Heirloom was founded in 2020 by Ashley Bloom Kenny and her brother Zack Bloom. We started Heirloom because we were desperate for it. At the beginning of the year our 92-year-old Grandma Fran was stuck hundreds of miles from us, unable to see visitors due to the pandemic. The months dragged on without her seeing her great-grandchildren laugh, walk, or talk, and it was breaking our hearts.
With some tape and construction paper we cobbled together a video player and loaded it with videos of our family. Grandma Fran’s reaction was spectacular. Many iterations later, we have a high-quality product which has warmed many more hearts.
Our sales have doubled each month since! Mother’s Day 2021 was our first big moment, in just a few days, we sold more books than the past two months combined. Ashley visited the post office every day for a week getting all the orders out on time. We’ve had to scale and expand, and each month brings new exciting challenges.
While Ashley is running the company and fulfilling orders, Zack is building the technology which powers it all. Each order enters our in-house fulfillment system where we ensure the video and audio play well on our video books. We use that same technology to track every order and package to make sure each book arrives on time.
Grandma Fran is an inspiration to us in more ways than one. She does everything with care, thoughtfulness, and with love. Ashley still fulfills many of our orders by hand, bringing that same care and love. We both still answer customer emails every day with the same gregarious and helpful nature our Grandma expects from us.
Technology is powerful, but too often it is used to benefit businesses, not people. There is nothing in this world more precious to a person than their family; we deliver that connection and love when there is no other way for it to be felt. It’s already been a great adventure together, and we’re just getting started!
