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Joanna Alberti banked on the hunch that even in this age of virtual communication, there’s still a market for smart, sophisticated, sassy – and real – greeting cards. She was right. With an initial investment of $10,000 in personal savings and a small business loan, Alberti launched philoSophie's in 2005, and within months was landing contracts for custom-designed work from major corporations.

A graduate of Boston University's School of Management, Alberti worked in advertising for two years, but always kept a little black journal of drawings and funny one-liners – Sophie's Philosophies . Having to come up with a product to sell for a company art show, she designed a set of cards that were glittered and hand-blushed (her cheeky homage to hand-brushed).

They got laughter and other positive reactions, and Alberti knew she had something special in philoSophie's.

“I sat down with the entrepreneur department at BU, and walked the national stationery show before I ever showed there,” says Alberti, who recently moved her business from Boston back to her hometown of Rochester, NY.

Goal 1: Get to Know the Competition

Knowing her competition was the first goal in striking out on her own, and she did that by checking out Internet sites, shopping boutiques and upscale card shops. She also sought and got advice from Mike Oleskow, whose Max & Lucy greeting cards and products are distributed in such national stores as Target, Home Depot and Barnes & Noble.

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