Alumni Business Spotlight: Meagan Downey’s Shiki Wrap

With national recognition in The New York Times and Forbes, and local success with Launch VT and the New England Innovation Awards, Champlain alumni-owned Shiki Wrap is making its mark in the sustainable product market.

Meagan Downey G ’16 is the founder of Shiki Wrap, a start-up on a mission to change gift-giving for good. We connected with Downey to learn more about her entrepreneurial journey, her experiences at Champlain, and the continuing growth of her business.

Shiki Wrap started with such a particular product focus. What drew you to the gift wrap market?

I’ve always had a passion for gift-giving. One of my earliest memories is taking a paperweight from my parents’ desk, wrapping it, and giving it to them as a gift. While I could not shop for a new gift at that time, I was very drawn to that special feeling of joy and intimacy that comes with giving a meaningful gift.

How did this passion for gift-giving turn into a business idea?

I was the target market for Shiki Wrap, initially. I was a busy working mom who loved to make my family’s special occasions truly special with great gifts. But I hated the aftermath: that horrible feeling of guilt, picking up piles and piles of trash after those special occasions.

When I learned about the Japanese tradition of furoshiki, [a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth], I fell in love. However, there was nothing on the market that really had the design and the stretch and the qualities that I was looking for, which led to a market analysis and then ultimately founding a startup.

Being a sole founder can bear a lot of weight. What keeps you going? What makes it all worth it?

I know that this is inevitable, the switch to reusables. If you think of the brand Swell in 2010, people thought she was crazy for trying to get people to switch from single-use plastic water bottles that might’ve cost $0.50 to purchasing a beautiful, $45 well-designed water bottle. That’s exactly what we’re doing in the gift wrap market.

There’s an incredible opportunity here, not only to build wealth but to have an environmental impact. This is simple. This is easy. This is a category ripe for innovation. And we are the startup that’s going to seize that opportunity and help consumers to make the shift to reusables.

Can you tell me how your entrepreneurial journey got started?

In many ways, my personal experiences set me up to be absolutely terrified of entrepreneurship. Growing up, I saw two businesses fail. I distinctly remember our car getting repossessed as a child when the family restaurant failed. I have vivid memories of piles of inventory from my uncle’s business that wasn’t moving.
Then the flipside of that was going into a career in philanthropy. I was really surrounded by inspired and inspiring people who were working on really tough social problems. And so that really exemplified the Margaret Mead quote, “Never doubt that a small group of individuals can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” So I had equal parts fear and audacity, but also the business skills I acquired through my educational experience at Champlain College. That was the formula for success.

You’ve mentioned how Champlain College helped you develop the foundational skills you needed. Can you share any specific experiences that impacted you personally or professionally as a business owner?

Part of what I loved about the MBA program at Champlain College is that it was very much focused on applying what you learned in practice, and that was very important to me. Given that I already had 20-plus years of experience in the workplace, I wanted to be able to utilize the skills that I was learning right away, and I was able to do that at Champlain.

The focus on Appreciative Inquiry in my program also directly impacted Shiki Wrap in that I was taking a strengths-based approach to a problem: we have all of this plastic that we need to find a good end-use for, we also know that furoshiki is a wonderful tradition and that the stretch afforded from certified recycled plastic could really enhance the experience. In many ways, that is what I was doing in building this business—looking at where the strength is, and it’s leaning into what customers love, and ensuring that we’re delivering on that brand promise.

Embarking on an entrepreneurial path is both exhilarating and challenging. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs or business owners?

My advice is to fall in love with your customer’s problem, not your first proposed solution. You can be assured that your first attempt at solving your customer’s problem is not going to be perfect. If you remain so fixated on your proposed solution versus their problem, you can really miss opportunities. That’s the number one piece of advice I have.