You Are Beautiful

First off, I love your products; what made you decide to spread that particular message with your stickers (and now other products)?

Thank you! It started in a very small way, with a small batch of 100 stickers in 2002. I ordered them from an online printing site, and a few weeks later a tiny stack of stickers tied up in a rubber band arrived. They looked terrible, and barely stuck. But any action is better than no action, and I shared them with friends and stuck them up. From there it has organically grown, with people sharing the message with others because it’s an idea they feel is worth sharing. We’ve printed well over 1.5 million stickers, and have been invited around to world to create murals and installations.

Did you ever imagine that the “you are beautiful” project would grow to the size that it is today?

While there was never a business plan — I did know one thing: I wanted every single person to come in contact with this message. With over 7 billion people on the planet, we still have some work to do :) The growth and spread of this message has been really exciting. This is where the community gets all the credit. They have championed this message and are fully responsible for carrying and spreading this project to where it is now. It couldn’t have happened without them.

How has ShipStation helped you with your business?

I see ShipStation as a invaluable business partner. Last year, as our community was exploding, I was discussing the headaches of shipping with my friend Chris at Colossal (http://colossalshop.com). He said “You have to try ShipStation.” I was initially hesitant due to the monthly commitment, but I took a chance, opted for the free trial, and was instantly hooked. I quickly realized I was not alone, and had a lot of support from ShipStation. There is an incredible database of how to’s, and I always get a cheerful (and helpful) response from a support ticket within a few hours. Everyone I’ve chatted with has been incredibly friendly, and has gone above and beyond to make sure I’m all set. A great example is how we just shipped out our Kickstarter book “A Decade of You Are Beautiful” last month. Through Kickstarter, you are able to export a CSV file. After a quick import into ShipStation and a few bulk commands, hundreds of prepaid labels, custom forms, and invoices were printed. The entire process was extremely smooth, and just took a little over an hour.

What’s your favorite ShipStation feature?

My favorite feature(s) are the automated tasks and filters. To make the You Are Beautiful project as accessible as possible you can get a handful of stickers for just $5. Because of this, we ship a lot of small orders every day, many to overseas addresses. After initially setting up the rules on how orders are processed – you never have to think about it again. Then, with a single click of a button, your daily labels & invoices come pouring out – with customs forms already filled out. It’s such a smart tool. It’s able to process orders from multiple stores. Orders than come in from our website are handled one way. Our monthly sticker subscription packs (You Are Beautiful Every Day) are handled another way. No matter where all the orders originate from, they all comes together in one unified place.

Matthew Hoffman

Founder & Custodian of You Are Beautiful

After a quick import into ShipStation and a few bulk commands, hundreds of prepaid labels, custom forms, and invoices were printed. [...] It’s such a smart tool.