Courtney Ray - an ex KPMG consultant - had always wanted to own a florist - and in 2014 took the plunge and started Daily Blooms - an online florist with a $500 investment.
During the lockdown - as loved ones were separated through lockdowns and border closures, sending flowers became one of the only ways to stay in touch - and her startup grew to $35m in revenue
The secret sauce - selling the feeling - not the flowers
The Model
“I came up with the concept of buying flowers, creating arrangements , taking a photo, uploading them to social media and our website - offering them for sale at a fair price - initially to her family and friends ! - and delivering it the same day!
Once I sold the arrangements for the day - that was it !!!
“It created scarcity, no waste.
Daily Blooms was founded!
The investment and how it was used
The $500 went towards building the website, buying a heap of flowers and floristry tools.
From Friends buying her arrangements - it became friends of friends and after a month - customers come through that she couldn’t trace them back to a friend or a connection.
Daily Blooms Revenue in the first year was 500,000
Fast forward to today, Courtney has
- two kids, now aged 5 and 6
- 1000 deliveries a day
- 82 members of her team - who are a mix of florists, wrappers, customer service or operations officers and in-house drivers.
- 53,000 likes on the company Instagram page.
Courtney said her best months to date have been September and October, when Melbourne was once again plunged into lockdown.
Lessons, Trials , Tribulations and the oportunity
- she started a warehouse in Sydney and closed it when the lockdown happenned - big mistake - and will plan to relaunch Sydney
- If she can do that - why not open up in every city?
- Is this just the beginning of another Aussie Unicorn?
Daily Bloom gives an opportunity for people to care through flowers creating connection and showing that they care.
Source Alex Turner-Cohen - The News
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