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We’re not kidding about the poker, we’ll explain that later. But BloomNation really started because these three friends loved surprising their girlfriends with flowers, but they didn’t love finding out that the flowers that were delivered were nothing like the pictures of what they thought they were paying for. As BloomNation co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Gregg Weisstein says:
“…us being three men, having the horrible experience sending flowers to the ladies in our lives, purchasing these expensive flowers online, then when we’d actually get that text message with a picture, we were very disappointed and curious as to how this huge disconnect happened – not just one time, but over and over again.”
Kimanzi Constable, Senior Business Editor for The Good Men Project and co-host of GMP’s podcast (Jared Easley is the host), asked me to add the “female perspective” to his interview with Gregg. We covered everything from love and life, to business models and venture capital.
And flowers. We talked a lot about flowers. And how the “Bloom Boyz” are revolutionizing the way flowers are sent online.
Gregg doesn’t blame guys for being uneducated about buying flowers, most people don’t know how the online florist business works. Most online portals you’d go to when you want to send flowers are just brokers, you have no access to the artist who is creating your design. And there’s no reason for the florist to give your order their best work – you aren’t going to be a returning customer, your next online order will probably go to a different shop, and you aren’t going to complain to them, any complaints stop at the broker.
And the photos you’re shopping from are just stock photography, they aren’t something artistically created by a floral artist. But the images on BloomNation aren’t stock photos – every one is a piece of art that the florist created with love, and would love to recreate on demand.
BloomNation is designed to be a marketplace for local florists – over 3,000 local florists are represented on BloomNation.com offering over 65,000 unique arrangements. They take their curation process very seriously, screening the florists who are added to the platform.
Now about that high-stakes poker game — that’s where the “Boyz” got their initial investment to start BloomNation. Co founder and Chief Revenue Officer, David Daneshgar has played professional poker before, so when they heard that there was a tournament happening they decided to put up the stake. Says Gregg, “When David plays poker it’s not really gambling, it’s much more of a calculated risk, so we figured it was worth a try to see if we could get enough money to put a little beta version together.”
While David was busy winning the $30,000 that became their seed money, Gregg and Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Farbod Shoraka, were at another table sketching out a business plan. Since then they’ve attracted more than $7 million in venture capital.
The company has nearly doubled in size over the last year, and has plans to double again in the coming year. Kimanzi asked Gregg what “living the entrepreneurial dream” looked like. “Busy,” he said, but as he described his day it became clear that he loves the life!
Asked what advice Gregg would offer to anyone wanting to live the entrepreneurial dream, he offered two things he feels are essential, “You’ve got to take the risk. And then you have to tackle every objective one day at a time.”
About getting discouraged, or thinking of throwing in the towel, he says, “As long as we were moving forward, we thought that we had a chance.”
What’s not to love?
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All Photos courtesy of BloomNation