Not every founder grows up wanting to some day build a company themselves.
Some founders compete at the highest levels on the soccer field in college, and also major in English, and then use that experience to help frame messaging for complex organizations, and then find themselves emailing the White House florist to volunteer their spare time doing something that they really enjoy, only to then join a startup and see what scaling looks and feels like, and only THEN decide to become Employee #1.
And when you’re debating that path or perhaps a cushier, more stable one, sometimes “GO FOR IT” comes from an unlikely source: your Mom, a psychologist, who always seemed analytical and risk averse at the dinner table, who is now telling you that if you don’t take a run at it, you would regret it, saying: “You're not going to have another chance like this. You know the industry, you have all the industry contacts, you have the idea, you've got your time and your health. And now's the time.”
Such was the story for Cameron Hardesty, the founder and CEO of Poppy, a venture-backed, nationwide wedding florist that combines a national network of floral designers with a syndicate of boutique flower farms to deliver the highest quality wedding and event flowers with unparalleled convenience for the customer.
Then COVID hit almost as soon as Cameron had decided to be Employee #1, and with a fresh round of venture capital in hand, and founders all around her debating how to access PPP loans, she decided to launch Poppy At Home, a temporary pivot to “keep things moving” and “just sell flowers” until things calmed down.
With a stream of in-person wedding orders on hold, Cameron felt two things: 1) a little bit of relief, knowing how far out on a limb the company would have been operationally as a team of one(ish); and 2) she would need to use the temporary pivot to get things ready for showtime behind the scenes, whenever that might happen.
As weddings and events started to come back, Cameron and the team at Poppy had made the necessary investments in a super complex system to make the complicated (lead, order, match, procure, ship, receive, assemble, delight, collect) seem simple, and… (if you don’t believe it, check the reviews, even on Reddit!) joyful.
Fast forward through five years plus a move and kids and a Seed round and a Series A, and Cameron believes Poppy is the largest florist in the country outside of Costco (those Kirkland flowers are to die for after all). And she believes that Poppy is just getting started: “I want to be the next juggernaut of the wedding floral industry.”
Check out an extended discussion with the awesome Cameron Hardesty of Poppy on Taproots, a podcast from Front Porch Venture Partners. Thanks Cameron!
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