Georgette Packaging (YC W16) Makes Custom Branded Boxes and Cups for Bakeries | Hacker News Reader

Georgette Packaging (YC W16) Makes Custom Branded Boxes and Cups for Bakeries

blog.ycombinator.com

85 pointskatm47 comments

This is a great idea.

A huge part of the success over the last 10 or 15 years in the cafe and coffee industry has been about branding and design.

Starbucks knows this: bright green straws, red holiday cups, etc. You can see a Starbucks cup from 100 feet away.

Why should Starbucks, Blue Bottle, Coffee Bean, and Dunkin all capitalize on this, while a lot of the mom n pop shops that make the best coffee are serving their brews in 16 oz paper cups that they buy in bulk from Costco?

Inversely, why should you have to pay extra to get your great craft brewed coffee in a fancy paper cup? Branding like this is much less important for local businesses than national franchises/chains.

Totally agree. This is aimed at small runs, but for a small run of a standard box it was $2.24 per 6 cupcake box (much more for one with an actual design). What small shop can afford $2.24 a box?

Quick look online found plenty of nice ones for $0.20 a piece that you could put a sticker on with your logo. This is what a lot of smaller places do in Seattle and it seems to work just fine.

Yes, a lot of small businesses use generic boxes and a sticker. When I owned my bakery, I did the same. That's not to say that this solution is ideal; most of the generic boxes are flimsy, tedious to assemble, and give your customers the idea that your product is ... humdrum, not something you'd pay much for. If you're working super hard to bake something amazing, your packaging should complement and introduce your product in a splendid way too -- you need to do something a little different from everybody else. Larger brands don't invest in beautiful, branded packaging for kicks -- it has a major influence on the perception people have of their wares, and contributes a lot to the customer's experience of their product. In terms of unit price being high at low volumes -- we're constantly working to get that down! :D Our minimum quantities for custom packaging are some of the lowest on the market, and our pricing very modest by comparison, because we invest in tooling on behalf of our clients. I think it's hard to see how great our pricing actually is, because it's near impossible to find other packaging companies that do what we do, or put all their pricing online.. :)

My experience growing up was that the flashier the box was the cheaper the cake tasted. The best cakes came from the bakeries that invested 100% into their products. I loved getting really great products in terrible packages, it had a certain feeling to it.

That being said, I love branding and really hip bakeries and coffee shops with awesome branding will always woo me too.

My experience too.

To add to that, the bakery I'd like to buy my bread and cakes from is the one that probably closes due to no branding. In fact it probably looks like a holdover from the fifties inside and specialised in just being a shop, not a brand.

It's a little sad to me that brands have become so much more powerful than the product, though I'm not immune either. I do try though - I'll risk the bad experience and try the family cafe or unknown coffeeshop in preference to a starbucks or costa. Does mean I get something rubbish occasionally.

Ironic that Starbucks such are a huge success but make terribly bland coffee. I've several friends who collect their mugs, but will never drink their coffee!

Apologies for the big block of text, I clearly haven't figure out how to make paragraphs on here. :p [Returns to box-making].

You can press enter twice (so there's a blank line) to make paragraphs.

I think it depends on the goals you have for your business - there's a huge gap between little local spots that don't invest in being memorable, and major chains that everybody knows. Thoughtful branding is a major part of the bridge between the two. We work with a lot of ambitious, but small businesses that are keen to grow, be valued and loved by their communities, and be known for specific areas of expertise. Sharing that story is what branding has always been about. The price of a cup of coffee generally has a lot more to do with the experience and story (think Starbucks) than the cost of the beans, the hot water, the cup...

It's good that you are seeing your market not in one of a kind shops but in small chains (e.g. n=1 but growing). The excessive branding of large chains is only a disadvantage for smaller chains (but not for one-of-a-kind shops) because location is such a strong part of memorability. Branding is just a hack to transfer a small fraction of that memorability across locations, most obviously exemplified in how Duane Reade got their brand name.

I would argue that even a lack of fancy paper cup, in a market saturated by them, is a form of branding unto itself.

Also interesting for pizza places. Many of the best pizzas I've had have come in generic boxes shared between many local shops.

Neat idea! :D

Agreed! This is why we exist.. we want the small businesses of the world to have the same fighting chance to be known, recognized, grow sales, and create jobs locally.

I'd be interested to see the number of mom and pop shops that don't want custom simply b/c they lose the mom and pop, neighborhood type feel.

A lot of folks these days stay away from logos on clothing, and would likely prefer their coffee unbranded.

However since you got into YC, it's likely youve shown that a signficant number of small shops would want this, and that a decent business can be built. Good luck!

> A huge part of the success over the last 10 or 15 years in the cafe and coffee industry has been about branding and design.

Most mom n pop coffee shops aren't Lauduree though. If you have a great story then good packaging can help sell that story, but if you don't have a story then it's at best just waste of money. Or worse, it undermines the built-in story that comes with the Costco cups.

I actually think this startup is going to do really well just based on the fact that there's a huge unmet need, but there's definitely some nuance to the situation.

I think you're talking about the value of branding as a whole, more than necessarily our role within that world... of course not everybody excels equally in that. One of the reasons why some companies always stay tiny, or just shut down, and others grow and acquire others is that they're better or worse at branding. We're keen to help those who understand the power of branding, and want to build their business using it (especially since social media is sooo huge for food businesses right now), but lack the tools. Packaging is just an incredibly direct marketing spend for small businesses, say compared to ads.. you're helping your clients market for you, in a fun way too. :)

I agree with you, but remember that the accoutrements of branding are only a part of the picture. The products you provide (diversity, quality, uniqueness), the service you provide, the ambiance of the store/location/website, (yes) price, and as others have suggested, the story behind the store all weave together to form this thing we call brand. The more all of these elements can come together and compliment and reinforce each other, the stronger the brand message.

I think Georgette Packaging can be an enabler for smaller businesses to cost effectively address some of these branding issues, but by itself, it will only be a part of a rather larger picture. This isn't to say their business plan is lacking or that they're offering something that will fail their customers... on the contrary I'm very happy to see someone offering this sort of thing at low volumes and do think there are a number of small entrepreneurs in the space that Georgette is targeting that will make good use of the Georgette products.

On the other hand, Georgette may want to also look at suggesting ways to fill in those other parts of brand identity cost effectively or even partner with others (biz dev relationship sort things) that can get their customers across the branding finish line in areas more than just packaging. If Georgette gets some success, my guess is otherwise lost shop owners will Google their way to good deals on packaging, but may not know where to start on other parts of their identity... even a simple blog could help with ideas.

Totally agree! :D We love generating design ideas, packaging inspiration, and sharing business tips for small companies, since in many ways we're a hub in the most splendid community of creative food businesses... We have a lot of knowledge stored up. :) We're definitely going to be launching a blog really soon, we're excited.

Honestly, the other side of our business that I think will be growing in importance and prominence is the ease we bring to manufacturers, by supplying them with extremely easy-to-process orders. Marketing, sales, and estimation can be a struggle for manufacturers, and our goal is to let them excel at manufacturing, while we help with the business side.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. :)

Almost every single store in Japan has beautiful packaging.

Hi guys :) I'm Sarah, the founder of Georgette. Super excited to be on Hacker News and to answer any questions anybody might have...!

Whenever I'm walking around the North End and I see a blue and white Mike's pastry box with the string, I reflect on how genius good branding and packaging can be.

Would you be able to speak to where the boxes are made? Is it one central location somewhere? I always assumed craft packaging was a pretty decentralized industry...especially the niche bakery/cafe market where transportation costs might break your margins on highly custom, low volume orders.

We work with a variety of factories in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, which is a big packaging manufacturing region. Packaging manufacturing is very fragmented - most factories are small-ish, like $10m in sales or less, often family-owned, several generations old, and in small towns. So depending on the exact size of order and special requirements, we'll work with one or several of our partner factories. For example.. the boxes might be printed in one location, then transported to another for metallic foil work, then transported back to the original factory to be die-cut and glued with a bunch of other identically-sized boxes we're making for other clients. We're always trying to make it more streamlined. Transportation isn't a huge cost -- raw materials are though, and labour, since a lot of what we do is set up major machinery to do quite small runs, such as lithographic printing presses. They take a lot of fine-tuning to get the colours and graphics perfect - and that's not a shorter process just because the total run is small.

Long answer, sorry! :)

Thanks for the information. Sounds like you are learning a ton about a space that is ripe for supply chain/logistical disruption. Good luck!

While I understand purpose of of these boxes, I can't stop thinking "what a waste".

I am private labeling several products and have to do the same, because customers would not accept something in simple reusable zip-lock as something serious...

So here we are - customers shopping for most value for their buck, but yet - almost no one would by product without fancy packaging.

Awesome looking site and a real opportunity I think.

My ex-wife is a cupcake and deco cake maker and I sent her the link, she is really interested and will be contacting you guys soon.

Best of luck to you!

Thanks very much! :D My e-mail is sarah@georgettepackaging.com, I'd love to hear from her :)

Just as a follow up, Stephanie says she ordered some stuff from you guys, so I'm really happy I got you connected and it worked out.

She is crazy talented at her baking and decorating crafts and obviously you both are as well, so hopefully a longterm working relationship was created between ya'll.

Not that I buy many cake boxes, but the base unit cost, unprinted / coated seems pricey? $1.32 for a box, we must be taking really pricey cupcakes?!

YC also funded a startup called Pakible, which is "revolutionizing packaging"... presumably by charging 5x more than anyone else in the market.

Hmm I'm not sure what you're comparing Pakible (or us?) to... but a box that is manufactured in North America just for you, with your branding, still costs more than a plain box made in the bajillions in China. Georgette, and I think Pakible, are focused on making that customization as affordable and accessible as possible. We're getting there, it's early days! :)

The box though is not just a container to hold things. It is a marketing tool. For example after reading the story of Newman's Own on the back on one of their boxes, I am now more likely to pick them up. And now I'm writing about them providing even more marketing ROI.

Haha yes!! :D This is great.

Boxes take a lot of love (and heavy machinery) to make. :) But seriously we're actually really competitive with companies who do a similar quality of unbranded boxes. For custom options, we offer a lot more options and finishes, but with a way less cost + quantity commitment. :) For example, many printers do digital printing if you want a small volume -- we do all lithographic printing, which means the highest resolution, stunning Pantone colours, fluorescent/pastel/metallic inks, metallic hot-stamping...

This seems very similar to Pakible (YC W15) https://blog.ycombinator.com/pakible-yc-w15-makes-it-dead-si...

Pakible is awesome and we love them! :D They specialize in corrugated shipper boxes. We do paperboard retail boxes.

This seems like a niche that has been ripe for occupying for a while. Packaging for products has become more and more ornate and is a design job that needs a full team. Good luck to Georgette.

Agreed and thanks for the support :)

My girlfriend owns a fragrance company and it's crazy how hard it is to find a good box manufacturer. The minimum quantities are often too high for a startup like hers (5k minimum for each product), or a place can do rigid boxes but not another style she needs, or they mess up an entire order because everything is still done over the phone.

It seems like an outrageously stressful process and I've been wondering why someone hasn't been doing it better. Glad to know someone finally is.

As seen on Next Gen Den[1]. Great idea!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl6XZ-cLwkw

Thank you!

Amazing! I think Georgette Packaging can be an enabler for smaller businesses to cost effectively address some of these branding issues

Amazing! Very useful idea for SMBs

Thanks! :)

Your /hiring page is broken

Hmm can you tell me where you found that link?

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