A Stationery Brand Born From Motherhood: The Story of Sheetal & Cupik Design
Sheetal Goel is the founder of Cupik Design, one of India’s most loved personalised stationery and gifting brands. A self-taught designer with a background in advertising! Read her story here.
Before Cupik Design became a brand, it was just a solution. Sheetal Goel, a former advertising professional, was simply trying to create something for her daughter. What followed was an unexpected journey into entrepreneurship.
Cupik Design is now one of India’s most loved personalised brands, catering to thousands of customers and even creating for names like Shah Rukh Khan and Bryan Adams.
At the core of it is Sheetal Goel, who started with a simple problem and ended up building a brand that blends creativity with emotion.
I started out in advertising, working on brands like Pidilite and ICICI Mutual Funds at Ogilvy in Mumbai. On paper, everything looked right, but something always felt missing. I wasn’t creating, I was just managing.
Creativity had always fascinated me, even though I wasn’t formally trained in design. So I taught myself- late nights with Photoshop, figuring things out as I went. That curiosity slowly turned into a need, and eventually, I felt underutilised, and that’s when I decided to walk away.
My First Step Into Entrepreneurship
After Ogilvy, I co-founded a company called Thought Bubble with a friend. I was handling brand management, and for the first time, I experienced what it felt like to build something from the ground up. It was exciting, unpredictable, and deeply fulfilling in a way my previous roles hadn’t been.
Eventually, we decided to go our separate ways. Around the same time, I stepped into motherhood. What many see as a career pause became a transformative phase for me. I truly enjoyed that time, and little did I know, it would change my entire career path.
How Cupik Started
The idea for my business came from something very simple. I needed to label my 17-month-old daughter’s belongings for preschool, and I couldn’t find anything locally. So I designed my own- cute labels, bag tags, gift tags.
But on a whim, I shared a picture of them on Facebook. What happened next completely surprised me. Within days, my inbox was filled with messages. Friends, acquaintances, even people I didn’t know well started asking if I could make these for them too. That was the moment I paused and thought- this isn’t just my problem. This is something many people need!
The name “Cupik” came from my daughter’s early words. It stayed because it felt simple, personal, and full of emotion.
I didn’t have a website back then. I created a few designs, assigned them SKU codes, and posted them on Facebook. Orders came in through messages, and I would design and fulfil them while managing everything else in life. I still remember sitting in my car after dropping my daughter off at school, designing in that little window of time.
Over time, something beautiful happened. The kids in my daughter’s class started calling me “sticker aunty.” I would make stickers for everyone, and slowly, without even realising it, I was building not just a product, but a connection.
We have delivered over 1.5 lakh personalised products nationwide, with a portfolio of 3000+ SKUs across 50 product lines.
The Journey of Learning
While the business may have started organically, my exposure to digital and entrepreneurship wasn’t entirely new. During my MBA, I helped my father take his business online in the early 2000s- a time when very few people were thinking digitally.
I remember sitting and designing web pages for clients who spent as little as ₹5,000 on ads, just to add value. I also experimented with an early startup of my own back then.
All of this gave me a foundation, an understanding of how the internet works, how customers behave, and what it takes to build something online. When I started Cupik Design, I leaned on that experience!
The Toughest Phase
Things were going well until 2020. Then COVID hit, and like many businesses, mine was badly affected. It was honestly a make-or-break moment. I didn’t know if we would survive.
But instead of giving up, I used that time to reorganise everything. I moved to WooCommerce and split my business into three clear parts: my D2C brand, white-labelling for global companies, and corporate gifting.
During the pandemic, I received a large corporate order for gratitude journals- 4,500 units. It wasn’t something I had planned for, but it opened up an entirely new direction for the business. At the same time, products like personalised headphones started doing really well. To this day, I believe those decisions and products helped us stay afloat.
Over time, we also had the opportunity to create for some incredible people- a phone case used by Shah Rukh Khan, a custom piece for Bryan Adams. These moments felt surreal, especially considering how the journey had started.
Among everything we’ve created, my “Memoir” journals are very special to me. They’re designed for families to write letters to their children over time- a way to create something that lasts beyond us. For me, that feels like a legacy. Something that stays, even if I’m not around.
The Hardest Decision I’ve Made
One of the hardest things for me has been balancing my love for design with the needs of the business. Designing is very personal for me- it’s something that soothes me. But I realised I was creating far more than what the business could actually sell. So I had to bring in structure.
Now, I design only during specific windows of the year, curate what I release, and have reduced the number of SKUs on my website. I also treat my D2C brand as my creative space, while corporate work drives revenue. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.
It Takes a Village
My journey hasn’t been a solo one. My team has been incredible- some of them have been with me for over 8 years. My parents have been a huge support system, especially in helping me balance my child and my business, both of which have grown almost side by side.
When we win, we celebrate, sometimes with something as simple as a day off or a festive party. And when things don’t go well, I take a step back, reflect, and come back stronger.
One Advice for New Founders
If there’s one thing this journey has taught me, it’s this: Don’t lose yourself while building something. In my early years, I pushed myself too hard. I dealt with severe stress, insomnia, and the constant pressure of making things work.
Over time, I’ve learned that you have to take care of yourself first. Only then can you build something sustainable.
If Not This, Then What…
If I weren’t building Cupik Design, I would still be creating. I see myself heading product design for a larger brand or consulting for international companies entering India.
At the end of the day, I’m a designer at heart, and I think I always will be.
At Razorpay Rize, we love stories of founders who evolve with their businesses, and Sheetal Goel’s journey is exactly that. From her early days in advertising to teaching herself design and eventually building Cupik Design, she has continuously adapted and grown.
Her ability to balance creative passion with business decisions makes her journey especially inspiring for anyone building in the D2C space.
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