Meador, who is on the autism spectrum, turns her love for crafting into a micro business. These visuals are human-created, AI-aided
In her mid-20s, Belle Meador found a love of crafting handmade greeting cards with her aunt and started selling them locally on social media.
What started as a hobby blossomed into a micro business for the young woman on the autism spectrum whose neurological disorder affects her ability to communicate and work full-time in traditional settings.
But autism doesn't affect her ability to make greeting cards for Hanukkah, Christmas, retirements, newborn babies and the Chinese New Year, or turn other forms of art into items people might want to purchase.
That skillset got her father, Dave Meador, a retired executive from Birmingham, Michigan, the United States, thinking about how Belle could market the items she makes to a wider audience of potential customers beyond the front-porch transactions on Facebook Marketplace.
Arjun Reddy, a teenager with autism, loves bringing ideas to life through colour and texture. — Photos: Trove Market
Backed by nearly US$2mil (RM8.7mil) in seed capital, including US$350,000 (RM1.42mil) of his family's money, Dave has launched a not-for-profit, Etsy-like e-commerce website for sellers with disabilities who make items ranging from jewelry and Christmas tree ornaments to personalised tumblers.
His now 30-year-old daughter is one of the first makers whose greeting cards and custom-made jars of slime on TroveMarket.com.
A pathway for the disabled
Dave and the backers of his new not-for-profit venture (including his former employer) see the e-commerce business model of Trove Market as a pathway for people with disabilities to gain a foothold in the economy with a micro business that can supplement their income.
Across Michigan, numerous programmes put individuals with developmental and physical disabilities to work, but the products they make are usually sold locally, said Trove Market chief executive officer Jayme Powell.
For Powell, she personally connected with the mission of Trove Market.
She has a 38-year-old sister, Brittany Danzig, who has Asperger syndrome, a developmental disability on the autism spectrum that affects her ability to communicate with others.
Dave (left) launched Trove Market to help his daughter (right) and other disabled crafters build sustainable income pathways.
Danzig is a seller on Trove, making custom plastic holders for business and playing cards.
"This was a personal mission for me to take my knowledge and background and apply it in a way where I feel very personally motivated to support people like my sister," Powell said.
Powell is working to form partnerships with existing programmes for disabled adults and with high schools that include craftmaking in their curricula, giving students a platform to sell their goods.
"There's no reason why every high school special education department in Michigan couldn't have a storefront on Trove," said Dave, who spent most of his career in the energy sector, holding C-suite titles of chief administrative officer, chief financial officer, controller and treasurer of a multibillion-dollar electricity and gas company.
"What we're finding is that there are people with disabilities who have started businesses and employ other people with disabilities, and we want to make sure they're included," he added.
Dave acknowledged he's been on a winding e-commerce learning curve as he's launched Trove Market.
"I'm learning a lot about starting an e-commerce business. And if you talk to people about that, they would tell you the constraint is always your supply."
In search of makers
But before they set their eyes on expansion, Trove Market has to gain its own foothold in the market.
Trove Market's backers believe the e-commerce platform will have immediate appeal to buyers, particularly younger, socially conscious customers.
The e-commerce platform's name is meant to convey to buyers that there's a treasure trove of talent among people with disabilities, Powell said.
"Purchasing with a purpose, generationally, has become more and more important, and people want to do good with their dollar.
Danzig uses the platform to sell her handcrafted items beyond her local community.
The challenge, Dave and Powell said, has been signing up sellers, helping people get onto the platform, and acclimating them to fulfilling orders and running a small business.
Those challenges include the fact that some people with disabilities don't have bank accounts, making the transfer of payments difficult or requiring the involvement of a legal guardian, Dave said.
"We desperately need to get product, because I don't think it will be a problem getting buyers. People want to support a good cause," said Autism Alliance of Michigan chief executive officer Colleen Allen.
Allen has been involved in the Trove Market, which started as a project at the Autism Alliance, where Dave has been a longtime board member.
"I was as skeptical as the next person," Allen said. "It really is all about awareness."
To be successful, Allen said, the Trove Market needs to tap into a kind of underground economy of makers whose products might show up at local farmers' markets or craft shows a few times a year.
'You should sell those'
After Meador graduated from high school, she worked for Strategic Staffing Solutions in Detroit, Michigan before taking a job at English Gardens in Royal Oak in Michigan, where she's worked two days a week for about six years, her father said.
"It gave me a firsthand look at just how hard it is for people with disabilities and autism to find work," Dave.
Meador lives independently now in her own house in Birmingham, using ride-hailing service Uber to get around because she cannot drive. About four years ago, she started making greeting cards with her aunt, Kathy Norris, who told her niece she had a talent that could be a way to make money.
"She was like, 'You know, you should sell those,'"Meador said of her aunt's feedback on her greeting card artistry.
Buyers have never been a problem. Meador's creativity and designs underscored her talent.
"Some days they couldn't keep up with some of the orders that were coming in," Dave.
Meador started making themed slime jars because she liked experimenting with different smells and textures — sensory characteristics that made them different than run-of-the-mill household slime made from mixing glue, borax and saline solution.
"My favourite part of this is the smell and glossy (texture)," she said as she took a sniff of a reddish creation she calls, "Dragon’s Blood."
Meador said she gets a lot of her inspiration from trends she sees on YouTube or broader popular culture. She is an avid fan of comic book and anime conventions, dressing up daily to attend the annual Motor City Comic Con and Youmacon gatherings in Detroit.
Some of her slime jars in her Trove Market store feature an Axolotl charm, following a recent craze among kids obsessed with a salamander that can breathe underwater with tiny gills protruding from its head like dreadlocks.
In Meador's Birmingham home, which has become the headquarters of her Trove Market business, she has an entire bedroom dedicated to making slime.
Down the hall, she has the inspiration for some of her creations — an actual axolotl living in an aquarium that devours bloodworms.
"It's gonna be really interesting when this goes live, because Belle tells me that kids are having slime parties," Dave said. "OK, get them the material." – The Detroit News/ Tribune News Service
