Hello and welcome back to the North Roots blog! A blog, and business, that I like to refer to as my online conservatory and community of plant lovers. This article is going to be reintroducing North Roots in 2024. But what do I mean by reintroducing North Roots? Calm down, and grab a coffee, I will cover all of that very soon. But to begin, I need to take you back about four years directly to the beginning of the pandemic.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I had just finished attending my Associate's in horticulture and was absolutely thrilled to get moving in the world of plants. Of course, this didn't happen the way I had planned as we were all worried about whatever this superbug was, and shortly after this, the 2021 lockdown began. At first, I somewhat enjoyed the extra time I had but that was a short-lived enjoyment that was replaced with a need to just. do. something. Strangely enough, my business didn't start with this grand plan of creating a store and providing house plants to my city and online. It started with me just sharing my plants on Instagram, a bode to "Hey look, I think this plant is really cool" and share a bit of information about it. The next few steps took place at the same time: I began buying more plants (because why wouldn't I, right?) which I also posted to Instagram, and people began to comment on my posts. Friends and family mostly. But the comments and DM's really started to roll in, comments like "I love that plant! I wish my plant wasn't dying!" and "My peace lily is just always so sad, what am I doing wrong!"
I was immediately interested in answering all of these questions and providing solutions, examples, and explanations for all of the questions both publically in the comments and within my messages. I soon realized that if I kept posting, and replying to, all of these plant posts my personal Instagram would be covered with nothing but houseplants. I loved the idea so much that I decided that I would create a separate Instagram just for my plants, in that moment I almost remember pondering if that would have been a really odd choice as I found the idea of people creating Instagram pages for their pets a bit 'cringe' so what would others think about a page of just my houseplants? Spoiler alert: they loved it! After a few additions to my personal page story and feed letting everyone know where they could continue looking at the plant content I immediately saw notifications of people following the new page. I'd be lying if I tried saying that didn't give me a boost of confidence in my choices.
I still wasn't confident enough to take the jump and start calling this a business. I felt like I had no clue how to run a business or what a business was at its core. What's the difference between a hobby I share online and an e-commerce business? I didn't really know outside of the fact that I wasn't selling anything on Instagram, yet. But the confidence was building, quite quickly in fact, and that was accompanied by the fact that we were still in a lockdown I had nothing but time and an audience. I knew I had to take advantage of the opportunity that was sitting right in front of me.
The timespan between me setting up a new Instagram, titled "North Roots Exotics" by the way, and me making the decision to start selling house plants and exotic tropicals was at most two weeks. Going back to the comments and messages I was getting on Instagram, these quickly changed from "What am I doing wrong" "How do I make my plant healthier" to "is this for sale?" "where do I get one of these?". Right here! Have this one! I began throwing together a very rough and very unrefined business plan together. I had no business experience other than asking neighbors if they wanted me to mow their lawn with their lawnmower when I was 13. But I was so ready to jump into all of this and fail as much as it took as long as I got to talk about and sell houseplants.
If you're looking to start selling plants either locally or online you really don't need as much as you may think. After I had accepted I was going to start the small business my setup was put together rather quickly, just as quickly adjusted and fixed to account for issues I hadn't anticipated. I began with a large shopping trip to a few local stores and ended up with a glorious haul of absolute gold, or at least that's what I thought at that time. Looking back I would have changed a lot in my initial setup, but that's how we learn and grow - trial and error.
By the time I had put my grow system together and began posting these plants for sale I had already had plenty of individuals that wanted to buy houseplants from me - starting with an already built client base was wonderful as there was no downtime before the sales started. Once they started they just continued to increase as well. Very soon I went from 5-10 sales a week to 8 sales a day, and then 9, and then 10 average sales per day. I was shocked at the volume of orders I was receiving. It was a good feeling as well, to have so many different people interested in not just buying my products but also being interested in plants. With orders rolling in I had to perfect my packaging skills immediately. This was a fun process and I remember it oddly well. I took one of the plants I was growing out that I had already planned on keeping as a mother-plant, and I started experimenting with packaging. I genuinely wish I had a video of this process. I would think through an idea, execute it, and then proceed to ‘test’ it by sealing the package and just tossing, kicking, and throwing it around my apartment!
My business was doing well and I was making money, so why did I stop? I stopped for many reasons, even though I do regret ending my run at e-commerce. The pandemic was coming to an end and people were returning to work in droves. While I was making money from the plants I wasn’t ready to make the high-risk decision to remove myself from the employee lifestyle and put all my chips on this business. Do I wish that I had chosen the self-employment option? Of course. But I don’t think it was in my best interest at that time in my life. A lot was changing for me. I was changing career fields, moving, preparing for my daughter to be born, and overall just trying to figure life out. If I had made the leap to turn North Roots into my full-time income I believe I could have, but I’m glad that I didn’t as I learned a lot in the last few years. But the question still remains, I left North Roots behind so why did I decide to come back?
I truly enjoy working in sales, and in the summer of 2023, I was in a full-commission sales position that I really liked. I was working long hours and only had one day off a week but I loved it. I was walking the sales lot one morning and out of nowhere I began thinking about North Roots and how much I enjoyed it, the feeling of fulfillment I received, the community that was built around these plants, and how much I learned. One of the best lessons I learned in sales is that sometimes a calculated risk can put you ahead. With that in mind I started looking back through my old posts, blogs, podcast episodes, and photos. I had a genuine sadness in my chest after looking at everything I had done, just to leave it all behind. Spoiler alert, within a week I was speaking with a college advisor about a remote college that offered bachelors in sustainability. It wasn’t long before I had left that job to allow room for more time with the family and school. I was very happy about the decision I made, but I knew I would have to be smarter and more methodical about the business this time. I didn’t have the luxury of time like during the pandemic, and I had even more responsibilities now.
I changed my job, still sales but less stressful, and began my college courses. I decided to keep my plate only partially full for a while, and I spent the next few months focusing on home life, work, college, and just getting caught up in the world of houseplants. I didn’t want to start this journey by being immediately burnt out, I wanted to be methodical and more business-focused. So I studied, I worked, and I planned through the start of the winter. But remember, calculated risks are important too.
I began gathering and ordering supplies to start my grow setup again. This time, however, wasn’t just going to be a steel shelf system in the living room. Heavens no, why would I do that when I could just order a (drum roll please) greenhouse! I have always described North Roots as an ‘online conservatory’ so what's more fitting (and logical) than a greenhouse? Obviously, I did this for logical reasons as well, like the available space in our home to set up the business wasn’t heated as immediately as the rest of the home so heat was important. I will cover the greenhouse details in another post.
That was in January of 2024, and as I’m writing this post it is April of 2024. I’ve had plenty of time to modify and correct the growing process of the plants and I am ready to begin posting and selling these plants this week, which is very exciting for me. I have stuck with a select few species to begin with, and I will continue to expand over the summer. What does this summer look like for the business and myself?
North Roots in 2024 is a completely evolved business and I have meticulously gone through my previous posts, episodes, sales numbers, and processes and refined everything. For social media, blog, and podcast I have built a schedule to help keep the content consistent for customers and followers, that is the same for the blog and the podcast. For now, I am focused on Instagram, threads, Blogger, and podcasting. I have plans to begin building a TikTok but the news of a possible ban of the platform has me skeptical of allotting my time on the platform.
Products are obviously a huge part in my business, and I realized while looking through my previous strategies that I could have been providing more types of products to help plant parents and widen the types of customers I can provide to. Rather than just houseplants and growing mediums, I plan to offer different types of products like houseplant journals, planners, and informational cards. Other items such as shirts and mugs would be a fun add on in the future. Currently, I’m working on adding moss poles and planters which I think will be a fantastic addition. Overall adding to what my shop will offer is my ultimate goal, as a customer I appreciate being able to go to one place and get everything I need.
A more methodical and business-focused approach to North Roots in 2024 and beyond will hopefully prove to be fruitful (you can’t expect to get away without some horticulture jokes) for the business and customers. I think that learning from past mistakes or areas that could have been improved will create a more rounded experience. Eventually, this blog and my podcast will all be available from my website - but that will be a future project.
I appreciate all of my followers and customers tremendously, and I am so excited to reintroduce North Roots in 2024.
