About this episode If you've been around The Startup Story for any length of time, then you probably know that many times I ask my founder guests something along the lines of "If we were doing a where are they now episode in 3 to 5-years, where would your brand be?" Well this episode is kind of like our first "where are they now episodes". It has only been a year, but I think we can all agree the last year felt like 5 years all rolled into one. I’m so excited to bring this update episode featuring Christina Stembel the founder of Farmgirl flowers. I am such a fan girl of Christina and it’s because her story is truly one of resilience, grit, and excellence in execution. For those who might not know her story, she pitched more than 100 investors and every single one of them told her no. Yet she continues on, and has now built the business that is marching towards the $100 Million in revenue mark. It's an amazing story! But we’re not going to go into her backstory in this episode. In this episode we talk about the last 12-months of her business, all the lessons she learned about herself, the team, the brand, and what adjustments she had to make in order to survive. In this episode, you'll hear: What her profit margin is like at her various revenue milestones. Christina tells us that she gave the company one year to increase profitability and get up to 10% net. She explains how February (before the pandemic hit) was extremely challenging as she and her husband got a divorce. Christina shares that luckily just before the pandemic she had just launched Ecuador and was able to transfer the orders to her South America team. She shares how she first thought the company wouldn’t make it through to the pandemic and estimated that they would last eight weeks in any scenario. When she came to this conclusion this kicked in her fight-or-flight mentality and she knew she was going to fight her way through the pandemic. In 2020 she opened additional 2 distribution centers in Ecuador and Miami. With orders being moved to Ecuador she had to give a 2 day crash course to train the employees (who usually plant flowers) on how to make bouquets, all in spanish. She shares how she opened 4 fulfillment centers, where they trained the farm's workers how to ship the flowers for them. Since then they have opened 5 more. Christina shares how she keeps her head and heart straight despite the varying stress that she walks through. She shares how the shipping partners they used for Farmgirl Flowers used covid as an excuse to not honor their money back guarantee. This put her company in jeopardy. She shares how she started creating video to connect with the customers, as it was the most efficient and direct way to communicate. She also created weekly video updates and video tutorials of flower arranging to give back to her community. Christina shares how Farmgirl Flowers is not great at marketing but great at brand, which means she only spends 1% on marketing and PR. She shares how she is transparent to her community about everything that goes on behind the scenes. Christina shares how her team is over 70% women and she would like to get on site childcare. She shares the struggles of being a female founder, and how people don’t extend the same level of respect to her as they do her male founder counterparts. Resources from this episode Secure your Q2 issue of Grindology: https://grindology.com/ ExpressVPN: Get 3 Months Free → https://www.expressvpn.com/startupstory Get Emails: https://app.getemails.com/referrals/newaccount?ref=R18HWW5 The Startup Story Inner Circle: https://www.thestartupstory.co/vip The Startup Story on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thestartupstory The Startup Story is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jamesmckinney The Startup Story on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestartupstory Christina Stembel, Founder of Farmgirl Flowers: https://www.thestartupstory.co/episodes/christina-stembel-founder-of-farmgirl-flowers Farmgirl Flowers: https://farmgirlflowers.com/ Share the podcast The Startup Story community has been so incredible sharing our podcast with others, and we thank you! We do have more stories to tell and more people to reach. There are three ways you can help. First, the most powerful way you can support this podcast is by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
