Taymoor Atighetchi founded Papier half a decade ago. Since then, the luxury stationery brand has a grown its customer base immensely, enchanted by its high quality personalizations. Atighetchi quit a lucrative job in consulting to achieve his entrepreneurial dreams of setting up his own successful business.
CEO and founder Atighetchi created the startup to become the global leader in design-led personalized products.
An entrepreneurial drive changes Taymoor Atighetchi’s career direction
Atighetchi’s first successful project came in 2008 when he studied at the University of Cambridge. Wanting to add some entertainment to the archaic and “stuffy” character of the university, him and some friends founded The Tab. A play on the word “tabloid” and a slang term for Cambridge students (“Cantabs”), the online magazine quickly went viral. Now the most popular student outlet in the UK, The Tab operates across over 80 universities in the UK and US.
Leaving The Tab behind, Atighetchi worked as an investment analyst at Vestra Wealth. He then became an entrepreneur in residence at Groupon UK. After completing this, Atighetchi landed a consultancy job at one of the world’s biggest consultancy firms, Bain & Co.
Atighetchi worked there for 3 years but could not rest his entrepreneurial brain, constantly trialing business ideas on his colleagues. He finally quit his job in 2014 to satiate his entrepreneurial dreams and a weird ongoing stationery addiction. That’s when he set up Papier, the design-focused stationery start-up.
Taymoor Atighetchi buys and sells
Growing up in London, Atighetchi’s Iranian parents always encouraged and emphasized to him the importance of his cultural identity. For him, Iranian culture centers around eating lots of good food and treating others with warmth and generosity.
Atighetchi is offspring of antique dealers—his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all traded antiques. As such, buying and selling came naturally to him. At the age of 17, he set up a stall selling antiques at the famous Portobello Market in London. Learning the art of engaging customers and selling, Atighetchi describes the experience as “the best MBA you could possibly have.”
Following this formative experience of the marketplace, Atighetchi enrolled at the University of Cambridge, studying History of Art. There he set up The Tab with two friends.
Taymoor Atighetchi: Papier
After quitting his job, Atigetchi had a realization: no direct to consumer stationery brands really existed. So he set out to create his own and define the category. It piqued his entrepreneurial interests and still had that selling element. This time however, notebooks replaced antiques.
When he told friends and family he wanted to set up a stationery company, nobody believed him. Tired of the scoffs and frowns at his idea, Atighetchi acted in “stealth mode”. That is, he set up the company largely in secret. With investors unfortunately dominated by men, and stationery customers dominated by women, he initially had difficulty getting support. Until the investors realized that their wives “all loved stationery.” You can hear more about Atighetchi’s journey in this podcast.
Specifically, Papier sells highly personalized luxury notebooks, planners, pens, invitations and cards. With a focus on ornate design and quality products, it has achieved its aim of becoming a global-leader in design-led personalized products.
Check out what Papier has to offer here.
