Before she was selling her award-winning products in more than 4,000 retail stores, KushKards founder and CEO Lauren Miele was a burgeoning fashion designer, searching for her niche and working everywhere from Louis Vuitton to Costco.
She was working in textiles, designing goods for companies such as Target and Kohls, when she decided to take a creative approach to what she initially thought was a unique problem.
“The idea just started by wanting to give a friend cannabis but just no way to do it,” Miele says, adding that standard greeting cards could conceal a joint but would not match the nature of the gift. So she decided to print her own card at work and hand-sew pre-rolls onto the cardstock.
“I knew I had something,” Miele says.
After Colorado launched recreational cannabis sales in 2014, Miele started making weekend trips to Denver, looking to find the cards a home in the new market, which led to her attending area cannabis events, particularly Women Grow meetings.
“The card started to spread at their monthly meetings,” Miele says. “Word of mouth became huge. Someone who buys a KushKard probably shows it to three, five people, before they gift it, then it’s opened at a party.”
KushKards started appearing in Denver area head shops in 2015, then dispensaries, and by 2016 Miele moved from New York to the Mile High City permanently. Today, KushKards are found in thousands of stores across the country including chains like Spencer’s and Hustler Hollywood.