From trend to market in under 2 months
Moving at the Speed of Culture · Lovepop · February 2020
When "Baby Yoda" became an instant phenomenon, there was nothing to buy — no merchandise existed at launch. We waited to confirm it wasn't a passing moment, then moved fast: from green light to shelf at Disney Springs in under two months, the 4th company globally to market. That speed and judgment gave Lovepop outsized visibility for our whole collection.
From Paper to Plush: A New Product Category
Plushpop Cards
Plushpop reimagined the Lovepop card as a huggable plush character, spanning licensed IP (Grogu, Darth Vader, Mickey) and original designs. We moved production from a China vendor to our own Vietnam factory, building in-house plush capability — with licensed characters built fixed in place, non-licensed ones removable.
Suncatcher Cards & Bouquets
Catching the Light, Catching Sales
Suncatchers meant real risk — leaving our core pop-up format to chase a trend we believed was the perfect "gift in a card." Built from acetate and laser-cut paper, it took off immediately — and let us reinvent our stalling bouquet line into Lovepop's top-selling Mother's Day product.
Light & Sound Cards and Bouquets
Building a Top-Selling Innovation
We added embedded lights and sound chips to compete more aggressively — it became one of Lovepop's top-selling categories overnight. Scaling meant solving real challenges fast: in-house chip development, multi-song programming, and margin-conscious sourcing.
Innovation of
Movement
Pushing Paper Engineering Further
I led our engineering team on one belief: the moment a card opens should keep getting more surprising. Customer feedback said our cards felt small and static — so we pushed toward real scale and movement, making exploration a core part of how the team worked.
From Paper to Plush: Pop Culture Edition
Pop Culture Plushpops
Extending Plushpop into licensed territory was a real challenge — meeting licensor standards while keeping each character authentically itself in plush form. Getting it right was one of our most meaningful wins on the line.
