Innovative Gifting: How addSQUIRREL Combines Technology with Traditional Cards – with Jen King

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea To Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Hello.

I am so excited today to be speaking to Jen King. Jen is a greetings card publisher, designer and the founder of ad squirrel.

AddSquirrel combines traditional card giving with innovative technology to create unforgettable personalized card and gifting experiences. AddSquirrelis a really unique product. It has a digital and a physical aspect.

I'm not going to talk too much about what it is here because I would love for you to listen on and let Jen explain it to you. If you are listening to this episode, I should also say this is a great one to watch in YouTube.

If you haven't been converted to YouTube yet, this is a really good one because Jen actually shows us her product on video and you can see what it is and how it works.

We speak a lot about how you market and sell a completely unique, original product that people have never heard of, using technology that a lot of people are quite unfamiliar with. And Jen explains the main way she's getting her products out in front of people, which was not what I expected.

And yeah, I think it's really, really interesting, everything that Jen and her team are doing. So I will stop talking now as I would love to introduce you to Jen and let her explain all about ad Scribble.

So, hi Jen, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, you're so welcome. Can we start with you? Please give an introduction to you, your business and what you sell.

Yeah, sure. So my name is Jen, based in the Cotswolds and I'm originally a greetings card designer illustrator.

And we've recently launched a new product to market called AddSquirrel in June. So we've been running that alongside it at the same time.

Amazing. Thank you. And so how long have you been working as a greetings card publisher?

I've been working as greetings card publisher for around seven years now.

Started off with a few illustrations and then just sort of grew from there and I just found that the card sold really well, so sort of the avenue went down. We do sell giftware as well. We've got eco friendly bags, coasters, placemats, chopping boards, all sorts.

But with price rises and when Russian Ukraine war happened, stock just went through the roof because I buy everything in the UK and it just didn't make it as feasible anymore. So I focused on the card market and sort of took it down while the wholesale re.

Amazing. Thank you. And am I right in thinking that all the art on your cards and other products or they're all. It's all your art, is that right?

Yeah, they're all my illustrations. Yeah, they're watercolor. Yeah. And they've all got a sort of a.

They're all eco friendly in terms of the cards are all carbon neutral printed in the UK with veggie based inks but they've also all got splashes of nature in them somewhere so they're quite distinctive.

Yeah, amazing.

And we will talk about addSquirrel in a moment but I'd just love to know how you got into like the greetings cards market, if that's my way of phrasing it.

Yeah, it's, it's a really odd market. It's, it's a great market but it's very much. You've either been lit for 20 years or you haven't.

There's not a lot of new stuff sort of coming through and I suppose I mainly started just selling B2C so direct to consumer. I up until this year I sort of did shows all over the country every weekend.

I was very consumer facing but they're quite exhausting and they take up a lot of time and they get quite expensive.

So I wanted to take down more of a wholesale route a few years ago and so I signed up to my first trade show and I decided to do Springfair because it's the biggest and I had a little 2 by 2 meter stand just pre covered and I took I think along 40 or 50 designs at the time knowing that I didn't have quite enough but it was enough to fill the wall. And everyone kept saying, you know, don't expect anything from your, your first trade show, just go in with no expectations.

So I did and I think I walked away with around six or seven new shops and I was really thrilled with that. I was really happy. And so it just kind of, it grew from there and now we're stocked in over 350 stores in the UK.

I stock the National Trust, I stock the RSPB and yeah, we're just growing from there. So very, a very organic growth and it's taken quite a few years.

Oh that's amazing. And I imagine that it makes sense to go down that route eventually because I can't imagine that the margins are great with cards, maybe.

So they're actually really good. So really product. Yeah, they're actually really, really good. There's room for everyone in the chain, so there's room for the printer.

I get mine direct from printers, there's no middleman there. And then I sell direct to shops. So I purchased, I mean I buy them in bulk. I buy them anywhere between 4 and 8,000 at a time.

They sit around 20, 26p XVAT and I've got quite a luxury stock, so for a lot of people that'll be cheaper than that. And then I sell them on at 90 pence xv18 a kids. So they've got quite, quite a good margin on them.

But it's a volume game because obviously you're talking under a pound per unit, but yeah, yeah.

Oh, but that's amazing and thank you for explaining that. It's the complete opposite of what I expected. So that's really interesting. So let's move on and talk about AddSquirrel.

So can you tell us all what AddSquirrel is and how it works? That's probably a really good place to start.

Absolutely. I'm getting a lot better at this because it's a brand new product to market. No one has done it yet. And it's a tricky one.

You don't always want to be first to market. But it's one of those things where I thought if I never do this, I'm always going to be saying what if? So I have brought one along with me.

So AddSquirrels are smart QR code stickers that let you add a video, photo or voice note to any card or gift. So they are work two way. So what I mean by that is you, the sender, scan it once and it would say, what would you like to upload?

Video, photo, voice, note. You can record one there and then, or you can pick it from your library and when you're done, you lock it.

You can lock it with a password if it's sensitive information and then you stick it inside the card, you send it off. Your recipient sounds exactly the same code and they get to see what you've sent them.

So yeah, so they're sort of two way QR technology, which is great and they're super easy to use. I've designed them with my nan. So they are very simple screens, sort of just a few steps and it's done. So yeah, that's what they are.

And they come in packs of three, six and ten at the moment. And yeah, they're not just for cards. You can use Them for gifts, you could use them for weddings, invites, everything.

Like the possibilities are endless.

No, that's amazing. Thank you. And for anyone who's watching this on YouTube, you'll have been able to see Jen showing us an example.

So if you're not on YouTube, you could go over now and you'll actually get to see it because I think it's well worth getting to look at. So before we talk more about how you created AddSquirrel, what inspired you? Where did you come up with the idea?

Because it's a great idea and it's so unique.

It's one of those things that you think, why has no one done this yet? Yeah, yeah, we were, we were at Spring Fair last year, so that's in February.

And my mum, bless her, she's great, great help, she helped me at the trade fairs and we were sat on a quiet on the last day, which is always dead, and we were sat just having a cup of tea and we were looking at the cards and all show. We've been hearing people always looking for new stuff. They're like, what's new?

They come to the trade shows because they're like, what, what's new in your, you know, on your catalogue? What are you doing that's new?

And we were talking about it and we were saying one of the things that makes my cards stand out is that they're illustrated organically. You know, it's, it's, they're not hand designed using an iPad or procreate.

You know, I physically paint them and then turn them into illustrations from there. And we were saying, oh, it'd be really nice because I often record myself painting them in time lapses.

And it'd be really nice if we had a QR code on the back of all the cards showing a time lapse of me actually painting the image to show, you know, the sender and the receiver that actually is someone actually physically painting it. And I was like, yeah, I mean that is quite nice, but no one's going to really going to scan it, no one's going to use it.

And then we just went down a QR code hole really, and came up and came up with AddSquirrel. And yeah, it just sort of progressed from there and we, we had a lot of technical difficulties at the start.

You know, how, how are people gonna, how can the same code be used? You know, to start with, it started off with why did we use.

I don't know if you get gift codes and, you know, they've got like a code that you put in, like, could someone put in a code then? And then that was really complicated. So we streamlined it over the last. Over this year and yeah, ended up with what we got. So, yeah.

Well, that's amazing. And yeah, I'd love to talk a little bit more about how you actually create it. I mean, first of all, how do you even create a QR code? I had no idea.

I see QR codes all the time. Of course, we all do. There's so much. They're so popular. If you look at a post in a magazine, there's often a QR code. How easy is it to create them?

I imagine you're not just creating one, you're creating hundreds, thousands. Because obviously every adult is unique.

It's unique. We really differ there from the standard QR code. But QR codes are really easy to generate. They're essentially, every QR code is a URL.

It's a website link. You can go on to QR code generator.org, i think it's called, and you put in a website link.

So if you wanted to chuck a QR code that went directly to your website, for example, you can put it in there, you can choose a color, you can put your logo in, you can press go and it will generate you a QR code that will go to website. Where we differ is the fact that, yeah, the code, the URL changes slightly to whether it's been uploaded to whether it's been downloaded.

So it's slightly different. So that's where I had to get a very clever guy called Carlin from Weird Wolf. And he has coded it all from scratch for me.

And that's how we, we got around that. So, yeah, ours, ours, ours differ because we're generating sort of.

When we send them to print, they're generating sort of 10 to 20,000 totally unique QR codes, which has its own problems when you're trying to print them, because you don't want to print to the same things because you end up with someone's video. So, yeah, there's a lot of process that goes into it.

It sounds like it. And how easy is it to find a printer that can, that can do that?

Because obviously most printers, and I imagine for your cards, they're printing thousands of one design. How easy was it to find someone who could do that for you?

It took a while because originally I wasn't sure my printers that I got my cards from would be able to do it. But I actually took a drive down there in Dorset and I thought I'LL just, you know, it's about an hour and a half, two hours from me.

But I thought, no, this is like an in person meeting. And I drove down and they were really keen for the project and they were really, they were amazing actually.

They've helped me redesign the packaging as well. And they already have systems in place for unique codes. So what they do when they print the qrs for me is outside the printing area.

Each QR code actually has a number, so when they're printing them out they can make sure that nothing's being duplicated on the printer. So yeah, it did take a while to find the right one, but they've been amazing. So. Yeah, yeah, they're great.

And you mentioned you were working with your nan on the digital side of it to make sure that it was simple to use. That was really. That's really smart. Cause I was going to ask you, have you done any user testing? So was she your focus group?

Yeah, she was, she was our main. Cause she, she has a, she does have an iPhone and she has an iPad.

But she is sort of at that stage where you call her on FaceTime and she still puts it to her ear. So, you know, we, she was a really good tester and a good person to bounce off. And I also did it with sort of my.

Also did it with my cousins who were teenagers as well.

So we did a lot of user testing to start with and we were really clear in the design when we were designing the screens and we were talking to the designer that the screens had to be. Had to be really clear, had to be minimal text, really easy to use and that within sort of four or five clicks, click.

They could get, you could get your, your media uploaded. So it wasn't complicated.

Well, that makes sense. And then of course there's. As well as the digital side, I guess there's the. It's also a physical product because you buy them in packs. Don't use.

You're buying the physical. Yeah, they stickers. Is that how they work?

Yeah, yeah. So that's for those that are watching YouTube. That's what the packs look like.

So again it was a challenge in designing the packaging because the packaging had to have enough information on it because it's brand new. So we actually went for A1, A1 sort of one sheet packaging in the end to minimize even. So I'll open one up so it kind of folds out like that.

I wanted a bit more of an unboxing experience as well that like Apple use and then the stickers are inside and you've got some simple FAQs there. So that's where we went with the packaging. But yeah, that took 25 different revisions. So many. But yeah, we got there in the end.

That's really nice. And people. Yeah, you need to get onto YouTube to see that as well because that was, that was really nice to get to see that unboxed.

And I guess also the design of the stickers as well. So they look how they want to look in the cards.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was really tricky because when you're, whenever you're trying to brand something like this, you want something that because it's new, you want it to stand out on the shelves, but you want it to also be able to fit with all the different types of products people are going to be using it with. So we went for quite a neutral color palette. We've got the yellow in there, but it's not in your face. So yeah, and it's.

The stickers are quite tactile as well, having enough space to write names on. And yeah, that was also another sort of 25 revisions. We got that right as well.

Well, I guess a lot of work goes into a product and like, it was really struck me when I was thinking about yours that obviously there was a digital side and the physical side. So. Yeah, and you know, you need to get both right. So that's a lot, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it was. We had really good team working on both. But yeah, it was a lot of processes and making sure they, they speak to each other well enough as well.

So how new is AddSquirrel, Jen?

It's very new. We launched in June, we soft launched in June and we.

So we've only been going sort of three or four months, but we've also got, we've got obviously the physical product side to the business that are selling through stores and through our B2C website. But we've also got a white labeling side to it as well.

So when we built the software, we built it so that we could make the system look like any other brand if they wanted to use it. So for brands that were already sending out personalized content or gifts, for example, could add it as an extra.

Add on to their customer base and add it as an extra offering. So we've kind of got two sides to the business. So. Yeah, so it's, it's been an interesting journey so far with both educating the market.

I really underestimated how much effort that would take.

Yeah, I really wanted to talk about that, actually. So your product is so, so new and it's really innovative and it's really unique. So how. How are you marketing it?

And I guess there's two sides to that as well, because not only are you marketing it directly to consumers, but also the stores that are stocking as well. Yeah. So let's.

Yeah, we start with.

It's up to you if you want to start B2B or B2C, but I'd love to talk more about it.

Yeah. So B2C I thought would be easier, but actually I was wrong. The problem is when we.

When I first launched it, so I had an initial investment pot that I spent on the software, which we needed to, and also on IP and trademarks and patents, and we spent about 10 grand on IP. It was crazy. So that was great.

But we're at a position now where we've got no money in the pot left for any ads, for any marketing, for anything like that.

And although I've not had to spend anything like that, like Jen Winnett Art has grown completely organically, but that's taken seven years and this needs a bit of a boost. So our main direction to start with was to target stores, to pop it in, to do half of the selling for us direct to consumer.

We've used our social media platforms. And also I've been sending out because I've got such a good customer base with Jen Winnett Art.

They've been getting free AddSquirrels with their orders to try and explain, you know, how to do it. And it's been really mixed feedback. People have been. It's really odd, you'd think, and you said it at the start, that QRS are everywhere.

Like people aren't worried about them anymore, people know how to use them. But actually I found the complete opposite, actually. People have really. Not everyone's taken to it.

And I found that once people have tried it once, they love it and they then use it on every single car they've got and they put it on every single present, but it's getting the consumer to use it once. So we've actually taken it down.

As of this month, we're taking it down a totally different route, which is we're actually just gifting them out for people to use and targeting. Like, I've sent out loads of emails to prospective bride and grooms gifting 100 to 200 AddSquirrels that they can use their wedding day.

So people can just try it and get to know it. Because for us, that is cheaper than spending money on social ads that might not reach people because it's such an experience of a product.

The people just need to actually use it. So that's. That's the route. We've kind of taken it down with the B2C route at the moment.

I thought we'd have a bit more restructuring time for Christmas. We won't. That's fine. These things happen. You don't know until you try. So we'll just keep plugging away. And B2B has been good.

We've got into about 15 stores. We did a trade show in June when we launched. We did another trade show in September. We've got another one in January and February.

But again, retailers are really hesitant to take it on because it's so new and it's that how to explain to customers in stores, even though we've provided like a whole pack and a whole social pack and our CDU's that they sit on store are really bright and colorful and they've got a lot of explanation explaining on them. But we found that even when they're in stores, they're not selling because people don't know what they are and they don't know how to pick them up.

They don't know.

They're just not picking them up because they don't know what they are. And then they're busy and they're not taking time to read what they are. So that's been interesting as well.

We did have conversations with WHSmith, which was great. And they'll be in a few stores by next year, which is fantastic.

And we've been pitching to some other big stores like Waterstones and everything, but that is a sort of a more slow burner. And then on the software side, we're making some developments at the moment with the software that will enable us to sell more sort of.

Sort of to license out to other brands. So that's exciting. And that's how I sort of see my winter project going. Because all the B2B stores won't be buying again until. Until next year now.

So that's, I think, where we're going to focus our time over the winter. So, yeah, learning as we go, I think is the answer across all three. Across all three phases.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you for sharing so candidly all of that because I think it's so interesting for people to hear coming to the B2B, I have to say, I think it's really great to get into stores, particularly with the challenges of explaining what the product is. So obviously you're doing a Great job of, you know, that the retailers can see potential in the project for sure.

And actually I, now that I've had a look and you know, seen the video on your website and stuff, I can totally see. Imagine going into WH Smiths and there'd be in a display on the till or going into a card store or. Yeah, I can totally see if you're buying a car.

This is a lovely add on against. I can totally get that. And I hadn't actually thought.

It's really interesting because I thought the exact opposite again for the exact opposite about QR codes. As we said that everyone was really familiar with QR codes.

Yeah.

So that's, that's really interesting.

It's been interesting but we've also learned there's been a accessibility, lovely branch of accessibility from this as well.

So we've got, we've got our product we add into the Parkinson's UK Christmas catalogue, which is so wonderful because obviously the rep from Parkinson's when we met her was saying that for most people with Parkinson's, writing Christmas cards is just such a daunting task because it takes so long and it's really stressful. And now they can just leave the voice note with a, with a click. And so, you know, the accessibility side of the product I hadn't even thought of.

So it has been really nice as well to hear feedback from retailers and I think it is. I think I'm just quite an impatient person and I think it will get there. I think just none of the big guys want to take the leap to start with.

So I think we're just gonna have to do a bit more groundwork which is fine.

That's so interesting and I think it's great that you're open to learning so much from this as well. And you know, realizing that actually what you might have thought in the beginning isn't necessarily how things are going.

I really found interesting what you were saying about gifting so many. So are you. And what feedback are you getting from the people that you've gifted them to, to try? What kind of feedback are you getting?

They love it, it's great. And then they're turning into sales because people have got to try it and they love it. So yeah, I think.

And it's interesting because there's two sides when you give a product away for free because you can devalue it.

But I think in the case of this product, it's only going to add value because people can actually give it a go with risk free, you know, we did want, originally when we were planning, you know, the pack sizes, we wanted them, we wanted to sell them in packs of one, but it just wasn't. The margins weren't feasible because the packaging. We've gone for quite a luxury card around the edge and it just wasn't. It wasn't feasible.

So to be able to give them out to people to try is actually just so wonderfully joyous because they're often sent for such lovely things. And yeah, the feedback and the stories back have been great and it's, it's the cheapest form of advertising for us at the moment.

So, yeah, it's going to be an interesting strategy. We'll see.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting, but I can also see how it can really work because it's the sort of thing that people will talk about if people receive a card with an ad scale. I genuinely think if I got one, I'd be so delighted. I would be telling everyone about it.

I just think it's so unique and it is a talking point and that's. And that's what you need. So I really, I really think, and I really, really hope that that pays off for you. I think it will.

I think, as you said, it might be a slower burn than you expected.

Perhaps, but.

It'D be interesting, I think.

Patience.

See. Interesting. Safe in a couple of years. If this is just that, you know, ads, quills, the standard insight.

And have you just out of curiosity now, I've just wondered, because obviously you sell your own cards, is there a world in which cards could have addsquirrels in them as standard or.

Absolutely, yeah, we debated. One of the things we did debate was printing them directly in. Into my cards as standard.

And then it didn't matter if people didn't want to use them, it wouldn't matter. It would just stay a dormant qr. But the problem comes there, where they are so unique, each coat. It would be quite challenging.

You'd risk, you know, duplicating printing. But yeah, it's something that we can offer up and that's also why we, we did the white labeling.

So if any card publishers did want to print directly to their cards, it's something we can offer and it can look like their brand from the inside out. So, yeah, I think it could become, it could become standard. But we went for sticker form because it was nice, because they could stick on anything.

Yeah. So, yeah, and the white labeling aspect is really interesting as well.

So are there, are there brands that you're speaking with about that at the moment.

Yeah, yeah, there are, we're trying to, well all sorts really, from really tiny ones all the way through to quite big ones. But we are very much offering a bespoke white labeled solution depending on their needs.

So from supplying just some digital codes all the way through to providing them with a plugin that they could put on their website so that when someone, for example, if you go onto a website to order a personalized baby blanket for someone that's going directly to them, you'd often leave a gift note, wouldn't you, that they'd print out. So now they'd be able to now add, you could add a voice note, a photo or video on checkout that would get printed with your gift notes.

So they'd, you know, just add that extra special touch. So that's, that's the plan. With that now we've built like the core software. It's quite easy to sort of do these tweaks in the add ons.

Also I'm told I am not on the tech team. Yeah.

But that is all really exciting and I think it's great that you've got these free streams for the business as well.

Yeah, I think, I think with, with any business, I think even Gemini Art, it's. Someone always said to me like I can't remember even who told me, but it was seven streams of income.

You want to aim for seven streams of income at any one time.

And I think with any product business or tech business, having fingers in lots of different pies is never a bad thing because if one is down you can lean on the others. So yeah, that's, I think we're definitely taking a similar strategy with AddSquirrel.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And also I think especially for something so new, as we keep coming back to, I guess it's hard to predict at the outset which of the streams will be the most profitable in the short term and in the long term. So yeah, it's nice to be able to spread your efforts a little bit and so what are your goals for addsquirrel, Jen?

Well, the first goal was just to launch it, which it's here now. I would love it to become standard. I would love it when you go into the post office and you say can I buy a pack of stamps please?

To also say can I have a pack of AddSquirrel please? So I would, I would love it to become the standard and for those that didn't that received a card without an AddSquirrel to be quite disappointed.

So yeah, I would love it. I would love it to become the standard. And I also think it will. I went to the Greetings Card association conference this year. Yes. That's the thing.

If you're not in the industry, you might think, oh, my God, they do a conference, just the greetings cards. But they do.

The main topic was postage cost rises and the impact on the recent card industry and the younger generations not really being more tech savvy, not really into sending cards, and how are we going to preserve it? And to me, this product is the solution to that because it ties all of the generations together into one, but still keeps that physical product.

It's not taking it all techy and all digital away. It's just. It's still keeping that nice. There's nothing, nothing beats the handwritten card. So it's not trying to take away from that.

It's just adding to it.

Yeah, that's really nice. And also, Jen, I'm curious, I know you only launched in June, but have you taken as quickly to any trade shows yet?

Because I know you mentioned you've been to Spring Fair with your cards.

Yeah. So we did PG Live in June and we did. We did Autumn Fair in September, and then we got Spring Fair and Giving a Living in January and Feb.

I haven't done any B2C shows, to be honest. I think that's probably what it needs. But because we're out of money, we have no funds for shows at the moment.

So I think build up the pot a little bit and then get out in person. We've done a few events and I'm sure I can find your picture that I can send you make people laugh.

I bought a giant squirrel costume over from America, one of the mascot costumes for launch that my stepdad proudly wears around town. And we do quite a few events where we walk around town giving them out for free. And I. It does work. And I think if.

I think we could expand that into several other cities sort of around Christmas in shopping centers, just walking around in the giant squirrel outfit, giving them out for free. So you never know, it might come to a shopping center near you soon. But yeah, so that's where. There we go.

We definitely do need a photo of that, please. That would be amazing. Oh, thank you so much for all that you've shared.

And I have one final question, if that's okay, which is what would your number one piece of advice be for other product creators?

Okay, so I was toying between two different pieces of advice here, but I think my number one, if you want? I can give two. Okay, brilliant. I think number one is don't over order stock.

So it's quite easy when you're starting out to get really excited and place a big giant order of stock. The main issue with any product based business is cash flow and it always will be.

You know, get, get it out and see. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

And I think the second piece of advice would be what I said earlier about trying to find your seven different streams of income for your product. Whether that's going trade with it, whether that's dibbling in something you could provide electronically.

For example, the lovely lady that I share my unit with, she owns a plant shop in Circencester. She's gonna, she does workshops, geranium workshops.

As well as running the shop as well as sort of doing corporate stuff like having those seven streams of income if you can because it always balances out again back to cash flow. Cash flow. And it gives you lots of things to sort of play on when other streams are down.

That makes so much sense. Thank you. Thank you so much for everything you shared. I'm so excited to see what happens.

I'm so excited to have you on at the beginning of the journey as well so I can watch how it evolves and grows because I think, I think it's going to really take off well. Thank you so much, Jen.

That's all right. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my website.

Vickiweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.