Why did we start FlowerFoundry? My wife and I purchased a florist in the Garden Route town of George, 2 years ago. It was with great excitement to hear how each day was progressing. And hearing how excited her voice was when she learnt new things. At this point, I should add that neither of us knew anything about flowers, at all. My version of buying flowers was from the lady on the side of the road or if I really wanted to spoil her the flowers would come from the local supermarket. Then one day a few months into owning the shop, she sounded rather sad and worried. When I asked what's up? The answer was the last thing that I expected to hear. I think I am not making money or as much money as I should from what I sell to the big 3 relay businesses. Time to activate the management consultant part of husband mode. So I get as much info as I can from the data that my good wife is able to provide. I mean I was working in Ireland and had plenty of time to do detailed analysis on what is going on. The result at the end of the day was that the small florist in a small town that does not have a flower market cannot make enough of a profit to survive with by selling to the big 3 relay business, and to top it all off, some of the relay businesses do not stick to the payment terms at all. This means that these small businesses are left carrying the cost of the raw material for weeks at a time. These issues got me thinking and wondering what would happen if there was some competition that viewed the florist in the small town and big cities as a customer and not a supplier? Many walks in the icy winds of County Mayo, Ireland in early spring the concept of FlowerFoundry was born. Hours of Excel work on the concepts that would work for all parties, yes the small independent florists nationwide need to be able to make some form of margin to stay in business, but the customer at the end of the day needs to feel that they are getting value. Let me tell you that there were many many iterations of the correct pricing model, from charging a small commission on each sale, and marking up, to a few other additions. When I got to the point of what I thought was a good model, I ran it past my good wife. Her response was it won't work, because it is not radical enough. So back to the drawing board. We settled on FlowerFoundry purchasing, then marking up the lowest possible markup. These numbers started to make sense to all parties concerned. Florists get to make a better margin, customers get to feel value, and FlowerFoundry makes a little bit. Then came features for both customers and florists looking to buy flowers. And let's just say that version 1 of the site needed to be built to get to where we are today. Version 1 was at the time the best thing since sliced bread. Then enter the current Marketing boss, who simply shot it down in flames, but added one very simple question. Are you making an App? 12 months later, FlowerFoundry site #2 is launched, and yes we have an App. We are now nationwide, with a presence in Gauteng, KZN, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and Northern Cape. The collective is growing each week.
