The handwritten note is a dying morsel of gratitude and kindness. It’s too easy to send a thank you email, and even easier to send nothing at all. Enter Thank You Crate. Thank You Crate delivers four thank you cards and four envelopes (with the option to add stamps) monthly to your door. The benefit is three-fold (stationery pun intended): You get a beautiful product at an amazing rate (only $2.99 a month), you have a monthly reminder to send thank you notes, and you can do your part to spread goodness and gratitude.
I talked to Brady at Thank You Crate about their business model, the power of a handwritten note, finding their niche, and what’s next for the company.
On your site you talk about the power of the handwritten note. Getting mail is the greatest thing in the world. Why have we stopped sending cards, letters, and notes? It can’t just be the convenience of the internet. Are we all terrible now? This is more rant than question.
Ya, we definitely agree that receiving a handwritten note is an awesome feeling. And the experience is even more meaningful today because we communicate so much through digital messages. All those texts, tweets, and emails really highlight something that arrives in your mailbox, personally addressed to you (and that isn’t a credit card offer!).
But we honestly didn’t realize handwritten thank you notes were missing from our lives until we heard a speaker at a conference tell everyone they weren’t writing enough handwritten thank you notes. His comment resonated with us and we started trying to write more thank you notes. But what we found is that even if we thought of someone to write a note to, we didn’t have cards, envelopes, or stamps. We’d then get caught up in something else and forget to buy cards and stamps. And the next time we wanted to write a thank you note, we’d realize we still didn’t have any supplies.
So we launched Thank You Crate to solve our own problem: a service to make sure we always have thank you cards, envelopes, and stamps on hand. The monthly deliveries also serve as a super helpful reminder to write notes.
What made you choose the monthly subscription model?
We love the subscription model for Thank You Crate for three reasons. First, a monthly delivery ensures that you always have supplies on hand to write thank you notes. Second, monthly deliveries provide a regular reminder to write thank you notes. Last, you have more variety with cards you send because each month you get a great new design, rather than having a box of 50 to 100 cards with the same design.
For the data geeks and those still trying to find their audience/niche, have you gleaned any information about the demographics of your audience? Who are they and where are they coming from?
We can definitely relate to those seeking to figure out their product market fit. We’ve had to make several adjustments to the Thank You Crate model along our way. What we’ve found to be the most helpful in figuring out our audience is to focus on solving our own problem. We find our customers are like us: individuals who believe in the power and importance of expressing gratitude and using handwritten notes but are held back by the same problems we experience.
We’ve had success trying to figure out who these individuals are by watching who interacts with us on social media, who responds to articles we’ve written or that are written about us, and interacting with our existing subscribers. So far we’re finding that Thank You Crate appeals to women and men from mid-20s to mid-50s.
What’s your process for selecting designs?
We look for stylish cards that we would personally use ourselves. We check the quality of the cards and consider whether the design is a good fit for our customers.
Using our own product has been really helpful in knowing which designs to use. It is one thing to think about using your product and another to actually do it. To that end, it is very helpful to use our own product. We personally write thank you notes and constantly think about the designs we would buy if we walked in a store and saw them on a shelf.
What’s next for you guys? Other packages or quantities?
We will continue to gather feedback from our customers and keep improving. Our ultimate goal is to make it easy for people to write and send handwritten thank you notes. We want to be sure people receive everything they need to write the cards, and also that the experience of receiving the cards is great as well. We are considering add-ons such as quality pens, sealing wax and stamps, and a simple crate for storing the cards.
How are we doing? Is there anything you’d like to see from us—feature or otherwise?
We love how easy it is to use Gumroad. From the beginning of Thank You Crate, we have been able to launch and test new ideas quickly. The new recurring subscription features have been especially helpful for our model. The ability to indicate country destinations for physical products has made the checkout process easier, and the ability to send an email once we ship is great for maintaining good communication with our customers.
One feature we have been looking for is a referral program that works well with Gumroad. We are considering some 3rd-party programs that tie in with Gumroad, but would really prefer a native Gumroad referral program. We think that working through our customers would be a very effective way to grow and spread the word about Thank You Crate.
Thank You Crate is the perfect example of a physical subscription product. What could you deliver monthly to subscribers? A monthly comic book, a small painting, a t-shirt? Physical subscriptions are a great way to drive revenue and keep your audience close. So what’s it going to be?