Featured Startup Pitch: Minneapolis-based BoomBoom Prints wants to be the go-to marketplace for customizable products for kids

By Brett Brohl, BoomBoom Prints co-founder and CEO

ELEVATOR PITCH

Looking for unique items to transform your baby’s first bedroom, or artist-designed baby shower gifts for nieces and nephews? Enter Twin Cities-based BoomBoom Prints—an online marketplace that links parents with graphic designers and other artists to deliver customizable nursery decorations and other cool stuff for children. The site is a dream mashup of Etsy, Pinterest, and Café Press—all in one convenient place that is proving popular with both artists and parents.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

For trendy, one-of-a-kind pieces—such as baby animal-inspired onesies, navy-and-neon-pink chevron wall art, or whimsical prints by illustrator Terry Fan—BoomBoom Prints allows parents (and grandparents, aunts, and uncles, too!) to customize more than twenty different kinds of products made from the best stock, inks, and printing methods with the artwork of their choice. And for parents in search of ideas, the site offers a blog featuring inspiration boards, artist bios, artists’ tips, and nursery designs showcasing BoomBoom Prints products. That’s where you’ll learn, for example, that elephants are big with babies this year.

There is a growing demand for special, designed items that aren’t mass produced—parents are seeking uniqueness on Etsy and Café Press, but also want curated design specifically for kids. BoomBoomPrints.com is about buying cool pieces that fit or can be customized to each individual’s personality—it makes the gift so much more personal. And as parents, we believe that every kid is unique, so why then shouldn’t the items that we surround them with be unique too?

Products from BoomBoom Prints range in price from $20 for a normal poster print, to $250 for a 36-by-36 canvas print. BoomBoom Prints produces and ships all products on-demand to avoid waste, but if the color of your iPhone case isn’t quite right or the size of a toddler’s t-shirt is just a bit off, BoomBoom Prints offers free exchanges too.

FOUNDERS’ STORY

The inspiration for BoomBoom Prints came when one of the founders was looking, without success, for nursery wall art to match a quilt made by his newborn’s grandmother. He decided to create a place where parents could find—and customize—artwork to suit their personal aesthetic. And BoomBoom Prints was born as a space where artists could easily upload and sell cool work to parents who are ready to shop.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

The ‘mom’ market is $2.1 trillion strong and growing, with U.S. moms spending $16 billion on newborn to year-old children annually. BoomBoom Prints taps into this by creating a community salesforce through the empowerment of their artists to drive sales and sell designs to parents. Artist-powered marketing alone can provide exponential and self-reliant growth, but when combined with the more traditional channel marketing expected of a digital company, BoomBoom Prints is well positioned to capture a large portion of the market.

DIFFERENTIATORS

There are three keys to BoomBoom Prints’ success. First, it has a self-motivated pool of artists, who are driven to become a powerful sales force for BBP. Second, its experienced team of entrepreneurs has a proven track record in social commerce, startups, and building businesses. Finally, BoomBoom Prints has a free, naturally refreshing source of content in the form of new artwork. This high-quality content opens up a variety of additional revenue streams. BoomBoom Prints is taking a unique model to the customizable parent market.

BUSINESS MODEL

BoomBoom Prints has a very cash-friendly business model with healthy gross margins approaching 40 percent and no inventory requirements. Orders are automatically sent to third party partners for production and direct, blind and branded shipment to the end consumer. BoomBoom Prints then collects and pays all parties for their respective portions of each transaction.

CURRENT NEEDS

BoomBoom Prints is always looking for more artists to contribute to the website, as well as potential customers with an interest in individualized art pieces for their growing families. Plans are in place to raise a Series A round of investment in Q4 of 2015.

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HEADQUARTERS: Minneapolis, Minnesota