Vellum Vaults Venture: Entrepreneurs Invite Themselves to New Success

For Sarah Mitchell and Pam Hatcher, the difference was clear.

Only a few companies were printing invitations on vellum, a translucent paper often used for crafts.

So the two entrepreneurs incorporated a vellum card into the invitations line of their business, Inviting Co. of Little Rock.

“It was a square card with a striped back card, and it had a printed vellum overlay tied with an organza ribbon,” Hatcher said. “We weren’t the ones who invented the vellum overlay, but we were one of the first people to offer the printed vellum overlay, meaning there was a design on it.”

With their innovation, these women were pushing the envelope of the invitations industry. Sales vaulted by more than 14 fold, from $350,000 in 1997 to more than $5 million last year.

Before starting Inviting Co., Mitchell and Hatcher were co-workers at a small advertising agency in Little Rock. By accident, they found a niche enterprise in invitations. Everyone they knew, it seemed, was either getting married or having a baby. In May of 1996, they ditched their day jobs for their paper-filled ambitions. Their gumption paid off.

Now, with 71 total employees in three companies, Mitchell and Hatcher run their ventures from Fayetteville and Denver, Col., respectively.

High Fashion and Hustle

With an initial $40,000 collateralized loan through One Bank in Little Rock, Inviting Co. was born. Since then, the product line was expanded from 60 cards to several thousand items. The firm is already outgrowing the 27,000-SF warehouse it moved into this past October.

The two went out and researched the industry. They had produced a few items for friends and got a positive response. That sparked ideas.

“We went to a lot of stationery stores and looked at the competition,” Hatcher said. “We went to retailers with prototypes and asked them if they saw a place in the market for a product like ours.”

The pair presented their ideas to a sales rep group in Dallas where a friend of Hatcher’s reviewed the products and deemed them viable.

“The concept of the imprintable invitation was already there,” Hatcher said. “Our look was something that made us unique. It was something that appealed to us because we are both creative, love fashion and are interested in following trends.”

Their complete line includes invitations, stationery and birth announcements, as well as paper plates and napkins and other add-ons.

“We found a niche in the marketplace for a unique product that appeals to a wide variety of young professionals,” Hatcher said. “We use special envelopes, unique shapes and types of paper, different colors and weights of paper.”

Before Inviting Co., Mitchell was the art director at Little Rock’s now defunct Creative Advantage where Hatcher was an account executive.

“We had been working in a role where I’d go out and do the sales and come back with our clients’ needs to Sarah,” Hatcher said. “We worked together in that capacity for several years.”

Hatcher said working in a smaller ad agency forced them to wear many hats, a skill that would prove useful in their own business venture.

“It was difficult at first, but we were both young and not making a lot of money, so we didn’t have a lot to lose,” Hatcher said. “We knew we were employable.”

Mitchell, with a 6-year-old daughter at home, got to a point where she was ready for a change.

“I was at the point where I wanted to work at home, and it wasn’t possible where I worked,” Mitchell said. “Pam was getting tired of the circus as well.”

In the Black

At their warehouse in North Little Rock, the Inviting partners house three companies: Inviting Co.; Ink Well Inc., a wholesale imprinting firm; and Treehouse Designs, a scrap-booking product company. Revenue from Inviting Co. financed the startup of Treehouse Designs and Ink Well in 2000.

“Inviting Co. is still the biggest part of our business,” Hatcher said. “It is the oldest part, and that is what we have put most of our efforts and energy into.”

All three firms, Hatcher said, will turn a profit this year. Inviting Co. has turned a profit every year since its founding. They have an additional partner, Emily Kennedy of Little Rock, in Treehouse Designs.

“Ink Well came out of a need we saw in the marketplace for that type of service,” Hatcher said. “Inviting Co. sells a product that you call “imprintable.” In a store they are sold blank and someone comes in and the store provides the printing. Ink Well provides custom printing of our products, enabling stores to offer this service without the overhead of printing costs themselves.”

Becky Bull, owner of Ebeez gift shop in Fayetteville, said that she has carried the firms’ products ever since her business opened in 2002. Sales of more than five major lines of Inviting Co. products at Ebeez have increased more than 20 percent during the last year, Bull said.

“It sells great,” she said. “It’s a great product that is very up-to-date. They have fun designs, and they also print cute little note cards that we can print on in-house.”

Bull said Inviting Co. also has a Christmas inventory buyback program for its retailers that basically makes carrying its products a “no-risk situation.”

Mobile Managers

Mitchell and Hatcher have run their growing venture from six different states in six years.

Mitchell moved from Little Rock to Paragould in 1997 and from there to Fayetteville in 2002. Hatcher has lived in Denver since 2000. Three assistant designers live in Michigan, and the company has national sales managers in Mississippi and Texas as well as two operations managers in Little Rock.

“We felt like it was a good thing for us because at first we were doing each other’s jobs,” Mitchell said. “We spend a lot of time on the phone and definitely e-mail a million times a day.”

Mitchell said the duo has learned a lot throughout their travels. Their first trade show was the Arkansas Expo in Little Rock, and the partners had their booth decorated to the nines.

“We had ordered all these wonderful desserts to hand out,” Mitchell said. “No one thought we were selling paper, and everyone thought we were selling food.”

Mitchell said the pair stared at their fax machine for about six months before orders and paid bills were coming in.

The proverbial ball began rolling after their appearance at a trade show in Dallas, where they found an agent, Erik Hahn & Associates. Hahn covers Tulsa, Louisiana and Arkansas, or the “TULA” market, as he called it.

“We quit our full-time jobs in May and got a sales group by June,” Hatcher said.

They are still with Hahn today, along with other agencies across the country. Hatcher and Mitchell attend eight to 10 trade shows per year now.

“They were a really huge factor in us getting going,” Mitchell said. “They introduced us to other rep groups in other areas.”

“The bulk of our revenue has gone back into our business,” Hatcher said. “Our focus is to continue to grow the business.”

Mitchell estimates she designs an average of 800-900 items or “skews” per year for Inviting Co. and about 400 for Ink Well and Treehouse Designs.

“Our product line doubled year-over-year for the first several years,” Hatcher said.

The company has more than 3,000 clients including Neiman Marcus, Hobby Lobby and national stationery store chain Papyrus.

“That has really been something that we’ve tried to focus more energy on,” Mitchell said. “Getting more key accounts.”

Mitchell and Hatcher go over every initial design together.

“She’ll make her comments on it, and we’ll go through a revision process there until we are both happy with it,” Mitchell said.

They’ve learned that often, if they disagree on a product, chances are it won’t sell as well as they thought.

“We laugh about the ones that don’t do so well,” Mitchell said.

The most popular product line, Hatcher said, is the general theme-party invitations. Anything from a wedding shower to a general theme cocktail party.

The product that sells the most overall is simple: the white 6-by-9-inch card on heavier paper.

“It’s a good price point,” Mitchell said.

Both feel there are still categories into which they can expand.

“We think there is still room for growth in all of our businesses,” Hatcher said. “As long as people are still having parties, having babies and getting married.”