Building in the Open | Mainely Cards Website Launch Story
- Shannon Cyr
- May 7
- 6 min read
I set out to build the Mainely Cards website the “right” way—complete and polished. Then I accidentally published it early and learned to build in the open.
Starting the Studio
In early January 2026, Michael and I made the decision to create Mainely Cards LLC to support Wicked Good Cards, our nonprofit focused on getting handmade cards into care communities. Creating the studio gave us a clean way to separate the work: the nonprofit focuses on distribution and impact, and the studio builds and sells the cards that support it.
When I started building the Mainely Cards website, I had a clear plan: build the entire site and user experience before publishing it. I wanted to define the end-to-end system, from brand and visual language through shop architecture, product pages, payments, shipping, and messaging.
The goal was to have everything ready and polished before the site went live.
More than anything, I knew I was making a first impression with the website. If someone landed on the site and saw unfinished pages, would they come back? If only a few designs were up, would they think that’s all we do? If it didn’t look polished, what would that say about the artwork, or about me?
And the truth is, I was still figuring it out myself. The craft, the designs, even what to call it.
It Got Messy
As I was building the About Us page, I realized I wasn’t just writing content— I was figuring out what the studio actually was. Not just what we make, but why we make it, how to talk about it, and what the voice and point of view should be.
That work spilled into other pages too. The Handmade vs Handcrafted studio story is a good example. It wasn’t a quick post; it took research and even building custom graphics to explain terms people use interchangeably but that mean very different things in practice. I wasn’t just drafting content, I was defining Mainely Cards and what sets us apart.
At the same time, I was trying to articulate a craft that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. Not many people create what I create: a blend of original artwork, layered paper construction, and hand‑assembled cards. Most commercial greeting cards are printed. Many handmade cards, especially on Etsy, start from digital templates or pre‑designed components.
Mainely Cards cards are different. Each card starts with my own artwork or design, and each one is built by me, one at at time, piece by piece, from paper and glue. There isn’t a clear category for this type of construction, and because the work didn’t fit neatly into anything that already existed, I felt pressure to define the space before anyone saw it.
The Accidental Publish
In early February, there was no shop, no real front page, and just a handful of blog posts. I had been deep in the weeds writing product pages for the Maine collection, which is entirely made of symbols. A lobster. A lighthouse. A pine tree. The challenge was figuring out how to translate each symbol into a greeting card that isn’t tied to an occasion. I looked at what buyers actually need to know on a page for something that doesn’t really exist yet as a category.
Between the Maine collection work, building the website from scratch, defining the brand and voice, keeping up a weekly blog cadence, refining the paper choices for each design, and managing the early nonprofit work, I was stretched thin, tired, and working on autopilot. At some point in the middle of all that, I published the website without realizing it. I didn’t notice until the next morning.
Nothing like a little unplanned launch over your first cup of coffee.
Instinctively, I started taking steps to unpublish the site and go back to the original plan of finishing everything and launching it when it felt complete. Just as I was ready to pull it all down, I found myself thinking about all the times I’ve talked to my teams about making mistakes and letting go of perfection.
My career has been spent in fast‑moving technology companies where the work is complex and the path forward isn’t obvious. In those environments, mistakes are inevitable. Something will break, or ship before it’s ready, or land differently than you expected. The question isn’t whether you can avoid messing up; it’s what you do next.
When something unplanned happens, I've learned not to freeze or rush to erase it just because it feels wrong. I look at the impact and the blast radius: who’s affected, what’s actually at risk, and what happens if I fix it versus holding steady. At scale—like at AWS—you can’t stop everything every time something goes sideways. You have to get curious, understand what really happened, and choose the next move with intention instead of reacting just to make the discomfort go away.
Standing there with my coffee, staring at a live site I hadn’t meant to launch, I had to decide whether I believed my own advice.
I took a breath and I did what I always do when something goes sideways: slow down, look at the facts, and ask questions.
The 5 Whys
The 5 Whys is a root‑cause technique developed by Taiichi Ohno in the early days of the Toyota Production System in the 1950s. I’ve used it for years to move past surface mistakes and get to what actually caused something to happen.
My 5 Whys:
1/ Why did the site publish?
Because I was tired and made a mistake.
2/ Why was I tired?
Because I was working late, doing too much, trying to make everything perfect.
3/ Why was I trying to make everything perfect?
Because first impressions matter.
4/ Why did “first impressions matter” turn into pressure to have everything perfect before anyone saw it?
Because I was afraid people wouldn’t understand the studio or the UVP (Unique Value Proposition) and wouldn’t come back.
5/ Why that fear?
Because people have limited time and attention, and I wanted them to instantly connect, understand the studio, and feel inspired to purchase a card for someone they care about.
Seeing my 5 Whys written out made the real issue clear: I was stuck in perfectionism.
The Perfection Trap
Somewhere in the process of building my own thing, I defaulted to perfection.
Perfection kept everything on my screen. It kept me polishing instead of sharing. It kept me tightening sentences instead of testing whether the ideas even landed. And because I wasn’t putting anything in front of real people, I wasn’t getting real feedback — just my own assumptions looping back on themselves, amplified by ChatGPT helping me refine drafts that no one else had even seen yet.
With Michael, the feedback existed, but only in person. He had to sit at my desk to read anything, which meant coordinating time for him to review. It wasn’t dramatic, but it created friction. A few small delays, and suddenly weeks had passed and the work hadn’t moved as far as I expected.
And for everyone else (friends, family, the people who genuinely wanted to support me) the feedback wasn’t slow — it was nonexistent. Not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t have access. They couldn’t see the site evolve or understand the direction because I wasn’t showing them anything. Not out of secrecy, but out of perfection. I kept thinking, “I’ll share it once it’s ready,” which meant I wasn’t sharing it at all.
I thought about what I would say to someone else in this situation. I'd say:
Let it be incomplete. Show the mess. Don't work in a silo - share your work so there’s something to react to and improve.
So, I kept the site up.
Building in the Open
Keeping the site published changed my development pace immediately. Once it was live, the work stopped being theoretical. Michael could look at all of the content without coordinating time. Friends and family could finally see what I was building instead of hearing me try to explain it. And I could see the gaps more clearly because the work was out in the world instead of trapped in a draft on my laptop.
Months later, the Mainely Cards website still isn’t finished. There are no product photos yet, and the landing page still has placeholder images. But, I’m building in the open now, and the work is moving in a way it never did when I was trying to perfect it first.
From Maine,
Shannon
