Under The Hood: Beth from Leaf Envy

Hey Beth! Let's start here: When did you decide to sell plants online?

I started to think about selling plants online when I was living in LA, 3 years ago. I wanted to be surrounded by nature & create one of those beautiful plant-filled interiors you see on Instagram. 

I drove to the nearest Home Depot, 5 miles out - and left extremely frustrated. I was totally overwhelmed with the different options available; the plants were all in Latin names and I had no idea what plants were right for my apartment given the light conditions. I did ultimately buy some plants and drove them back home in a cab - which was a nightmare on its own - and ended up killing them a couple months later! Not only this, but I found the process of finding a good quality pot, at a good price &  in an aesthetic I liked really difficult. In the process of making plants more readily accessible, what garden centres had done was strip a lot of the value away from the customer experience of purchasing plants & the art of plant design had been completely ignored. 

So that’s when the wheels started to spin for me. I realized there was an opportunity  and shortly after, I decided to come back to the UK and, and start working on this business.

What was it like setting up the operation, to go from idea to launch? 

You have to be a detective of sorts. Asking lots of questions & doing a tonne of research. I spent a huge amount of time on the research phase & understanding the competitor landscape - what other brands did well, what they didn’t, how what I was creating was bigger & better! 

What I quickly realized was the toughest piece of the business to crack would be packaging and shipping. You’re dealing with perishable goods, which come in lots of different shapes, sizes and colors - some are rare, others are delicate, and then you have loose soil to deal with. Figuring that was the most challenging part.

It still remains the most challenging part today. When I started, I wasted a lot of time & money on boxes, just trying to figure out how I could streamline everything to 3 boxes, and make sure that the plants don't get damaged in transit. And today, I’m now working on new & innovative packaging solutions that prevent damage in transit & are 100% recyclable. The way we do this is becoming a USP for us. 

In terms of sequencing - Did you focus on solving challenges individually, and then bringing everything together? Or did you jump right in and try to solve as you moved along? 

I wish that it was the former, but it was definitely the latter. You have to get comfortable with taking risks and wearing multiple hats at once. Failing fast and learning quickly from mistakes was the way I was able to start bringing everything together.

A funny story is that because my biggest overhead when starting up was space for plants - I refused to waste any money on rent, and ended up taking over a canal boat that my sister lived on. I ended up misplacing an order, and 250 plants of the exact same species. It was through that mistake that I learnt about the buying process better and decided to do my first pop up on the weekend to sell the stock & talk to customers.  Not a great start but it definitely taught me a good lesson!

From the boat, I ended up doing pop-ups on Regent's canal more regularly to raise brand awareness and start talking to customers. And then from there, I enrolled into Google’s Female Founders program and rebuilt everything from the ground up. I got to really sit down and be much more strategic with how I was going to scale the business. After that program ended, I found a space and hired an intern and we launched the website in October of 2019. I was working on the business in the mornings, and fulfilling orders in the afternoon

How did you get those first customers?

I was quite keen early on to not take the whole “pay for customers” route. I didn't think it was a good long-term strategy; and I couldn't afford it. I wanted to build a community around the brand. And that started via Instagram where I shared my plant parenthood journey. I used to talk on camera about how to propagate your plants or how to style them - and through that, I met others in the plant community and our following and customer base grew organically. 

Today - Do you just focus on D2C? Or do you still have a retail presence? 

The way I see retail is through an experiential lens. Plants bring spaces to life, so the plan is to work with like minded brands who are similarly majority online. These pop ups will be more like art installations & a chance to come and chat with us IRL and get personalised plant care advice..

Talk to me about hiring: How did you prioritize it? 

There was some method to the madness. I knew who I needed to hire, but I had limited resources. So I invested in training up young talent. I took on an intern and he was incredible. He was initially responsible for photography, but later got involved in email marketing & creating content.. 
Once we got more and more orders, I needed packers. And following that, I hired support in customer service. Because we were growing organically, we didn't have to bring in super senior people - the responsibilities were highly executional: Let’s ship orders!

The beautiful thing is that many of our packers have developed into different roles inside the company. Adrienne, for example, started off as a packer - but then voiced to me that she wanted to get involved in graphic design. She turned out to be incredibly talented in that function and that’s her sole responsibility now at Leaf Envy. 

Fast forward to today - I’ve hired two brilliant senior leaders in Marketing & Product Development. I’m now planning on building a first class digital team and on the look out for a head of growth, ecommerce & developer.

Let’s go back to your model: Can you explain the subscription component? 

My original idea was to sell plants purely on a subscription basis. Today it’s a mixture of the two. The plant subscription is here to take customers from “plant novices” to “plant addicts”. From customer research, our average household has 15 plants - So that’s why we designed a subscription experience that can last up to 12 months or be kept ongoing: You get 1 plant & pot a month and build a unique collection of plants for your home. 

Each month, the Leaf Envy team curates a plant of the month and it’s matched with a pot that we choose. The plant selection is based on seasonality and what's trending at the time - we tend to favour more unique varieties. And the pot aesthetic is usually scandi-chic & we’ve designed the subscription so that all the plants & pots you get overtime all go with each other perfectly in the home. In addition to the plants and pots, you also get access to our expert team. We’re always on hand to give you any care guidance you might need. Customers send us photos of their plants and we ensure they’re set up to thrive.  

Makes sense - And what’s left to solve for? What’s keeping you up at night? 

It changes all the time. But when you have a business that's growing rapidly, cash flow is also always a concern. When we expanded during lockdown, it was great because we were growing revenues, but at the same time, we were having to buy more products, packaging, and hire more people. 

Outside of cash flow, digital acquisition does keep me on edge. The digital marketing landscape changes all the time, for instance with iOS14 - myself and many eCommerce founder friends have had to completely rethink how they keep track of spend & ROAS. For that - I have to keep learning. It’s the only out. 

One last question from me: Is Leaf Envy all you dreamt it to be when you moved back to the UK, from LA? 

I'm incredibly proud of what Leaf Envy is today. It’s a constantly evolving process - and I still feel very much in the midst of that journey, and while I can recognize that today is very different from day one, I still think we have a lot to build on. 

Thanks Beth! Any last words of advice? 

My advice to people starting out is to just start. I know it sounds simple, but you can dissect things in so many ways and you can strategize all you want - at one point you just need to execute for your plans to come to life. And don't be afraid to ask questions!!!

You rock Beth! Wishing you nothing but the best.