After working as an executive at The Body Shop and becoming an Internet entrepreneur in her own right as the co-founder of Eve.com, Mariam Naficy is a Web veteran known for her experience in the retail market. Her latest project, Minted.com, launches today as both an online retail site and a community, targeting nearly every aspect of the stationary market.
Minted is angel-funded with more than a dozen private investors, most of which are other tech veterans including Ben Elowitz, Founder and CEO of WetPaint, as well as Toby Lenk, Founder of eToys and President of of Gap, Inc. Direct. Minted has also managed to steal one of Facebook's former employees, Biren Gandhi, as its new Vice-President, Engineering.
As a retailer and a community, Minted acts somewhat as an outsourcing tool for independent designers of paper products. It's the exclusive online retailer for about 17 top independent stationary brands in the US, and looking through Minted's site, it's clear that it would like to build on this foundation and connect designers and consumers through an olnine community. Similar to Threadless, designers can submit designs to the site, where they are voted on. Top designs get to become part of the inventory available on Minted, and the community voting process acts as a filter for incoming content.
Such filtering is good for the consumers, as Nacify noted that they're a busy group and would rather not have to sift through hoards of content in order to find the best designs. But Nacify feels that the designers not only gain exposure through Minted's online market, but that the contest approach as well. "The competitive format also creates an aspirational element that I think the designers appreciate – they like that the site is selective, and they enjoy the fun and challenge of the competition," says Nacify. "I think there is a lot of respect among our designers for each other, so winning means a great deal to them."