CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF THE NEIGHBORGOODS
This year marks 10 years since The Neighborgoods got its start when I took a screen printing class in 2014. I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and share some of our milestones along the way.
Before I got to that fateful screen printing class that changed the course of my life, I ran my own freelance graphic design studio where I created everything from annual reports to fashion illustrations since 2006. After 7 years of not having a focus I decided to combine my two passions of graphic design and food. With that, I worked on transitioning my business to design for clients in the food industry creating logos, branding, and packaging. You can check out some of my foodie design work here.
The thing was, no one would hire me because I didn’t have food design experience, so I started drawing produce from the farmers market and illustrating family recipes to have some food related work on my site. Those new illustrated recipes sparked an idea of printing them onto dish towels for holiday gifts that season. After looking into it I felt like that was too big of an undertaking for a weekend screen printing workshop as originally planned, so I scrapped the idea for that holiday season and signed up for a screen printing class at the start of the new year in 2014.
2014 - 2015: The Formative Years
Having worked for myself for the past 8 years I was so excited to get out of my house and get my hands dirty creating things. It was very exciting to learn the screen printing process and create a physical product that came to life right in front of me.
The first thing I printed was my illustrated cupcake recipe onto a dish towel.
My pickle loving friend’s birthday was coming up, so I decided to make a custom design just for her with my new found printing skills and blank dish towel stash. She loves a sassy saying, so of course I wanted to add that to my pickle illustration, and let me tell you, it was KIND OF A BIG DILL. Fellow classmates asked if they could buy one of my pickle towels and that planted the seed of possibly turning my new printing hobby into a business. I already ran my own design business and thought, how different could it be? Turns out it is a lot different, but not knowing that at the time helped me blindly forge ahead.
When screen printing, you have to print all of the colors separately and line them up to create your final design, then put them on the drying racks to dry. It's a process, but a fun one. This is still one of our top selling designs, and has expanded into many categories since, check out our pickle collection here.
I signed up for the class again for two more semesters where I printed more foodie designs, played around with some punny totes, added baby one-pieces, mixed all my own ink colors, lugged bags filled with towels for 45 minutes on the subway (each way), and heat set the designs at the laundromat down the street. It was a hustle, but I loved it.
I participated in my first craft markets, and eventually started an etsy shop in December 2014 to sell online.
First markets where I didn't have packaging for my products, printed on both white and natural towels, and made each design in multiple colors, which I learned was all very confusing for customers. And our first online orders going out the door (still no packaging, but getting closer.)
Then I got a call from Amazon. I didn’t believe it at first, but someone who worked there saw my products and asked me to be part of the new Handmade at Amazon section of their website. The Amazon team came to my print studio to film and take photos, and I was part of their big launch and still sell on the Handmade at Amazon platform today.
Action shots from my Handmade at Amazon shoot.
In the summer of 2015, my husband and I moved to DC for his job. With the move, I lost the use of my print studio, but had a boost of confidence from Amazon and decided to keep on going with The Neighborgooods and take the next step to outsource my printing. I found a small company in Wisconsin who we still work with to this day. In freeing up my time from printing, I was able to focus on other aspects of growing this new nights and weekends side hustle, like adding some packaging. It was still very homemade, printed from my office printer and hand cut, but it was a start.
2016 - 2017: The Slow Growth Years
Once I started outsourcing the printing, my inventory stash really starting growing. I was able to create more designs at larger quantities than I could when printing myself. This extra stash led to the start of wholesaling to local retailers I found in my new city of DC. I’m so grateful to those who took a chance on me in the beginning before I fully had my act together, like Odd Provisions who we still work with. I also finally got some real labels for my packaging, but was still hand cutting corners off of a million postcards for several more years.
Inventory growth, starting to wholesale, and new packaging.
I carted my goods to a ton of pop ups and markets all around town, as well as some big ones like Martha Stewart’s American Made Conference in New York. The more people saw me and my products out and about, the more recognition our brand and products got.
As the business grew I tried new things, some worked out and some did not (looking at you potato printing workshop). One of the successes was a pop-up shop at Union Market collaborating with my maker friend, Fancy Seeing You Here. This was my first taste at having an actual store that is set up longer than a weekend, and it was so much fun we did again later that same year.
Union Market Pop-Up with Fancy Seeing You Here.
I did a lot of pop-ups at West Elm and they asked if I could teach some sort of class as an activation. The only thing I could think of that somewhat related to The Neighborgoods was a type of block printing on fabric with food. It was a fun experiment, but not for me. I did learn that teaching is not my calling, and that I should stick to drawing vegetables instead of printing with them.
I ended 2017 with more holiday markets, my very first part-time employee (yay), our first national press, and a plan for the new year. Things were really happening.
Here I am at the 2017 Heurich House Holiday Market and our Cheese Plate Tea Towel Press mention in Food Network Magazine, and our pickle onesie in Country Living.
2018 - 2019 - FULL TIME AHEAD
Through all of this initial learning and growth I was still running my other company, Hello Neighbor Designs, designing food packaging and branding full time. I loved what I did in both businesses, but was ready for a change of pace and felt The Neighborgoods could really grow if I was able to put more time into it. So, I went with my gut and swapped them. Starting in 2018 The Neighborgoods was going to be my full-time focus and I would still keep on a few graphic design clients on the side to pay the bills.
With the full-time motivation I participated in my first wholesale trade show, NY NOW, which was a huge deal for me at the time. It was something I always talked about but never thought I could actually do. I started out small by sharing a booth with 2 other brands (you can hear more about how that came to be in this Proof to Product Podcast). I then couldn’t get enough of trade shows and talked a fellow local maker friend, Torie from Terratorie, to share a booth with me. We got some walls, painted them, lugged them to NYC, and set up our booth for 3 more consecutive shows.
With the full-time motivation I participated in my first wholesale trade show, NY NOW, which was a huge deal for me at the time. It was something I always talked about but never thought I could actually do. I started out small by sharing a booth with 2 other brands (you can hear more about how that came to be in this Proof to Product Podcast). I then couldn’t get enough of trade shows and talked a fellow local maker friend, Torie from Terratorie, to share a booth with me. We got some walls, painted them, lugged them to NYC, and set up our booth for 3 more consecutive shows.
This was our very first NY NOW trade show wall. Yep, it was just this one wall, you gotta start somewhere!
Our next 3 trade shows were in a shared booth with Terratorie (then Cherry Blossom Creative). You can see how our collection was slowly growing over the years.
Now that I was full-time Neighborgood-ing I wanted a steady gig to keep the sales coming, so I signed up for the USDA Farmers Market which happened along the National Mall here in DC every Friday from May through October. I participated in the market for the next 5 seasons and not only gained great coffee and bagel connections, but lots of local love with our regular customers and a place to test out all of our new products.
My first farmers market and then one from my later years, our booth grew so much! I created the DC produce flag design just for the farmers market and this was our only tote for the whole year. Which is crazy to think because totes are one of our top categories and we now have a lot of options (you can check them all out here).
It seemed like my full-time efforts were paying off both on the retail and wholesale sides of the business. Bigger opportunities were coming my way like a collaboration with National Museum of Women in the Arts, and then after years of trying I finally got products into our local Whole Foods which was very exciting.
National Museum of Women in the Arts Collaboration.
First Whole Foods store display in the local Navy Yard store here in DC. I did a gift wrap demo with other Whole Foods products for the launch.
I continued on doing all the things, markets, trade shows, wholesale, adding products and designs and a dream opportunity came knocking at my door (well, it actually came through a text). My maker friend, Torie from Terratorie, who was my trade show booth neighbor asked if I wanted to be her shop neighbor as well. It turns out the shop next to hers was looking for someone to take over their space. I was definitely scared to take this leap, but the dream of having my own shop, lack of a full lease commitment, and the prospect of moving the business out of my house was all too good to pass up. I signed the contract and got to work setting up our new shop / studio space that opened in May 2019. I loved having a physical presence in the community and a place for customers to come find our goods.
I put a ton of DIY love into this little space. It was an exhausting month of set up but so much fun.
Even though it didn't last that long, I'm so glad I had this experience. I loved creating this space and learned a lot from the retailers perspective which has helped me keep growing our wholesale business.
2020 - 2021: You know what happened next
The year started out great with a new focus on the store and then Covid hit and everything shut down. We closed the doors to the shop and waited it out. In the beginning I created coloring pages and Covid bingo sheets to give our customers some free downloadable to-dos.
Then Amazon called, again. They asked if they could feature us as a way to help small businesses during this tough time. At that time our Handmade at Amazon sales have slowed a bit and I wasn't expecting much.
Little did I know, their small business feature was on the home page of Amazon for a month straight! The orders came pouring in, we sold out of so many towel designs and had to put a ton on back order (and they kept selling). We were working non-stop getting the craziest amount of orders out that we have ever seen at one time. It saved our business that year and gave me a boost of confidence that people really did like our products, and I just had to get them out there in front of more people. To this day, I can't figure out how to make that magic happen again of getting on the home page of Amazon, but if you know someone, let me know.
The Amazon love kept coming and they put our products on the side of a local Prime delivery van, and got me our first TV interview with local station WJLA.
Not knowing what was ahead, we had to make the most of we could during those uncertain times. And what we did have was a large pile of our seconds towels that we usually sold at the Farmers Market, but since we weren't selling in person the stack just grew. I got the idea to make masks out of our seconds towels so we worked with a local seamstress and added a new product category of face masks to our line.
It was clear Covid wasn't going away and even though we used the shop space for fulfillment, inventory, and some outside pop ups, it just didn't make sense to keep paying rent. So I made the tough decision to close it up and move the business back into the house "temporarily," which ended up being 3 years.
We had one last blow out sale to get rid of all that we could and then packed it up and moved into the basement.
We finally got settled into the basement and stayed there for the next 3 years as we filled every nook and cranny.
As things started to get back to the new normal, wholesale trade shows opened up again and I finally felt like we were in a good place to have our very own solo booth.
You'll notice another covid addition in our booth here, our towel gift sets which were born out of our want to be able to offer customers a deal when they bought more than one, like we did in person. But since we didn't have any in-person sales during that time we found a cute way to bundle them up and sell them as a gift set, which was a hit at the trade show.
2022 - 2023: Crazy Growth
Over the years I noticed myself stopping to smell the roses more, literally. My love of beautiful fruits and veggies, which have always been my inspiration, grew into a crush on plants and flowers as well. Wanting to stay within my my foodie-theme, I did some research and found there are many flowers you can eat, so I got to work expanding our food-themed collection to edible flowers.
Here are the working files of the very beginning of how our Edible Flowers stared. You can view the whole collection here and see how it has grown.
Our new collection was a hit and opened some big doors for us. That spring we started working with the U.S.Botanic Garden shop, which led to our collection of custom designs and first licensed artwork.
Here are our products in the U.S. Botanic Garden store along with our custom designs and artwork licensed for mugs, water bottles, t-shirts, and more.
We also got our first HUGE order with Paper Source, that has since been a successful partnership and we got even bigger orders filling up a whole UPS truck.
Our first big ordes filling up my living room, and then the UPS truck.
We not only filled up UPS trucks, but my entire house, and garage + 2 storage units, was filled with Neighborgoods inventory and orders. After 3 years in the basement, we finally found the perfect studio space right down the street and made the big move once again, but this time it felt even bigger and like there's no going back now.
Our new studio space in Petworth, DC.
The studio space filled up quickly, and we kept busy with our wholesale business, holiday markets, open studio parties, and oh yeah, with the new airport store we were opening with Marshall Retail Group. Our coming soon kiosk opened in the fall of 2023 and you can read more about that in our blog post here.
2024: What a year so far
The year is only halfway over and it’s already been filled with so many new adventures. In January, we went to our first Atlanta trade show and exhibited in our biggest booth to-date, and it was our best show yet.
I was also proud to have grown enough to bring along Naomi, one of our team members, so I had some help and wouldn't have to go it alone.
I was asked to be on a local, live TV show, Living Local DC, to talk about the biz and what's next. You can find out more about that here and find a link to watch the segment.
From local TV to national, we were then featured on The View in April for Earth Day. This was such a huge crazy experience that exposed The Neighborgoods to millions of people. We got a ton of orders that we had to get out within 5 days, and I'm so grateful for my amazing team who helped make it all happen. You can watch our segment here.
After months of waiting, and opening dates being pushed back, our store in the DCA Reagan Airport finally opened in May 2024. We were able to go in and help the W.H.Smith team set up shop and I can not believe this is where my screen printing class 10 years ago led me.
Airport store set up days.
You can find a full collection of our goods when traveling through DCA Reagan Airport.
You can also find lots of locally made products, as well as a variety of other cute and colorful gifts that will make you smile.
Stop by next time you're traveling through DCA. Our shop is loated in Terminal 2, near the C Gates after security.
If you made it this far in the longest blog post of all time, THANK YOU for taking the time to read through our story, and thank you for your support in helping us get here. If you are one of my friends or family members, you have helped me tremendously along the way THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. It means the world to me and I am so grateful.
Looking back there was a lot of hard work and exhausting days, but I remember them fondly. I think some lessons I've learned are to follow your gut, do what makes you happy and see where it leads, be flexible with your plans, and enjoy the ride.
Excited to see where the next 10 years take us.
With Love,
Jodi
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