Lettergram

Despite the rapidly increasing use of digital resources, users continue to buy tangible paper products in certain cases— one of these is sentimental use. Paper moguls such as Hallmark, a $4 billion dollar company, continue to thrive on the demand for greeting cards. Smaller stationary start-ups also serve a large customer base: Paperless Post, an e-commerce site that allows users to customize and send high-quality invitations online, has grown to 40 million users in the span of 5 years. Although it originally launched as an exclusively digital service, the company has expanded to include paper products. Several fashion brands, such as J.Crew, Kate Spade, and Anthropologie— have also started to offer a line of paper products for customers. Evidently, sending meaningful paper goods is a demonstrated user need. The desire for paper is not dead; rather, the paper industry presents a viable market for entry and is ripe for innovation. My business idea that is supported by these three macrotrends is a web app I will be prototyping at the hackathon this weekend: Lettergram, an application that will be like an Instagram for post-card sending. Instead of “making everyone into a photographer”- the app will “make everyone into an artist” by providing the user with a set of simple, yet beautiful design tools to create their their own card. By combining the instantaneous process of social photo /image sharing with a tangible final product, Lettergram will cater simulataneously to contrasting user needs — creating something personal, but in an efficient, time-saving manner.

Built With

• css3
• html5
• ruby-on-rails
• sendgridapi
• web