When you have your first child, you don’t know which way is up. Honeybug is about creating a culture of “We got you, girl.” As a mom, you quickly realize there is not much time to do thoughtful gift-giving. I would often just go to Target and throw things in a bag. But I wanted to create a thoughtful way to celebrate all of these extraordinary moments. So I started creating these boxes for people as gifts. With moms, it becomes an interesting culture of “I found the right solution!”
I launched this with my husband a little over a year ago. He would pack the boxes and help me ship them. Before this, I was the senior vice president of product development at Jack in the Box. I was there for 12 years, and I even launched the Munchie Meals. I kind of have a design eye around packaging. It’s a love of mine, and it translates to Honeybug. We grew from inside the house to the garage, then hired our first employee to work out of the garage. We had maybe only 100 items. Now I have four employees total and 1,600 products people can select from, even through a “build a box” function.
It’s really important that we work with vendors who fall in line with our brand. I use a vendor scorecard to rank them based on criteria like social responsibility, female or minority leadership, price, and so on. We now have 20 core boxes, in themes like dinosaurs or “bringing home baby.” Another is a play on the children’s book Guess How Much I Love You. Many are gender neutral. We don’t want to be a niche gifting brand that you visit just once a year. We want to be accessible all year long and create a place for everyone to celebrate what they want to, whether it’s Chinese New Year, Diwali, or Hanukkah. We got you.
Honeybug