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Minted Grew From a Stationery Brand to a Global Design Platform. Here's How. By listening to her community and reacting quickly, Mariam Naficy built a business bigger than her wildest visions.

By Stephanie Schomer

This story appears in the April 2019 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Elisabeth Fall

When Mariam Naficy launched Minted in 2008, she wanted to create a niche business, one that would crowdsource stationery designs from independent artists, ask consumers to vote for their favorites, produce and sell the best-performing creations and share a portion of revenue with the original designers.

But Naficy underestimated consumers' interest in what she was building, and she soon found herself at the helm of a massive venture-backed design platform that was growing far beyond her original vision. So she rolled with it -- adapting right alongside her company.

Now Minted's team is 400 strong and the company is generating revenue in the "hundreds of millions of dollars." Naficy spoke with Entrepreneur about how she's letting the business lead the way, carefully selecting strategic partners and building a team that doesn't require hand-holding.

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