Today we’d like to introduce you to Aleksa Mara Dalton.
Hi Aleksa Mara, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started as a live event producer. I’d always focused on experiential design, and pre-pandemic that meant in-person gatherings. I had my own production company AMARA Studio, I became co-founder of the LA-based invite-only dinner series Mountaingate (mountaingate.news), and I was serving as the Director of Experience at Conscious City Guide. I pivoted in every way an event producer could during the pandemic. I self-taught myself how to produce virtual events and hosted millions of people in live-stream concerts, virtual film premieres, and corporate gatherings. My co-founder and I came up with the idea of putting events in boxes – birthday parties, date nights, you name it – and we started to sell them to our stuck-at-home community.
But what quickly came to light was the need for corporations that were suddenly so dispersed to bring their employees together in meaningful ways. We started to design virtual events for corporations all from the comfort of our home. I was hosting teams from Instacart by screen sharing Bob Ross videos, and teams would use our Boxxie kits to paint with Bob Ross and I. We mulled wine together, played Secret Santa, my fiance at the time created a way to host Poker for teams via Zoom! One of our events even required dress-up, and story-telling, which was really entertaining for the stiffer sets of corporate teams. We really did a great job creating connections through the virtual sphere, and our “Virtual Event Catalogue” was making circulation in the corporate world.
And then another thing came to light — the same corporations that wanted to bring their teams together, didn’t have a place to turn to for thoughtful, custom gifts to simply make their employees feel appreciated. The requests started pouring in for gifts that made an impact, weren’t thrown away, and had people feeling appreciated. Brands also started using us for P.R. and Influencer Mailers — which in a sense is full circle to what I did before; translate brands into experiences. I still do what I love and what I was trained to do, but now it is focused into an unboxing experience. We always say here at Boxxie we give for a living! We spread joy through our craft and it’s such a blessing to have been able to learn as we went, evolve consciously, and eventually get to where we are today.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
All things considering, the road has been relatively smooth because I was never afraid to pivot. Some of the struggles came from losing focus – when offers came for different types of production they were so sparkly and hard to resist. But I’ve learned that if you want something to really flourish, it needs focus. No matter how capable you are of doing it all, when you hone into one idea, one concept, the result can be larger than life. And you know, it’s scary when you don’t have a live job in the pipeline! Instead of panicking or crying with feelings of doom, I would use the lows as allocated time to rest. And I recommend that to every entrepreneur to this day.
We’ve been impressed with Boxxie LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Boxxie is a white-glove, white-label corporate gifting agency. We work with brands and marketing agencies to concept, design, execute and fulfill custom gift boxes. Our expertise lays in translating a brands message into an unboxing or gift experience. “White-glove” means that everything we do, every gift that is chosen, every design that is designed, goes through us. We create everything from scratch to give recipients the ultimate experience, drawing the fine line between corporate gifting and the feeling one gets when receiving something thoughtful from someone they love.
“White-label” means it’s likely that recipients don’t know the gift came from us, being Boxxie. We work on behalf of our clients, for example; when MasterClass sends a gift to one of their instructors, it comes through us. We designed the gifts, the packaging, the collateral and even hand-wrote the cards all on behalf of MasterClass.
We execute campaigns for P.R., gift internal to corporations, and offer what we call “Gifting Suites” — a custom build web-store for corporations to select & send gifts both internally and externally, all within their brand guidelines.
We’re most proud of the clients we work with, as we’ve always admired the brands that partner with us today. It’s an honor to craft on behalf of these well-known, highly regarded, epic companies, and we don’t take the responsibility of a mutual partnership lightly.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success in the workplace feels like being lit up by what you do. It means enjoying walking into your office, looking forward to conversations with your clients, empowering and lighting up your employees, and having enough time to make it home in time for dinner with family. Success means little stress, more trust. Success means the confidence that comes from experience — knowing that you can do what you do, and do it well, comes with time. So does success.
Pricing:
- $5,000 spend minimum
- 7,000 max. box quantity
Contact Info:
- Website: www.boxxieparty.com
- Instagram: @boxxieparty
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksa-mara-922974a5/
Image Credits
@boxxieparty 🙂
