460 | Building a Cohesive Product Line with Amita Nair, Amicreative

Proof to Product

Amita Nair, founder of Amicreative, shares her intentional approach to building a cohesive product line that balances financial performance,

Key takeaways

• Product decisions should be evaluated through four lenses: financial performance, design aesthetic, customer feedback, and brand alignment.
• Saying no to profitable but misaligned products helps maintain a strong, authentic brand identity.

Main topics

• Cohesive brand strategy
• Product curation framework

Notable quotes

"I learned to say no to products that make business sense but don't fit my story—and why that clarity matters."

Conclusion

Amita Nair's journey demonstrates that sustainable brand growth comes

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Raise your hand if you're feeling scattered. Nobody can see you. Nobody knows if you're raising your hand, but I have a feeling many of you are. Here's the thing. I have something for you. I have a free quiz that's going to help you map out your next 90 days. It's a personal. growth plan based on your stage of business and exactly what you're struggling with right now. Eight questions. It'll take two minutes to fill out and you'll walk away knowing where to focus over the next 90 days and you'll have specific steps to get there. It's free, it's fast, and it cuts through the noise so you can stop second guessing where to spend your time and energy and you can start moving forward with confidence. So take that quiz today at ProofToProduct.com slash quiz. Hey friend, welcome back to Proof To Product. Today's guest is Amita Nair, the founder of Ami Creative. She also happens to be one of our Paper Camp alumni and a member of my advisory board, Mastermind. Amita is a surface pattern designer and a product maker who creates stationery, gifting products, and soft goods. Everything from greeting cards to aprons to enamel pins, all inspired by her Indian heritage and the Pacific Northwest where she lives. She has been building this brand since 2019, and today we're going to talk about how Amita has curated and built a cohesive product line that's not just based on her design style, but also data points, customer feedback, and the values that her brand stands for. We will talk about how she curates her product line, including how she decides whether to move into new product categories, what to add, what to skip, and how she thinks through these decisions from multiple angles. We talk about how Amita balances different arms of her business, specifically leaning into the licensing arm of her art and creating and selling her own products. We talk about why she went back to grad school to become an illustrator and why building your brand story matters just as much as adding more SKUs to your collection. We also talk about how being a business owner can be lonely sometimes and how Amita has leaned on our Proof-to-Product community as well as other design communities to support her business growth. Today's episode is brought to you by Proof to Product Labs. If you are building a product-based business and you feel like you are spinning your wheels, doing it all alone, Labs provides a community of supportive creatives who are working towards similar goals, plus trainings and coaching to help you move through that messy stage of business more quickly. Head to prooftoproduct.com slash labs to learn more about our community, what folks are working on, and how you can get the support you need. Again, that's prooftoproduct.com slash labs. Speaker 2 (2:33) I'm Katie Hunt, wholesale expert, business strategist, and mom of four. I'm also the host of the Proof to Product podcast. Since 2011, I've coached thousands of brands whose products can be found on the shelves of indie shops and big box stores all around the world. If you are a creative entrepreneur that makes and sells physical goods, you're in the right place. Here on Proof to Product, you'll learn new strategies for product development, sales, marketing, and more. It's like your weekly dose of business school, and we're going to help you confidently grow your revenue in your own way and at your own pace. So let's get started. Speaker 2 (3:15) Hey, Amita, welcome to Proof to Product. Hi, Katie. Thank you so much for having me. I am really happy to have you here. I have been a long admirer of your products and your design aesthetic, but also how you've made like super intentional shifts in your business over the years, which is kind of what I want to focus our conversation on today. So first, let's tell the listeners about your business. What led you to start this business and what types of products do you sell? Speaker 1 (3:38) My business is Emi Creative and I create stationary gifting products. and artwork that's all inspired by my Indian heritage and the Pacific Northwest where I live. My product line includes stationery. So I have greeting cards. I have notebooks. I have wrapping paper, as well as like gift tags and gift bags. I also have soft goods, including aprons and tea towels. And I have gifting products, including key chains and enamel pins. Speaker 2 (4:09) It's such a different assortment of product, but yet everything looks so cohesive and beautiful together. I'm sure that was intentionally built, but like what was the first thing you started with and then how did that expand through the ranks? Speaker 1 (4:21) As a surface designer, all of the illustrations are my original illustrations. And I tried to, I have a pretty narrow color palette. And since all of my inspiration comes from the same place, everything's pretty cohesive. Speaker 2 (4:34) Yeah, it really is. Speaker 1 (4:35) The first products I had were... cards, five by five cards, which I quickly learned in paper camp were not the right size. I Speaker 2 (4:42) didn't realize you did square. You and Janine both did square at first. Speaker 1 (4:47) Yeah. And this was before I, so I started my line before I took proof to product. So I did it and it didn't work. And then I took paper camp and I was like, oh, that's why. So I had the square cards and then I had mugs actually was the first thing I did. And I did some notebooks. and pins. There was three enamel pins that I started with. That was kind of my product line. Those were the things I started with. And I did my first trade show in 2019. It was a really small Seattle one. So those are the four categories I started with at that point. How'd you do at the first show? Better than I thought. I got three orders and it being the very first catalog I put together and my first try at it, it was good. I had only started actually doing product about six months before. So I was pleasantly surprised when I got my three. orders. We have such an Speaker 2 (5:42) overlap in our stories. I went to my first show six months after making my first product line. I got three orders at my first show in New York and I was like over the moon excited because I had no idea what to expect. I just wanted at least one. But also at the same time, like, I don't know. You at least did a local show, right? You were in Seattle and you were living there at the time? Speaker 1 (6:02) It was Seattle. Okay. Yes. Yes. It was Seattle. It was local. It was very much my first day. I didn't even know what a fair was. The person next to me was talking about it. I was like, oh, what's that? I should get Speaker 2 (6:14) into that. Indigo Fair back then, I think. I think they were still Indigo Fair then, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's hilarious. Had you been doing licensing before that though? Because you have a pretty robust licensing portfolio too. So you started with product. Speaker 1 (6:28) For a long time, I was a graphic designer and then I started doing wedding invitation design. And so I was doing a lot of freelance work. I was doing branding as well as event and wedding stationery. And then after a while, I realized a lot of my artwork would translate to products. And so that was why I decided to do product first. And then I decided I needed to go back to school because if I'm going to do... product or all of these things. I had a graphic design background, but I decided I need to go back to school and actually be a real illustrator. To do that, I needed a degree. Maybe that's the Indian in me, but I went back. And then when I was in grad school, I was talking to one of my professors and she was looking at my work and she's like, well, you're a surface designer. Like all of these things that you're doing and all of these patterns that you're making for these wedding invitations and stuff. She's like, that's clearly what you enjoy doing. And that's surface design. I had never heard about it. And so that was kind of concurrent to me building the product lines because that was around probably the end of 2019, beginning of 2020. Okay. So it was kind of both things at the same time. I was doing the product, but then when I discovered surface design, I was like, oh, licensing. That sounds really interesting because there's less of a financial investment. Right, exactly. So it was about the same time that I started doing that too. Very cool. Speaker 2 (7:53) Okay, so did you try to build both engines at the same time? Were you actively building the product line and also pitching to licensing deals? I Speaker 1 (8:03) did. And it was not Speaker 2 (8:05) the Speaker 1 (8:05) best choice. Speaker 2 (8:06) Well, I'm not criticizing you. That's a lot to take, especially you have three Speaker 1 (8:09) children at home that you were also... This timing you're talking about was pandemic timing too. So Speaker 2 (8:15) this is a lot going on. Speaker 1 (8:16) I was trying to build both at the same time because a lot of the artwork that I was creating for licensing was the same ones that I was putting on my product. But I found that licensing is kind of where I was having more traction. And so I was putting more energy into that. And so the product side was, it was a lot slower. And so mostly I was focusing on kind of licensing and building out these larger collections because for things like fabric and stuff, the collections are larger. So you're looking at like a lot more artwork. So that was one of, it was probably more towards licensing in the beginning is what I was focusing on. Speaker 2 (8:53) That timeframe too. So let's talk about that. You have three kids at home, you're entering the pandemic, you're building the product line, you're pitching your art to licensing prospects. On a lot of levels, that licensing side was probably logistically easier given that you had all these kids home and there wasn't the upfront cost of inventory. I think it was a smart move to like kind of focus on that more so or do it in tandem, but do the licensing more quickly and more thoughtfully implementing on the product side. Speaker 1 (9:22) It was very strategic. I, at that point, was unfair. And so it was easy for me to put products up unfair, but I wasn't really. doing as much of the pitching and stuff because I decided to do that more on the licensing side, just because of the cost, but also just the time. It was easier for me to research and do that side of it. So yeah, the cost is so much less in licensing, at least for me. It's a longer lead time though, don't you think? It is. It's a much longer lead time. You don't have as much control over the terms and what you're actually, as far as I... For me, I found that you don't have as much control over how much you're actually going to make. Whereas after a couple of years, I realized with products, I could see the numbers. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I could see what I was selling. And also I could see what my audience wanted. I could see what people were coming to me for and I knew where to lean in. Whereas with licensing, it was a little bit more... I just wasn't getting those data points. And so it became like, okay, I'm making what I like. I'm making what I think will work. But... You can't necessarily see the return on it right away. And so that was kind of my switch over. Speaker 2 (10:32) That makes a lot of sense. And also, too, on the licensing side, it can be a great revenue stream for a lot of folks, but it is a long lead time. You'll pitch something now that may not go into production for a year or two, you know, and then you don't get paid far after that, too. So, I mean, I'm generalizing the process here for our listeners. But, you know, it's very different than receiving a wholesale order, shipping out the product. you know, getting paid. So yes, Speaker 1 (10:57) yes, it's very different. And then I will say though, my brand and my aesthetic is very specific. And so I found that, and it's