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Adam Newington and Callum McIntyre-Nash are applying their subscription expertise to a low-frequency greetings-card service that champions living artists, thoughtful communication and convenience without compromise.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The inspiration behind\u00a0The Card Boys, a quarterly subscription which delivers eight premium, artist-designed cards, <\/span>did not spring from reinventing the greetings card. It began with a more familiar problem, simply remembering to buy a good one before it was too late.<\/p>\n Newington and McIntyre-Nash spent six years at Freddie\u2019s Flowers, joining when the flower-subscription business was still small, and helping it grow to more than 100,000 users. That experience gave them a practical education in subscription retail, and in the emotional pull of products that help people show they care.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t really trying to reinvent a greeting card. We were more trying to change how people buy them,\u201d says Newington.<\/p>\n \u201cWe learnt our craft in terms of subscription-model businesses, the benefits a customer can get from that, and psychologically why it can be really useful and solve problems.\u201d<\/p>\n The founders also knew the customer problem first-hand. Newington jokes that they were \u201ctwo useless men\u201d, dependent on the card drawers maintained by girlfriends and mothers, or left buying something uninspiring at the last minute. The alternative, an online service that types and sends the message for the customer, could feel convenient but impersonal.<\/p>\n McIntyre-Nash adds that tension has become more pronounced as everyday communication has moved on to screens.<\/p>\n He explains: \u201cMost communication is done by text or email or WhatsApp, and those thoughtful messages are getting lost a little bit.<\/p>\n \u201cYou will keep a card or a letter that somebody sent you way longer than you would remember a text, a WhatsApp or a little meme someone sends you on your birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n The Card Boys is designed to make that lasting gesture easier. Customers receive curated collections of cards to keep at home, ready for the moment they are needed. This model is intended to remove the frantic dash to the shops without stripping away the handwriting, choice and thought behind the message.<\/p>\n \u201cI love sitting down and writing a card and giving it to someone,\u201d Newington notes. \u201cSpending the time to do it is not the issue. My issue is: am I going to get to a shop and pick up a nice one in time? Am I going to remember to do that with a busy life?\u201d<\/p>\n Convenience is only one half of the proposition. Both founders have backgrounds in the arts, while many of their friends and relatives are artists. The overlap gave them an opportunity to build a card service that could also introduce customers \u2014 and recipients \u2014 to contemporary creative talent.<\/p>\n Newington argues that buying art can be daunting, even for consumers who have reached the point where they want to invest in pieces for their homes. The same discoverability problem applies to greetings cards. Museum and gallery shops offer plentiful art cards, he notes, but they tend to celebrate artists from the past.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are we not celebrating living artists, people that are coming up through the ranks?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n \u201cA big part of it is discoverability. There\u2019s so much out there \u2014 how do you sort through it? There\u2019s an element of trying to make that more accessible to everyone and a bit less daunting.\u201d<\/p>\n Each Card Boys design carries information about its creator on the reverse, including a photograph, biography and links to their work. That makes the physical card a point of discovery twice over: first for the subscriber, and then for the person who receives it.<\/p>\n McIntyre-Nash says some of the business\u2019s most satisfying results have come when customers go beyond the card itself.<\/p>\n He shares: \u201cPeople have reached out to the artists directly, either going on their sites and buying their work, or commissioning them to make new stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cThe customer sees the artist and their designs, then sends the card to a friend who discovers the artist as well. That journey is a really satisfying one for us.\u201d<\/p>\n The subscription structure also gives the founders greater certainty over print volumes. In turn, they can offer artists a fixed fee rather than relying solely on commission. Newington says the sums are still modest while the company is small, but the principle matters: as the customer base grows, so should the fee paid to the creative contributor.<\/p>\n The founders believe the product\u2019s non-perishable nature gives The Card Boys an advantage over many subscription businesses. Cards do not expire or force customers into a rigid consumption cycle. The service makes four deliveries a year, with an optional fifth Christmas box, and subscribers can skip deliveries or dip in and out.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest reason people leave subscriptions is that it\u2019s too much, too often,\u201d says Newington. \u201cWe very deliberately wanted this to be low-frequency and easy to manage. You can keep it in a drawer and use it when you\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n McIntyre-Nash adds that the model draws on the pair\u2019s combined experience across subscription brands, much of it involving perishable goods and the logistical pressure those products bring.<\/p>\n He says: \u201cUnderstanding the difficulties around logistics and delivery gave us even more incentive to have a product like this. It\u2019s non-perishable, it\u2019s easy to store for us and for a customer, and, if it\u2019s kept well, they can use it years later if they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n The early retention data is strong, according to the founders, but they are not treating that as a reason to stop listening.<\/p>\n Many customers first met them face to face through the guerrilla-style selling that launched the venture, and the pair still call subscribers, test designs ahead of time and seek feedback on the balance of each collection.<\/p>\n That slower product cadence is useful. Rather than churning out new designs every week, The Card Boys can spend time curating a varied box, showing the work to customers and refining the offer between quarterly deliveries.<\/p>\n Newington shares: \u201cWe want to make sure people are seeing the designs beforehand. If they don\u2019t like them, they\u2019re not having to have them. We\u2019ve got a lot better at curating the boxes, but there\u2019s still ongoing work to do and we need to make sure there\u2019s a nice, diverse range within each collection.\u201d<\/p>\n The Card Boys has so far been built around full-time jobs, evening messages and weekend work. The founders each started with \u00a3500, taking an easel, a blackboard and a selection of cards to Peckham Rye to ask passers-by what they made of the idea. That direct approach echoed the grassroots customer acquisition they had used at Freddie\u2019s Flowers \u2014 and suited a venture whose purpose is human connection.<\/p>\n Since then, more than 1,000 people have used the service and the founders say they have built a current customer base of around 500. Each has invested roughly \u00a35,000, keeping the emphasis on capital efficiency while testing paid social alongside face-to-face acquisition.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of consumer subscription models in ecommerce spend an awful lot of money to get to the proof points we\u2019re at now,\u201d notes Newington. \u201cEverything has become about capital efficiency: how can we get the most for nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n The pair are now seeking \u00a3150,000. The immediate goal is to step into the business full-time and demonstrate that its acquisition economics continue to hold as marketing spend increases. If it can maintain customer-acquisition cost, payback and retention at greater scale, the founders believe they will have a stronger platform for a subsequent raise or other routes to growth.<\/p>\n McIntyre-Nash says the competitive position rests on combining the ease consumers expect from established online card businesses with a more tactile, curated and artist-led experience. \u201cWe want convenience to be very high up on the list of what we\u2019re doing, but also quality \u2014 and really emphasising that human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n These two former Freddie\u2019s Flowers employees have identified an opportunity to bring the lessons of subscription retail to the greetings-card market, while building a business that supports living artists and makes considerate habits easier to keep.<\/p>\n The commercial challenge will be proving that a purposefully infrequent subscription can scale efficiently. But the emotional case is already clear. In a market where speed often wins by removing the personal touches, The Card Boys is betting that shoppers still want convenience \u2014 just not at the expense of the handwritten message.<\/p>\nA card \u201cdrawer\u201d of their own<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/picture>Turning every card into artist-discovery<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Winter-2026-FINAL.jpeg.webp)
\n<\/picture>A subscription designed not to overwhelm<\/h2>\n
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Proving the model \u2014 and preparing to scale<\/h2>\n
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