Mariam Naficy, Founder and CEO of Minted: “If you’re goal is set, you become successful, your company will inevitably grow and you end up being a role model for people.”

Some creative artists prefer to work on commission or to publish their work through established, institutional channels. Musicians, for example, may choose to submit their latest demo to a record label. Writers may submit their latest manuscript to publishers, and so on. However, it is not always easy to get the attention of a “middle man”. The internet is chockfull of sites on which artists can sell their work, and these same websites offer art collectors on a budget a great way to get prints and original artwork at a fraction of the cost if they were to browse galleries.

Minted is one such firm which crowd-sources stationery designs from online competitions; then users in the community tell them which ones to print and sell. The company print holiday cards, wedding invitations, birth announcements—all the stationery products that celebrate the occasions of people’s lives. It sources creative content from a global community of independent artists, then sell the best content in the form of art, home décor, and stationery, directly to consumers. Its core competencies are mobilizing and activating creative people, and enabling them to monetize their art by identifying the industries and products where their art is most interesting to consumers. Minted produces and also sells winning designs, paying the designer a commission on every sale. In addition, winning artists and designers have stores on Minted. They can launch any of their creations into their stores, utilizing Minted’s manufacturing, fulfillment, and customer service capabilities to run their businesses.

The Minted Community

Minted’s community of independent artists and designers are located in all 50 states and over 100 countries. They are illustrators and textile designers, painters and packaging designers, marketers and stay-at-home moms. Some have design degrees, and others are participating in Minted competitions to learn design for the first time. They share a deep love for creative expression, personal development, risk-taking, and most importantly, paying it forward by helping each other.

The Minted Principles

Be transparent: The firm shares information broadly and bring people at all levels along in its decision-making. The firm values its colleagues’ opinions, and believes in learning from its own history to drive growth.

Put design first: The base company decisions on providing the best designs in the world to consumers, breaking the mold of what is considered operationally or technically possible to liberate designers’ creativity. It treats designers well, keep its promises to them, and build the company with them at the table.

Be an enabler, not a decider: Minted enables others to decide what great design is, rather than deciding what it is for them. By listening carefully to its community and letting them make decisions, they unleash full human potential.

Think long term: There is limitless possibility as to which consumer verticals can be disrupted by the Minted marketplace of artists and designers. They are building one of the most impactful e-commerce companies in the world. It has the patience to make decisions that serve them, its designers, and consumer’s best in the long-run.

Minted’s unique commitment to quality

Unique designs, freshly sourced from its community of independent artists, are brought to life with the most luxurious materials and printing techniques to create something truly one-of-a-kind. Minted is proud to use Mohawk paper for all of its digitally printed products. Mohawk is a family-owned business that has been dedicated to the fine art of paper making for almost a century, and mills all their high-quality paper in the U.S. No other paper has the same reputation for quality, consistency, and uniformity. Papers used at minted include;

Premium 100% Recycled Paper: FSC-certified, 100% post-consumer waste and manufactured with wind-power - all delivered in a thick paper with a smooth, matte finish. its Recycled Paper is crafted by the papermakers at Mohawk. 160 lb., 17.5 point thickness.

Doublethick Paper: An extra thick, luxurious paper with a rich creamy cotton texture that will make just the right impression. The DoubleThick Paper is crafted from two layers of paper by the papermakers at with 240 lb., 35 point thickness.

Triplethick™ Paper: Its thickest paper, with unmatched weight and quality and a rich creamy cotton texture. So luxuriously thick that it is unbendable. The TripleThick™ Paper is crafted from three layers of paper by the papermakers with 360 lb., 54 point thickness.

The creative mind behind the glory of Minted

Mariam Naficy is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Minted. She founded Minted to create a retailer that could stay fresh forever, using crowdsourcing and analytics to bring the best design to market faster than anyone. She has pioneered consumer internet models since 1998, when she cofounded the first online cosmetics retailer, Eve.com, which was sold for over $100 million. Mariam sits on the board of Yelp and Every Mother Counts. She is a Stanford Business School and Williams alumna.

“Our goal is to become the most commercially-successful design community on the web.”