Most corporate gifts are forgotten by Friday.
You know the drawer β the stress ball, the two lanyards, the power bank that stopped holding charge. Someone meant well. The money was spent. The thing it was meant to say never arrived.
That drawer is what we work against.
Why I started this
I have been in corporate gifting since 2012. I started my own gifting company in late 2013. In April 2021 I sold my stake and left, and then stopped for two years.
In that time I came across Wang Yangming, and one idea in particular: η₯θ‘εδΈ β knowing and acting are one thing, and knowledge that never becomes action was never really knowledge. It rearranged how I thought about the eight years I had just spent.
Because here is the uncomfortable part. Anyone who has been in this trade that long knows which products are poor. That knowledge is free, and every established supplier has it. What is rare is saying so to a client who is about to order them anyway β because saying so costs you the order, and the month's revenue with it.
I started HINOKII in 2024 to find out whether a gifting company could be run the other way round, where the answer we give is the one we actually believe even when it loses us the sale. In practice that comes down to three questions, asked of everything before we put it in front of anyone.
They cost us work. That is how I know they are worth something.
β Calvin Foo
Three questions
We do not make any of it. The wallet is Bellroy's, the bag is Thule's. What is ours is the judgement about which objects are worth carrying.
Would we buy it with our own money?
Price is not the measure. Years of use is.
Would we use it ourselves?
Cells that travel by air. Plastics that hold food. Certification marks that mean something, and marks that mean nothing. If it is not in our own home, it does not go into three hundred of yours.
Is it useful?
Not clever. Not novel. Useful. If it has no life past the first week, it is a cost with a logo on it.
Most of what we are offered does not pass
Suppliers send us things every week that would sell perfectly well. We could carry all of it, and be cheaper for it.
Anyone can buy the same objects. Nobody can borrow the decision not to. That is what θ―εΏ means here β a supplier who does not take advantage of you when they easily could.
Where to start
Send us the brief β who it is for, how many, roughly what you want to spend, and the date it has to land. We will come back with three directions and what each would cost. If one of them is a bad idea, we will tell you which and why.
Visits by appointment β we will make coffee.