PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL
“It’s beyond what I expected,” said Lambie, owner of Hux Creative LLC.
The home-based business launched its signature product, Flying Wish Paper, last May. Within a year it was being sold in more than 80 U.S. stores and across the globe thanks to a European distribution partnership.
In concept, Flying Wish Paper is simple. Write a wish on a piece of paper, light it with a match, and watch it soar into the air and transform into a floating piece of ash.
Lambie won’t disclose sales, but shop owners said the product has proven popular for bridal showers, baptisms, weddings — any event meant to elicit good wishes.
“We even had one lady buy it for someone going in for surgery,” said Dana DeVito, general manager of Bethlehem, Pa.,-based Moravian Book Shop, the world’s oldest book store and the first to book an order with Lambie.
But what makes Lambie’s story unique isn’t just her success, but how quickly she got there.
The concept for Flying Wish Paper came to her five years ago, while watching a scene in a movie in which paper was similarly set aflame.
Lambie — a 22-year veteran of the advertising world — filed the idea away.
Then, in October 2007, after several years working on freelance projects, she decided it was time to launch one of her own ideas. After showing several product concept to friends, two of which were sales representatives for catalogs, the flying paper idea took off.
She gave herself a tight deadline. By May 2008 she wanted to have a product ready to debut before more than 15,000 retail buyers at the National Stationary Show in New York.
In that narrow time frame, she sought a vendor with the right type of paper and worked on perfecting the concept. With her experience as a guide, she held a focus group in February 2008, from which she altered the packaging and name of the product.
Once March came around, she embarked upon New York, assisted by her sister and mother, uncertain as to whether she would be lost in a sea of “850,000 square feet of gorgeous products,” she said.
She walked away impressed by the feedback.
By August, Lambie produced 5,000 of her $15 “wish kits” — which include 50 sheets of wish paper and 25 “wish platforms” — and had deals with 12 retail stores.
At the end of 2008, that had grown to 33 stores and now to more than 100 stores worldwide. She expanded her product line to include mini-kits — $8 packages that include 15 sheets of paper and 5 platforms.
And she has European distribution thanks to a partnership with a German firm.
Her second round of production came in January, and a third is scheduled for June, taking her through the next Christmas season. By August she said the company should be profitable.
“I have already made back my first investment,” she said.
Much of Lambie’s initial success could be attributed to her years of marketing experience.
But the story isn’t complete without some credit to Jay Leno and Donny Deutsch.
Lambie submitted her product to be considered for a segment on Deutsch’s nightly CNBC show that highlights entrepreneurs.
“I didn’t think it would happen,” she said.
But there she was on Sept. 17, staring back at a national TV audience with 30 seconds to make her pitch.
As much as that surprised her, it was topped by an e-mail she received one night in December.
“I’m interested in your product,” the inquiry read. “I saw it on the Jay Leno show.”
“The Tonight Show” had just aired on the East Coast. In the time before it aired on the West Coast, she received several inquiries.
Unbeknownst to her, Leno showcased a series of Holiday products, and had apparently chosen hers from a catalog. Lambie and her husband and two teenage daughters stayed up to watch the show.
“Nobody could sit down,” she said. “Seeing it on the ‘Tonight Show,’ I couldn’t believe it.”
While the gift industry finds itself struggling in the weak economy, Lambie’s product is on the rise, perhaps because it provides a sentimental outlet, said Caroline Kennedy, editor of Gifts and Decorative Accessories Magazine, a New York-based industry trade journal.
“People are responding to that because of the state of the economy, the state of the world,” Kennedy said. “You can put out your sentiments and let them go.”
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