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– You've got mail. Fifteen years ago, Alexa Hirschfeld and her brother, James Hirschfeld, launched Paperless Post. Described by the siblings as both a design company and a tech company, Paperless Post’s goal was to combine the elegance and personalization of paper stationery with the speed, efficiency, and low environmental impact of digital communication. “We have this combination of exceptional design, easy to use functionality and pay as you go pricing,” says Alexa, who is president of the company while her brother serves as CEO.
It’s proved to be a winning formula. Despite the pandemic, which “hammered” the company, and the emergence of competitors including Partiful, Evite, and Electragram, Paperless Post is profitable and growing. According to its own metrics, it has served over 200 million users to date and has experienced a compound growth rate of 42% since 2021.
Initially, the company focused its efforts on birthdays, weddings, and other life milestones. More recently, however, the Hirschfelds noticed that an increasing number of businesses were turning to Paperless Post to plan their events. “Twenty percent of event [invitations] are sent on behalf of businesses,” says Alexa, adding that Paperless Post counts “national museums, art galleries, fashion brands, and top charities” among its professional customers.
To better serve these businesses, Paperless Post is today launching Paperless Pro, a B2B sub-brand that offers an end-to-end event management platform built with organizations in mind. The new service offers enhanced customization, a branded event page, and guest list management among its many features. It remains pay as you go, aiming to offer a middle ground between the “expensive enterprise event platforms that you need a really expensive annual subscription for” and the more piecemeal approach of sending and tracking invitations using emails and spreadsheets, says Alexa. The company estimates that using all of its Pro features to plan a 100 person event would cost around $120.
“This launch is really the beginning of us putting a stick in the ground and saying we’re building dedicated functionality for businesses and recognizing where they diverge from consumers,” says James. This includes new invitation language and formats. “Businesses need to sell the event more because it isn’t based around a social relationship. If a friend invites you to their wedding, you don’t need an explanation about why you’re going. Whereas if your local art gallery is trying to get you to an opening, before you click, you want to know, ‘why do I care?’”
The company’s post-pandemic bounce back can be attributed, in part, to a hunger for human interaction at a time when the U.S. is in the grips of a loneliness epidemic. “In a world where we are more remote, in-person events are taking on a whole new meaning,” says Alexa. “They’re more urgently needed. Our mission is to bring people together in the real world.”
Ellie Austin
ellie.austin@fortune.com
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