Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Naficy: Minted launched holiday cards against investor advice and oversold

Mariam Naficy · Minted: Mariam Naficy · Jun 4, 2018 · at 36:10

Mariam Naficy, founder of Minted, describes defying investor pressure to focus exclusively on wedding stationery in order to launch holiday cards.

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“We actually decided to move into the holiday cards business against the advice of all of our investors who probably rightly said you should focus on what you started, which was wedding. We decided to ignore the advice, launch into holiday cards, and we were, we had an exceptional first Christmas. I mean, we were so oversold. It was, we had to actually shut off our marketing, our search marketing at one point because we were getting too many orders.”

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