Flourish Plant is an Austin, TX based plant care brand, helping plant parents take better care of their house plants with the best content and products on the market. We launched Flourish Plant Food in spring 2022, and are so thrilled with how well the product has been received. Our customers are reporting great growth and success, and love the ease of use and beauty of the product that we have built. 

There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you? 

I (Lila Sullivan) co-founded Flourish Plant with a long-time friend, Kate Ferguson. Kate had dreamt up Flourish years ago when she was really struggling to find plant care products that she actually wanted to use. Kate and I began working together on Flourish two years ago. It all started when we sat down over coffee to talk about the product idea, we were running through all aspects of the problem of struggling with houseplant care, and zeroed in on the need for top tier content along with products. For us, plant care and plant lifestyle content is as important as the great products we bring to market, and that has really defined our brand and value proposition as we've built and thought about what is next. 

How did you conquer those moments of doubt that so often affect entrepreneurs or stop many with great ideas – what pushes you through? 

I think being really clear on our vision and understanding deeply what our customer needs has kept us focused and keeps us pushing through. For a while, we were really needing to convince potential investors and even friends or early folks working on the business with us that the content aspect was just as important as the physical product.Keeping clear communication between the two of us and focusing in on our intuition and knowledge kept us moving forward. Also, creating and selling a top quality product really pushes us as well. We wanted to build the “best-of-the-best” and had a few moments where things were not working that well in product development. Now that we have created a high quality product (that actually works!) we want to make the use of our product easy. For us, it really comes down to having an amazing product and doing the brand justice in every step of business building! 

Any moments where you thought you’ve bitten off more than you can chew? 

Probably every week I have a moment where I feel this way. One of the most amazing parts of having a co-founder who is also a dear friend is their ability to see when you need the pump ups, or know when you need to carry a heavy load together. I think if you dont feel like you have bitten off more than you can chew as an entrepreneur, you aren’t working on a hard enough (or fun enough) problem! It feels good to get to that state of overwhelm, and then have the moment to remind yourself… “I’m the first one doing this, it's okay that there’s rub, but I am the right person to figure it out.” 

Working with a co-founder can be tricky, so understanding and compromise is important. How have you both found the process of building a business together? What makes it work? 

There is absolutely no one I would rather do this with. Kate has been an amazing partner, and through it all an amazing friend. Starting a business takes a lot of professional growth, but it also takes personal growth, sacrifice, and understanding from the people around you. Having a built-in support network anda friend that gets it, has been priceless for both of us. 

I think from the outside, Kate and I seem pretty similar to each other, both outgoing, creative, hardworking, forward-thinking and stubborn. But we also have some pretty key differentiators that help us delegate within the business while both still being involved in important decision making, or supporting in areas that require two sets of hands.

Kate has a very visionary perspective. She’s an early adopter, an artistic mind, a realist with a strong sense of purpose and recognition of just how big an idea this brand really is. Kate also is really strong in using technology and the data that comes from it to make decisions. She’s our brand builder! I tend to focus more on business challenges, strategic initiatives, growth opportunities, and logistics. With a lot of energy, a healthy dose of compassion, and a lean towards giving ourselves grace when we need it,we balance each other really nicely and that makes all the difference. Our relationship as friends and business partners is what will allow us to be successful, so we always make an effort to give each other the time/energy needed and celebrate even the smallest wins together. 

What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with? 

Young folks living in urban cities love their plants. But keeping them alive is hard! Customers come to us lost in outdated options, or completely unknowledgeable about how to care for plants. We are here to make plant care easy, natural, beautiful and fun. We are here to cultivate growth in the spaces that matter most. 

With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why? 

We have found a completely new demographic for this industry and decided to serve them. Our customers (mostly young folks in urban settings - think, a handful of plants in an apartment) have never been served by the plant care market before. Legacy brands focus on suburban consumers, or come out with products that don't actually meet the needs of urban consumers.

By creating a product that checks all the boxes (i.e. organic, good fragrance, all purpose formula, easy to use, eco-friendly, good looking enough to leave out, a welcoming brand with relevant content) we have opened up a whole new customer segment within the fertilizer space! And that's a ton of fun to get to work with. 

What plans do you have for Flourish Plant over the next two years? 

We just launched to the market in March 2022, so we are still really focusing on selling our core Plant Food product and getting to know our customers better. However, in the next two years we really intend to build out more robust product offerings, to get to spend more time with our customers in experiential ways, and to have a larger presence in physical retail! 

Describe your business in three words. 

Growth, lifestyle, innovation 

What’s the single most important decision that you made that contributed to your business? 

Right when we started working on Flourish full time we were introduced to a kick ass creative team. They have been our right hand in building the brand - but the leap that we took (and that they took) in thinking that we understood each other's vision enough to create an impactful brand together, was pretty big! It was the best decision we have made for the brand. Jake and Malu at Marcd.co have helped make this brand and our product a reality - both in person and online! They are THE BEST! 

Thinking about the future, do you have any strategic partnerships or upgrades in the pipeline? 

In DTC, strategic partnerships are really a leveling up opportunity. We are working on building our a strategy around strategic partnerships this summer - setting our eyes on working with super relevant retailers and influencers in the spaces as well as hopefully working with other lifestyle wellness brands to help spread the good work of Flourish Plant Food! 

Do you prioritize self-care as an entrepreneur? 

Working with your best friend is an amazing mirror into taking good care of yourself. It's also sometimes one of the harshest. Both Kate and I have learned together that when we are flourishing as individuals, that's when we have the best ability to execute on our business vision. 

I do believe that both professionally and personally surrounding yourself with people who actually care about your wellbeing is the one of the most important actions you can take as an entrepreneur. I actually moved to Austin to start this business, so I spent our early days working hard on the business, while also building my friendship network and my personal routine here. For me, it’s important to lay out the non-negotiables in my week… for me those include a rotation of dog walks, exercise, acupuncture, therapy, time to practice my own spirituality, and time with friends or family. I usually have at least an hour a day that has some sort of personal non-negotiable calendar block and Kate deeply respects those times that I need - as long as I communicate them with her. We try to be really clear with each other about what can and cannot be pushed off, and after 9 months, we've found a really good balance - supporting each other and getting hyper focused when we are in work mode. 

What are your thoughts on ‘no sleep’ culture as an entrepreneur? 

No sustainable business can be built with no sleep. It's a hard no for me! I really respect people working hard, but if you aren't able to get sleep- you need to reprioritize how you are spending time, and how you value your health. 

Not sleeping, or working insane/unsustainable hours consistently, likely means that you are doing tasks that you should be outsourced, and your business is going to outgrow your ability to support it. Consultants, interns, and freelancers are an important part of all startup teams. As you plan to build your business, I think one of the most important steps you can take is adequate planning (financially and even emotionally) to hand over tasks to those who will execute them for you or better than you. This is the only way a business can grow! If that means taking on investors, debt, or giving away equity, it should be a serious conversation. If you believe in your business and see a pathway to success, you need to know that you can't do it alone.