Shea Cohen still remembers the moment three years ago when she told her newlywed husband to take a break from his workaholic ways while on their honeymoon.
“All of a sudden he goes, ‘I have a business idea,’” she recalled. “We weren’t even at the hotel yet.”
That business is now live out of their home office in Monroe, with E-Bration providing an online repository for cards, messages and other digital mementos that people receive in conjunction with life events like weddings, graduations and birthdays — as well as a way to generate invitations to those gatherings and send thanks to well-wishers afterward.
The idea occurred to Jeff Cohen after the couple’s marriage ceremony on the Maine coast, as they began going through wedding cards and gifts following the reception.
“Obviously, we had been to weddings before, but being on the receiving end of it, something clicked,” Jeff Cohen said. “It would be cool to be able to go back and see all these cards and sweet messages from our family and friends in a more digital way, rather than keep them in a box somewhere.”
While there are a plethora of online file storage options — Google, Dropbox, Collectionaire and Forever to name a few — Jeff Cohen said he and his wife were unable to find a service that fit their vision, and decided to start their own.
Guests can send cards and messages in advance, which stay in a digital lock box until after the event when people can access the memories, including via a “lifetime” dashboard. E-Bration also allows hosts to send invites for events and thank-yous afterward.
E-Bration includes a search tool for guests to find the event they wish to commemorate, and allows them to make monetary gifts that recipients can bank via PayPal.
Paper cards and other keepsakes can be uploaded from a scanner or photo app. And using E-Bration, people can order e-books that pair up cards and messages to photos of those who sent them.
In time, they plan to add an app for hosts and guests to access the service at any time — including during an event — and Jeff Cohen envisions broadening from an initial focus on event cards, invites and photos, to any kind of life memorabilia.
Americans mailed 404 million fewer greetings cards in 2020, a 21 percent decline from the previous year, according to the annual “Household Diary” study overseen by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Invitations and announcements also plummeted 20 percent, as people pushed back weddings and other celebratory events given restrictions on mass gatherings.
But the market research firm IBIS World estimates digital cards saw a 23 percent boost last year during the pandemic, as people went to extra effort to stay in touch with others.
Still, Hallmark jolted the industry last March after announcing the end of its own subscription eCard service. American Greetings remains in the business, with its $30 annual subscription service, including the ability to send eCards to Facebook accounts and include gift cards.
Hallmark’s exit has given a leg up to other eCard companies like JibJab, Punchbowl and Moonpig. And some like Smilebox have a wider range of options like pictorial family trees.
Jeff has previous entrepreneurial experience, having tried a ”daily deal” type of service a decade ago focused on automotive services.
“I still have that entrepreneurial spirit, if you will — just waiting for another idea to come to me,” he said. “Like I always tell people, I did not expect it to come to me on my wedding night — but here we are.”
The Greeting Card Association credits a pair of Massachusetts natives for the earliest mass-produced cards. Louis Prang set up a lithographic press in Roxbury to produce Christmas cards in the mid-19th century. Esther Howland was at it even earlier, recruiting women acquaintances in Worcester for a cottage industry creating Valentine’s Day cards a few years after graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1847.
The Cohens hope to add another New England point on the industry timeline with their Connecticut startup. Asked to remember the Valentine’s Day cards they first exchanged, Jeff Cohen does not miss a beat.
“We would if we had E-Bration,” he said.
Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
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