Entrant: Memoria Magnet Company
Website: https://memoriamagnetcompany.co.nz/
About My Business
Memoria Magnet Co is a boutique custom magnet studio, based in Plimmerton. Most photos are taken with love, because a moment mattered, and then immediately forgotten. They pile up in a camera roll, buried under thousands of others The moment that felt worth capturing - the holiday, the birthday, the Tuesday afternoon that somehow became a favourite memory - slowly becomes the past. Memoria Magnet Co. exists to change that. Customers upload their favourite photos, and I handcraft them into beautiful 5cm x 5cm magnets - frameless, high quality, and strong enough to live on any magnetic surface. A fridge, a coffee machine, an office locker - Somewhere you walk past every day, where a memory can find you when you least expect it. I started this business about 12 months ago while working full time, with no external funding. It hasn't been a straight line, but the best things rarely are! Every magnet is made by my hands and given the care that the memory within it deserves. What I make is small, but what it means is not. My reviews tell that story better than I can: "I can be transported back to Italy just by looking at them." "Such a small gift with such a huge impact." "I cried when they arrived." Memoria Magnet Co. serves three kinds of customers and in the last year I have built all three of these offerings from scratch, by myself: - Memory-keepers who want their most important photos out of their phone and into their daily life. - Hosts - at weddings, milestone birthdays, and corporate events - who want their guests to leave with a keepsake from the day that will keep the memories alive long after the event has ended. - Community organisers running school, charity or club fundraisers, who need something their community will genuinely want to buy to support their cause. Memoria Magnet Co is. not just a magnet. It is the feeling you get from the micro moments of connection that you have when you walk past the fridge and see the important people and places in your life.
Why We Should Win The Peoples Choice Award
I almost didn't enter these awards. It felt strange - nominating yourself, putting your hand up and saying "this thing I built deserves recognition." But someone said to me recently: if you won't champion your own business, who will? So here I am. I started Memoria Magnet Co. a year ago. For the first few months, I mostly stood still, held back by the self-doubt that comes with building something personal and wondering if anyone else would care. In April I stopped waiting and started building properly. I am proud of what has happened since. Memoria Magnet Co. came to life because I believe something deeply: that the photos we take with love - of our children, our people, our favourite places, our memorable moments - deserve somewhere better to live than a phone screen. I have always been the one in my family with the camera. The keeper of albums and ticket-stubs and playlists. And then digital technology came along and for years I watched those photos of important moments disappear into a camera roll and slowly became the past. Memoria Magnet Co. is my answer to that. In the last year I have brought over 500 memories out of peoples phones and back into their lives. I have made magnets for a family separated by oceans who wanted grandparents to see their grandchildren every day. For travelers who wanted to be transported back to their overseas adventures. For people who wanted to give a gift that meant something real. For hosts who wanted something for their guests to keep memories alive long after the event had ended. I am proud that all of our reviews have been five-stars - I have been told that looking at a magnet transports someone back to Italy. I have had a customer tell me she cried when her order arrived. A customer made me cry by choosing to create a magnet of a precious photo and loaded it with a special song as a gift for her terminally ill husband. I am not a big business. I am one person with a work bench, a belief and a year of evenings and weekends poured into something that I think matters. The People's Choice award is voted for entirely by people like you; people who understand what it means when a small business shows up every day and makes something with care. People who know that behind every small business is a real human being who backed themselves when it wasn't guaranteed to work. If that story means something to you, if you've ever bought from a small business instead of a big one because it felt right - I'd be so grateful for your vote. Thank you.
