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I remember sitting on the floor of our condo, surrounded by boxes, writing notes to people I had never met. We had just shipped some of our first orders. No systems. No automation. No playbook. Just a belief that if someone trusted us enough to try what we were building, the least we could do was acknowledge it.
So we started including Polaroids and handwritten notes in every first-time order. It was slow. It was messy. It made no sense from a traditional efficiency standpoint. And it ended up becoming one of the most important things we did. Not because it directly drove short-term results. Because it built a connection — and connection is what gives a business a chance to matter.
I thought scaling was the goal — I was wrong
Early on, I thought the objective was simple. Grow fast. Be efficient. Figure out how to do more with less. That’s what most advice reinforces. And it’s not wrong — it’s incomplete. Because if you optimize too early for scale, you risk removing the very thing that makes people care in the first place. Connection is not efficient. It takes time. It takes intention. And it’s difficult to measure.
Which is exactly why most companies deprioritize it.
The detail that changed everything
What started as something small became something much bigger over time. Our mother joined the business and took ownership of this experience. She has personally handwritten close to a million Polaroid notes to our customers. Not as a campaign. Not as a short-term activation. As a consistent part of how we show up. Over time, she even built a team around it to help continue the effort. Today, we still do it.
We don’t take photos every single day the way we did in the very beginning. We run photo shoots, plan ahead and then those photos are paired with handwritten notes that go out to customers. It’s not the most efficient system. But it’s intentional. And that small touch continues to make a meaningful difference. Not because of the format. Because of what it represents. Someone took the time.
What those “unscalable” moments actually do
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