Why Cuppa Has a Bookmark Instead of a Business Card

If you've ever bought something from Cuppa, whether at a fair or through the website, there's a good chance a little bookmark found its way into your hands. Not a business card. A bookmark. And if you've ever wondered why, well, this one's for you.

The short answer is that I love reading. But the longer answer says a lot more about what Cuppa is and the kind of business I want it to be.

A Bookmark, Not a Business Card

When I was setting up Cuppa, selling our ceramic mugs, water bottles, travel mugs and tumblers, I knew I wanted something to hand out at fairs and pop-ups. Something potential customers could take away and find us again online. Something that, if they'd bought from us, they could tuck into a bag and remember we exist when they fancy another order.

Most people go for business cards. I went for bookmarks. It just felt more "us".

On one side there's a large Cuppa logo and lots of smaller ones — bold, clean, and very "Cuppa". Flip it over and you'll find everything you actually need: the website address, my email, my mobile number, and a QR code to leave a Google review. Useful, but also something you might actually keep rather than bin.

The Daunt Books Inspiration

Part of the inspiration came from Daunt Books. If you haven't been, it's a small chain of ten beautiful bookshops in London, the kind of place where browsing for an hour feels like time well spent. Whenever we visit London, it's always on the list.

Every time you buy a book there, they slip a Daunt Books bookmark in with it. It's made of lovely, substantial card, the kind you actually want to use. A small touch, but one that's stayed with me. It says: we care about the details. We've thought about this. It felt like the kind of thing Cuppa should do too.

More Than Just a Business Insert

Every order that goes out from thecuppa.co.uk gets a bookmark tucked inside along with the packaging slip, which I write a handwritten note on to thank the customer for their order. It's a small thing, but it matters to me. Behind Cuppa there's me. I genuinely appreciate every single order. The bookmark and the note together feel like that.

At fairs it does a slightly different job. A way for people who browse but don't buy on the day to find us later, and a little keepsake for those who do buy, so they can come back when they want to.

How I Fell Back in Love with Reading

I was a reader as a kid. Fiction, mostly the usual stuff you devour growing up. For me, growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, that was Harry Potter. I also enjoyed the Alex Rider series, and had Roald Dahl cassette tapes in my bedroom that I would listen to. Then, like a lot of people, I drifted away from it as a teenager. Life gets busier, attention gets shorter, and books somehow fall off the list.

Then, when I was around 20, someone I knew posted on Facebook that they'd read The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and it had genuinely changed how they thought about business and life. I was curious enough to buy it. That was the moment things shifted.

I'm 31 now. In the decade-plus since, I've read a lot of books. Most of them are non-fiction on business, self-help, and entrepreneurship. The Lean Startup. Zero to One. Malcolm Gladwell, whose books are just endlessly interesting, the kind that makes you look at ordinary things completely differently. Seth Godin, who changed how I think about marketing and what it means to build something people care about. Ideas from all of these have found their way into how I think about and run Cuppa. And I will take many of these ideas into any future projects, businesses and jobs along the way.

I've also dipped back into fiction, the dystopian kind, mostly. 1984. Brave New World. Fahrenheit 451. The Power by Naomi Alderman. Books that make you think, which I suppose is what all the best books have in common, whatever their genre. I first read Brave New World in English class with a brilliant English teacher I had when I was 11 to 12. Dystopian fiction really makes you think as it can be close to reality or a predictor of the future. 

My mum has always been a reader, she's part of a book club that meets roughly once a month. Growing up watching someone read that much probably planted something in me that took a while to properly grow. She actually read the first few Harry Potter books to me as bed time stories before I’d go to sleep. 

A Small Detail That Means Something

The Cuppa bookmark is a little thing. It fits in your pocket, costs nothing to keep, and might sit in a book for years. But I think the details matter. The handwritten note matters. The care that goes into packing an order matters. And having a bookmark instead of a business card, well, that matters too, at least to me.

It's a bookmark because I believe in reading. Because books have genuinely shaped the way I think and the way I run this business and my life. And because if Cuppa is going to put something in your hands, it might as well be something you'll actually use.

You can explore everything we make at thecuppa.co.uk and if you've already got a bookmark, thanks for having us on your shelf.