Stacy Stahl sold her successful first startup, a wedding-proposals website, after less than five years. When it was time for a second act, she decided to move from the virtual world to the physical one.
The new venture, she says, still had to be “rooted somehow in love and sharing kindness,” but she also wanted to take on the challenges of designing a product, getting it manufactured and convincing retailers to sell it.
Stahl has done all of that with Sweeter Cards, which she launched two months ago. The product, a greeting card with chocolate inside, is already in 115 stores across the country, including Lusso in Clayton and Bonboni in the Shaw neighborhood.
An upgraded version, which folds open like a traditional card and has more space for a personalized message, should be available next month. Then, Stahl plans to pitch her product to larger chains, including supermarkets and department stores.
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She’s setting her goals high. “We want to be in every greeting card aisle in the country,” she said. “I have confidence in this idea, the same way I did in my other business.”
That business, founded after Stahl enjoyed hearing about how a friend’s fiancé proposed, was How He Asked. The site’s marriage proposal stories became a social-media sensation, and it was acquired in 2016 by XO Group, parent of wedding site the Knot.
Stahl continued to run How He Asked for two years, even after moving from New York to St. Louis. She left in September to focus on Sweeter Cards.
Stahl, 30, who grew up in Florida, gets her entrepreneurial spirit from her parents, who owned a series of businesses including a roller skating rink and a charter bus company.
“I always knew I wanted to set my own rules,” she says, “and, thankfully, I have two amazing role models.”
Stahl, who lives in Clayton, is enjoying the process of creating a physical business in St. Louis after building a virtual one in New York. Her key vendors, including a chocolate producer, printer and packaging company, are all here, and she likes meeting with them in person after years of collaborating mostly with remote partners.
St. Louis may not have as many brand-building resources as New York — things such as marketing agencies, media companies and money — but Stahl says she has found the community very supportive.
She also mentors other entrepreneurs through the Capital Innovators accelerator program.
She’s particularly conscious of trying to inspire confidence in other women entrepreneurs.
“People have an expectation that to start something they have to know how to do it,” Stahl says. “That is the exact opposite of what it is. If you already knew all the answers, there wouldn’t be an opportunity.”
Ken Kellerhalls, a former owner of Bissinger’s who now runs PCS Gourmet Foods, is advising Stahl on her new venture.
“You can tell right away she’s a go-getter, very determined to be successful at anything she puts her mind to,” he said.
He likes the Sweeter Cards product, too. “She’s on to something here,” he said.“I think the concept is really inspired.”
Stahl says she came up with the idea because she loves to give gifts for big occasions, small occasions or no occasion at all. She found herself often giving someone chocolate and a card, and thinking that those two things should be one.
Now they are, and she’s about to find out whether the rest of the world thinks like her.