PEAR Cards

Matthew Roberts had an eclectic background spanning film, hospitality, tech sales, and events marketing. The spark for PEAR Cards came when his co-founder Nathan Anderson's mom created hand-written conversation prompts for a college graduation party. The experience was so positive that Matthew and Nathan decided this concept deserved a wider audience. The next day, brainstorming over wine at a local bar, they committed to writing as many quality prompts and questions as possible without sacrificing content quality.

The process was iterative and lean. Matthew started by designing cards on a custom card website, ordering an initial prototype set of 108 circular cards for around $50. After using these for a few weeks and reworking the content, they partnered with Kevin, a graphic designer he found on Reddit, to create higher-quality designs. They then reached out to Print Play Games (the prototype division of AdMagic, which had manufactured Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens) to produce real prototypes with proper packaging. These prototypes were sent to advisors, influencers, and supporters who had helped along the way.

Matthew and Nathan had just returned from a 10-week trip through Europe when they took PEAR to Kickstarter. Matthew had been without a paycheck for almost 8 months, so bootstrap marketing became their necessity. They relied on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to build awareness and engage potential customers. Interestingly, only about 5% of Kickstarter purchases came organically through the website itself—the rest came through their social channels and word-of-mouth. The campaign ultimately raised a little over $19,000.

Word-of-mouth and social media proved most effective, supplemented by organic local press coverage and workshops. The Kickstarter, while successful in absolute terms, wasn't the "viral" breakthrough they'd hoped for—they didn't achieve "Project We Love" or "Trending" status. Matthew acknowledged wishing they'd invested more effort, time, or money into marketing the campaign better, perhaps creating a more polished video or cleaner presentation.

One major operational lesson came from fulfilling orders themselves: packaging 300+ units from a small bedroom proved draining, and they learned that international shipping was prohibitively expensive, forcing them to limit fulfillment to the United States post-Kickstarter.

PEAR Cards are now manufactured on the same high-quality linen cardstock as Exploding Kittens and have reached classrooms, therapists' offices, and homes worldwide. The team (Matthew, Nathan, and Benjamin White) continues to bootstrap the business while maintaining their commitment to donating 10% of profits to mental health organizations. They've expanded their content strategy with contributions from multiple team members and are looking for more contributors to share stories on their blog. The team acknowledges they lack specialized expertise in distinct business areas and clear job descriptions, but view this as an opportunity to learn and grow together rather than a fatal weakness.