Katie Guiliano’s first Bible was ugly. Plain black, she felt it didn’t quite match the message she found inside. An artist by trade, Guiliano removed the cover, handpainted a new, bright design and re-bound the book.
It served as the launching point for her business, Lockland-based Hosanna Revival. The 7-year-old e-commerce paper goods startup is now one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies, having landed on the prestigious Inc. 5000 in August for the first time, taking the No. 2329 position with 251% three-year growth.
It’s an attribute to the devout social media following Hosanna has garnered. People also seem to be increasingly turning to faith amid an ongoing global pandemic.
Guiliano, who now runs the business alongside her husband Nick, admits the company may be a bit of an outlier in a city where tech-focused startups tend to dominant headlines, but it’s disrupting its market all the same.
“We prioritize beauty in an industry where beauty has never been prioritized,” Katie Guiliano said. “We think Bibles deserves to be beautiful. And we’ve found there's a big market of people who think the same way.”
Pivotal moments
When Katie Guiliano started Hosanna in 2015, she was a sophomore studying business at the University of Cincinnati. She was also fairly new to being a Christian.
Plain leather-brown Bibles have been around forever and ever. “They make a lot of sense,” she said. “But I'm a very visual person. As I connected with this book, I wanted the outside to match how it made me feel inside.”
It’s not a new concept: when people buy a new planner at the start of a new year, they’re more organized. A new, colorful coffee mug can quickly become the go-to. Guiliano wanted designs that would excite a reader to open up their Bible and read it.
Hosanna’s designs are largely painted florals and landscapes: dahlias, eucalyptus and prairie scenes don the covers of some of its best-sellers.
Early on, Katie Guiliano handpainted each, selling the books on Etsy. The idea took off so fast, she opted to drop out of UC to grow the business full time (she has since finished her degree).
It paid off. In 2016, she landed a manufacturing partnership with Crossway, a Chicago nonprofit publisher, a deal that meant she could do one handpainting, scan the design and mass produce.
It was a “huge pivotal moment,” she said, one critical juncture of many.
“(When I left school), it was this ride-or-die time where I saw the potential of what Hosanna could be,” she said. “If I didn't give it the time it deserved, the business never would have grown past being an Etsy shop.”
In early 2020, as the world shut down that March, Hosanna quickly made plans to cut expenses, “prepping for the madness to come,” Nick Guiliano said. “It was the nerve-racking month of my life. All I thought was, ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘How are we going to keep our people?’”
Instead, business blew up again. Hosanna celebrated its best year yet. Numbers in 2021 were even greater.
“We don't know if people were turning to faith and religion because of fear or if people were receiving stimulus checks and could finally afford an expensive Bible,” Katie Guiliano said.
Last year, Hosanna Revival shipped 45,000 Bibles (both English standard version and Christian standard Bibles are offered, priced at $59.90 or below). Another roughly 40,000 units included notebooks, studies and planners. The company does all its design and distribution in house.
Instagram has been a huge driver. Katie Guiliano said Hosanna’s following on the photo-sharing platform grew from 1,000 to 100,000 in the company’s first year. Hosanna has 177,000 followers today. In terms of public relations, the company has largely focused on partnerships with Christian influencers. There’s been little outside press.
“I think the exclusivity of the brand and that small batch mentality (resonates),” Katie Guiliano said. “We've always tried to communicate we're not just another big Bible publisher. We're a female-owned, small business out of Cincinnati trying to do something different. We think people like that, and the numbers have followed.”
Moving up
In 2020, Hosanna Revival launched its publishing arm – the division now accounts for 30% to 40% of total sales and counting. The company reviews pitches from indie authors and spins out selected works, offering full-suite design. The company has 12 deals for Bible studies and devotionals either completed or in the works.
“We want to be a trusted space,” she said.
Sales come largely from the company website and Etsy, which Hosanna left but returned to recently, particularly as competition in the hand painted Bible space increased. Katie Guiliano called it a strategic SEO move. “That’s where people go to find (this kind of product),” she said.
Wholesale channels are growing, too. Hosanna Revival products are found locally at local mom-and-pop shops like Belong, a Christian bookstore in Mason, and Blume, a boutique with locations in Loveland and Lebanon; nationally at Altar’d State clothing stores; and internally in independent shops in Australia, England and beyond.
The couple, both 27 years old, has not taken on any outside funding, minus a $5,000 cash prize Katie Guiliano won at the Ocean Unpolished Conference pitch competition in 2016, an award usually reserved for high-tech, venture-backable companies.
The business has been positive cash flow since the beginning, she said. That’s been a point of emphasis – and pride.
The team has grown from five employees in 2020 to more than 15 today, a mix of customer service, sales and design positions. Last year, Hosanna Revival purchased, renovated and moved into larger office/warehouse space in Lockland. It now has about 12,000 square feet under roof.
Whatever the next step will be, Nick Guiliano said the company has seen success because it’s “inserting life back into a market where there’s a clear need.”
It's arguably been the biggest key.
“Over the past decade, as we've seen not only bookstores start to die, but specifically Christian bookstores, the whole industry has lost its intentionality,” he said.
“That really gets to the core of our business. Our goal is to help people and excite them about engaging in Scripture, and the best way we’ve found to do that is to make it beautiful, make it high quality so people actually want to use it, and that is a lot of fun.”
