d say, is keeping that to ourselves and not showing the team the sister side, which they definitely see it like, don’t get me wrong, like there’s definitely moments where they’re like, oh, it’s like a sister moment, you know, disagreeing. But I think overall, it’s a superpower. And here’s why, there’s, like, two main reasons. One, because when we’re together for family things, which we both live in Hoboken, we both have kids the same age. So we’re together on the weekends because our kids are playing and their cousins, and we’re on family vacations together. We go to if we visit our parents, who live in Florida, we’re both there. So real quick, we’re
Max Branstetter 35:41
in Florida, because I’m sure it’s the same place that either my wife’s parents or my parents are.
Hannah Redmond 35:46
They’re in Hollywood Beach, Hollywood, okay, not too far.
Max Branstetter 35:50
My mother-in-law and father-in-law are in Delray Beach. So my parents are west coast. So any
Hannah Redmond 35:57
like, think about it, right? We’re in the Uber or on the way the airport, or we’re in the airport waiting, we’re talking about business. So it’s a superpower in that every quote off moment, or, like vacation moment, is like business for us. And it’s not because we’re a workaholic. I mean, we are because I think every entrepreneur has to be honestly, but we’re just passionate. We’re like, Hey, I saw this ad. I This is a great idea. Or, hey, you know this client mentioned this. I think we should talk about it like we’re at the park and our kids are on the swings and we’re, like, talking about closing a deal. We’re very lucky in that we get this, like, incremental halo effect of, like, all of our free time is also kind of business time. And I don’t know you could argue that’s healthy or not healthy, but for us, it’s fun, so it’s not for us, it’s not unhealthy. Maybe our husbands think differently, but we really are passionate about what we do, passionate about growing the business we have really, you know, aggressive goals. So for us, like having that bonus time is just like, amazing. So that would only come if you have a relationship, like a sister relationship or a family relationship. The second thing that’s, I think, makes us a super superpower versus a negative, is you kind of like, cut the crap. Like there’s no passive aggressive corporate politics. There’s no mediator. We are gonna fight. We get it. But guess what? Like, she heard my opinion way sooner than if I had to, like, tiptoe around and be like, polite and like, HR friendly talking to her. So like, I think we get to decisions faster, and we get out our like, feelings faster about things. Because, you know, I will be like, That’s a stupid idea. I’m like, It’s not stupid. And then we’ll just, like, argue about it for five minutes. But then we’re like, we get there, you know. And I think we also early on. I mean, this was really early on. I think we had to figure it out is, because in the beginning it was hard, like, we would fight and disagree and be like, you know, like and angry at each other. And I think we learned, I mean, this is pre even quitting and going full time, like, part time, we even noticed this, and we and Ariel, to her credit, she really came up with this idea. She’s like, I’m gonna call it. We’re not agreeing, we’re arguing. We’re done for the night. It’s 730 let’s stop, you know, and let’s talk tomorrow. And she was really good at that. Like, just being like, okay, we’re not getting any more stop. Like, let’s call it. We’re done. Let’s like, I’ll see you at Mom’s for dinner, you know. And we just like, kind of like we realized we had sisters. We have to live, look, not live together. We have to live in our lives together. We have to work together. Work together. So we have to make it work. So I actually think it’s way more of a positive than a negative. I mean, you talk to people and they’re like, I could never work with my sibling. But you make it work, because you know they’re in your life, like, what are you going to do? Not talk to them ever again. That’s not right. So you have to figure it
Max Branstetter 38:17
out. You two have mastered the ripping off the band aid. And just like getting into so band aids paper cuts are a huge theme here on the the more even more happy note, happy happiness in your company name, it fits the vibes of the company. Like, how would you characterize? Like, how you communicate to your team, your customers, your clients, like what it means, what like the happy means in happy box for you guys,
Hannah Redmond 38:44
I mean for us, we always say we want to do business happy, and that means across the board. So it’s with each other, it’s with our team. It’s with our partners. It’s with our UPS driver. You know, we have a lot of relationships. Our whole business is helping relationships. It’s helping. It’s providing a service that helps you foster a connection to someone else. So we take that seriously, like we’re I mean, there have been moments I think one of the coolest part of our business is on the consumer side and on the corporate side, but largely on the consumer side. You see these notes people write to each other, and it like, restores your faith in humanity. Like people are so nice and like you, like, if you’re having a bad day in our warehouse, you just, like, read some cards and, like, just see what people are saying to each other. It’s just like, it like, lifts you up. So we’re we know we’re making someone’s day, and we’re putting like, a smile on their face, truly, like, that’s like, what we do. And we’re giving someone who maybe didn’t have the opportunity to do this themselves, don’t have the time to do something like this themselves. We’re giving them, like, a creative voice in their gift giving, which is really unique. I mean, again, unless you are going to go and, you know, find all these items stand in line at USPS, like I did back in the day. I mean, you can’t really do this very easily, and it’s quite, you know, more expensive because you’re, you know, the stuff we’re buying is at such scale. So, like, we know, we’re offering a great service to allow people to foster connection. So we again, take that seriously, and we try to, like, do. Everything in a positive way. I think we also so we’re women and minority owned certified, and we, as part of our kind of mission, we try to source from largely diverse owned businesses, because and local businesses. Now, some clients ask for very big brands. We do do those too, right? Like we source what our clients need or ask for, but largely especially on our website is stuff we’ve either created ourselves in our own diverse businesses, or we’ve partnered with other diverse owned businesses, which has been such a huge just like a feel good part for us, but also we’re just so happy to shine a spotlight on some of those businesses too. I mean, we’ve gotten people say, Oh, hey, where’d that like, where’s that candle from? Or, like, what’s the brand? And then, like, we’ll get an email from the brand. I just got this big order from this person, and they wanted to buy 17 candles for all their front like, it’s so cool seeing the like ripple effect of just showing off some of these businesses who honestly may not have any kind of platform. I mean, we saw this, especially during COVID. I mean, we had coffee shops with that. We were sourcing from locally who said, without your orders, like we would, we wouldn’t pay rent because they their shop was shut down, but they and they didn’t have an E commerce presence, a coffee shop doesn’t have that typically, but they were selling to us, and we were selling e comm. So we were giving them not only exposure, but we were giving them some sales and revenue that they really desperately needed at the time. So we really feel Ariel, and I think we’ve worked on very big brands previously, and I think, you know, in our previous careers, and I think we noticed that, like, these big brands have a lot of sway, and they have a lot of, um, power in lifting up smaller businesses. And so we are just trying to do, like, a little bit of that, like, if we can lift up a few small businesses along the way, we feel like we’ve done something good. You know,
Max Branstetter 41:38
I’m all in unhappy, and you made my heart happy just saying those things. So congrats and thanks for all you do. I want to wrap up with some happy rapid fire questions. You ready for it?
Hannah Redmond 41:51
Yeah,
Max Branstetter 41:52
all right, let’s get wild. You mentioned big brands that you worked on, Snickers. That’s a fun one. What’s like a fun fact or just like something cool behind the scenes about Snickers, you learn from that experience.
Hannah Redmond 42:04
So Snickers, the actual candy bar, was named after the family horse, the Mars. Really, Mars is still a family owned company.
Max Branstetter 42:10
Just funny because I feel like I’ve met, like, I’ve met, like, yeah, handshake. I’ve heard of like dogs being named. Snickers and like pets being named. It’s funny. It was a, like, a horse name originally, and now it’s a pet name that’s funny.
Hannah Redmond 42:21
And also it was actually the first, like, if you think about granola bars, um, Snickers, if you remember, like, the Patrick Ewing, uh, commercials back in the 90s.
Max Branstetter 42:28
Sorry, you mean, you mean Patrick chewing, yeah,
Hannah Redmond 42:33
there was no, like, griddle, like, back then, 80s, 90s. There was no real granola bar. The best, the most filling, protein filled bar you could get was the Snickers versus, like, think about, like, think about, like, just a standard chocolate bar, like a Hershey bar. So it was marketed very much as, like, a nutritious granola type bar. And now the space is so crowded, and Mars owns like, kind snacks, so there’s, like, a lot of it’s changed a lot, but I always found that really interesting. It was like this perceived, like, you know, sports snack at the time. So it’s interesting.
Max Branstetter 42:58
Thank you for that. I have to shout out in honor of my grandpa, Henry, who he died back in 2020 but actually, like right before COVID was starting, which we knew he would have hated that time period. So it actually, you know, it was just crazy. But anyway, huge impact on all of our lives. And like the two, like indulgences that he just loved to death were Snickers bars and absolute vodka and so for, I think it was, it was my mom’s idea. Was awesome, either a 75th or 80th birthday. Oh no, let me scratch that 90th birthday, I think it was, wow. We got, doesn’t matter the milestone. It’s one of those five year birthdays. We got them like a bottle of absolute vodka and a bunch of, like, the fun size Snicker bars, Snickers bars, and taped them over the entire bottle. And so we presented him like a Snickers vodka bottle, and I’m sure he consumed all of it. I mean, who doesn’t love Snickers? Yeah, exactly. So appreciate the nostalgia there hadn’t thought about that in a while. All right, couple Hoboken questions for you can’t resist if, like a friend or family member is visiting Hoboken for the first time, what restaurant are you taking them
Hannah Redmond 44:11
to? That’s a good question. I feel like if they’re from out of New Jersey, probably something Italian,
Max Branstetter 44:16
maybe Italian restaurants in Hoboken, I’d
Hannah Redmond 44:20
probably show them the local delis with like, Frank Sinatra’s mug shot in them, and then maybe get some mozzarella fiories. But I think otostrata like pizza, pasta,
Max Branstetter 44:30
oh yeah, the giant, the one pound meatball, or whatever that what is your favorite, like, event or time of the year in Hoboken?
Hannah Redmond 44:40
I like, want to say summer, because the parking is better, but
Max Branstetter 44:45
you really are a planner. It’s all, I mean,
Hannah Redmond 44:48
I love the fall. I love this time. It feels like, I don’t know if you feel this walking around Hoboken, but like with the light in the fall, like right at dusk, it feels like a movie set, like the brownstones and the trees. It just looks literally.
Max Branstetter 44:59
Is they’re like, I mean, what’s the latest one? Chalamet with the Bob Dylan movie? Yeah, that’s
Hannah Redmond 45:03
true. There’s like, a ton of movies, a ton of movies shot here, yeah, but it’s just so pretty and nice. And I don’t know there’s, like, no bad timing. The winter is hard here, but, um, in apartment living,
Max Branstetter 45:15
it’s also, I’ve noticed, like, especially, like the brownstones, like those, all those streets, those beautiful streets, like Hoboken goes hard for Halloween decorations.
Hannah Redmond 45:22
Like, yeah,
Max Branstetter 45:23
oh yeah. You do not mess around, like you walk around any of those streets. And it is unbelievable that Halloween Yeah,
Hannah Redmond 45:29
close down the streets Exactly. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun with a toddler. Let me tell you, I like that. You like relive trick or treating. It’s so fun. Oh,
Max Branstetter 45:38
my God. All right. And then what is your best remedy for a paper cut, actually, a cardboard paper cut.
Hannah Redmond 45:45
Oh, man. Well, we have a first aid kit in the warehouse. I mean, definitely like clean it. Clean it out, and just soap and water is fine. I’ve learned, you didn’t
Max Branstetter 45:54
know I’d be asking you for medical advice here, not Doctor certified, but an MBA certified.
Hannah Redmond 46:01
The things I’ve learned running a warehouse, no, we have a great team that actually runs the warehouse. I just like there sometimes, but wash it out, soap and water, and then maybe some, like Neos foreign once it dries, or some sort of cream. And then a band aid. That’s it awesome.
Max Branstetter 46:15
And then bite into a Snickers, all right? And then last one. So I often ask us about what I call weird talents or party tricks, like just like things that really don’t impact your business, but like you’re really good at it. And so in this case, I want to ask what’s like a weird talent or party trick that you are much better than your sister at,
Hannah Redmond 46:32
much better than my sister. I don’t know. I feel like she’s much better at those things than me. Could I reverse it? Of course, something that I’m really bad at that is so weird to me, because I actually really like doing it. Yeah, I think one of the things I’m the worst at, and I don’t know if this is something like dormant dyslexia, but I’m really bad at, um, word searches, like, really bad, like, truly horrible. Or, like, those word scrambles, actually word searches. I’m okay. It’s the word scrambles. It’s like a joke, you know, type stuff I don’t know. Like, you know, if you’ve read the PATH train, sometimes those like puzzles, and it’s like a mix of letters, and you have to pick the word, like, that’s, I am awful. Like, horrible. Like, I can’t get them. Like, I’m pretty sure my, like, two and a half year old get them before me. I don’t know what it is. It’s, I’m very bad at it, so it’s kind of the reverse. But my sister always makes fun. She’s like, she’s like, how can you not see that? This is the word, and I just, I don’t know, I can’t see
Max Branstetter 47:21
awesome. Well, I have to admit, if it makes you feel any better, like I never do this, but when I sent the invite for this interview, I spelled your name wrong. And I never do that. I didn’t put an h on the end, and I knew there was an H on the end, so I don’t know. I just noticed it beforehand, like, Oh my God, and I want to update it, but I knew if I updated it, it would send you the update that said, and you’d be like, What? What changed? And I’d be like, nothing. So anyway, so many of us have word troubles. Perfect. Well now we all know how to spell your name again, but Hannah with an H 2h Thank you so much. This has been awesome, just like love everything with the happy box story, and it was an extra bonus with the Hoboken ties as well. But a big fan of what you and sister and team are doing, thank you. Yeah, of course. Where’s the best place for people to if they want to try out or get gifted or send gifts via happy box, where’s the best place for that, and just like, if they want to connect with you online,
Hannah Redmond 48:13
anywhere, yeah? So Happy box store.com is our website, so you can go there to check out all of our gift offerings at Happy box on Instagram as well. You could see some fun behind the scenes content of our warehouse and our team and fulfillment, because that’s always just cool to see. And then for me, I mean, you can find me Hannah Redmond on LinkedIn, or if you email Hello at Happy box store.com I do check that inbox, too perfect.
Max Branstetter 48:35
And then let me know any spelling questions. And then, finally, last thing, final thoughts. It could be a quote, Words To Live By. You can you can sing your favorite Sinatra song, no, whatever you want. Send us home here.
Hannah Redmond 48:46
I think because most of your audience are entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned in entrepreneurship is that like, and I know people say this, but you will fail, expect to fail, and just survival is everything like, we always say we’re like the cockroaches of gifting, because we could have gone out of business many times. I mean, there were weeks and months where we’re like, we have like, a runway of three weeks or two weeks, and we’re like, you know, I’m going to be out of cash. You make some hard choices and some hard decisions, but you can survive some of those things. And actually, when your back’s against the wall, you’d be surprised how creative you can be. So if anyone listening is going through one of those moments, know that we’ve been there many times, just like many entrepreneurs, and honestly, some years, truly survival is success. And I think we remind ourselves that a lot survival is success sometimes, and that’s okay. It’s not necessarily like the Inc 5000 sometimes, that’s success too, but it’s okay if sometimes survival is success.
Max Branstetter 49:42
Survival is success and suffering. Succotash, shplendid. Thank you so much Hannah for coming on the Wild Business Growth podcast, sharing your Happy Box story, all your recos, tips, advice and thank you Wild Listeners for tuning in to another episode if you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth podcast on your favorite podcast app and subscribe on YouTube. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter and that is where you can find the video versions, including this rather extremely well lit one. On my end. You can also find us on Goodpods, and for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and make sure to sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter that is short and sweet every Thursday where podcasting meets entrepreneurship meets the worst puns in Hoboken and beyond. You can sign up for that at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter Until next time from the land of Sinatra and Mutzfest, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
