Farmgirl Flowers CEO on the Challenges of Bootstrapping

0:00What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? Not buried in reports, but activated in real time, where lives are being shaped, where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Cotality turns data into clarity, intelligence into insight, insight into action. Because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Cotality. Intelligence beyond bounds. Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities, and drive growth. Chase for Business helps business owners like you with personalized guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place.

0:42With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business farther and help build a brighter future for your community. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Copyright 2026, JPMorgan Chase and Company.

1:07Christina Stembel:The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges.

1:50At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering and claims experience. Learn more at the Hartford dot com slash risk mitigation. Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. it. Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevec on Bloomberg Radio.

2:32Well, this week was always going to be crucial for the stock market with the AI behemoth NVIDIA due to report earnings. But with results from a slew of major retailers also hitting the next few days have become critical to traders who are looking for a view on the health of the consumer and the economy. Carol, we're going to hear from Home Depot, Lowe's, Klarna, Target, Walmart, and Gap, among others. Yeah, the health of the consumer is so important. It's the backbone of the U.S. economy. We've increasingly talked about the K-shape economy and really how it pertains to consumers, that consumers, the wealthier consumer seems to be out there still shopping, not so much for those who are feeling the pinch.

3:06The health of the consumer is something we always focus on with Christina Stemble. She's the founder and CEO of Farm Girl Flowers. She bootstrapped the company starting back in 2010, making bouquets from her San Francisco apartment. The company has grown a lot since then. She's here with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. 15 years. Yeah, 15 years. It's been a wild ride. I mean, we get to check in with you every few months, and it's great. And a big part of your story is how you grew so quickly, and you actually acknowledge that you grew too fast, and you said, wait, we've got to put the brakes on this thing and kind of get smaller.

3:39But one thing that I was really surprised to hear from you is that this year is going to be your most profitable year, even if it's not going to be your biggest revenue year. Absolutely. It's the first year that we're actually seeing any growth since 2020, but very small. A couple points. And that's very intentional. We're really focused on the bottom line. You know, we want to make sure all these companies are doing layoffs. I want to make sure we're not that, you know, we're actually, we have, I don't know, 10 or 12 open positions right now, which for a company, our size is a lot. So we're just growing at a clip that we can do while maintaining our profit margin.

4:10How big is the company? We're about 35 million, you know, plus a little bit. But yeah. And how many people? Right under 30. So you have like a third of your positions are open right now, basically. Are you having trouble finding those employees? We're just going slow. We're looking for the right people. So we have a lot of applicants, but we're just making sure we're bringing the right people. Yeah, I think I've learned that having the wrong people is actually worse than just not having anyone. So that's a lesson. It is a good lesson. So in terms of 15 years, tell us about like how you look back.

4:41at the beginning and where you were and some of the stages you've gone through and then where you are today? Yeah. I just sat down and wrote like, you know, 15 lessons in 15 years. You know, I might share them at the end of the year. I was just trying to think about like, you know, where I'm at now versus, you know, I feel much healthier right now personally and professionally. And like, why do I feel that way? And I think the biggest lesson that I had written down was that nothing is as it seems. Like when I started, I wanted that founder story in Silicon Valley. I started in San Francisco, I wanted to be the cover of Inc.

5:10or Entrepreneur, one of the big magazines, and where everybody was like, she did it, look at that. And it was all my ego. I finally realized it was my ego. And we grew really, really fast, and that played into my ego. And I felt like that was my entire identity, was all the press we were getting with our fast growth. And yet, 2019, we did$34 million in revenue, and I did$36 ,000 in profit, and I paid myself$60 ,000. dollars. Like this is not a success story, but the outward, you know, outward world thought I was like so successful. And I'm like, I'm barely scraping by eating ramen, you know? So I think, you know, really figuring out that, you know, I needed to be smaller, like we talked about before, you know, and, and focusing on profit margin, being a smaller company doesn't feed your ego anymore.

5:52But I finally figured out that like everything I thought the business world was, isn't like all these sales, all these like glossy pictures of people that made it. I'm like, yeah it was like a fire sale most of the time and it was like all these people I wanted to be that elite girl bosses that made it I'm like they don't own their companies anymore and they're you know yeah and it's you know it's interesting because we've talked a lot and I'm sure like through your head you went through some journeys about like where do I want to go do I want to keep doing this do I want to bring in partners do I want to do whatever you know what I mean and I'm just curious you know Tim like I think about all the folks that kind of think about that kind of thing Did you go through some of that?

6:31Absolutely. I mean, I built this to sell. Like I wanted to sell it in 10 years. I mean, how many years can you work 100 hours a week and not die, you know? So I wanted to sell it so bad. It's so harsh. But it's the reality, right? Totally. And then we got an offer from one of our big competitors, like this big company. And I thought, yes, we're going to make it. And it was a horrible offer. And so now I'm building to keep instead of building to sell. And it's a completely different thing. Like we're making, we're investing in, you know, things for five years from now. You're able to build to keep rather than build to sell because you built this company yourself and you didn't take on any financing, any funding, which is so strange for a startup that was built in Silicon Valley.

7:05Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I'm very fortunate. I'm in a CEO group with lots of CEOs that, you know, are constantly telling me how lucky I am, even though I have never felt lucky in this, because I don't go into every board meeting being worried I'm going to be fired right now because. You're the boss. Yeah, I'm the boss. I'm like, you know, we just, you know, we bought a farm. You know, nobody, no investors would ever let you buy a farm. We, you know, are farming now. That's a long-term goal. Well, I was going to say, last time you were on with us, we're going to get to the consumer in a second.

7:30But last time you were on with us, we talked about two things that really stuck out. One was the effect of tariffs. Did you buy a farm to offset the effect of tariffs? No, absolutely not. But it is going to help us. It is. I mean, we bought the farm because we're like, let's do this because it's hard to get this type of flower at this time of year where we think we can get it where we're at. we also built it because we're like we're farm real flowers like let's actually shouldn't we have a farm shouldn't we have a farm and do that you know but i mean that we're we're investing in you know we do think long term this vertical integration will allow us to keep a couple million dollars more in our pockets every year wow yeah it's like you gave us such an education i think about where flowers come from and i think there's just this assumption we go buy flowers i don't know what whether we thought they were all in the u.s and there wasn't right so much of the where's the farm south of well uh oregon um we bought the farm in washington so we have a small farm in Washington.

8:19We also put in about 40 ,000 plants in Oregon last year as well. And will you be able to cultivate those flowers yearly, like every, like throughout the year? Although it takes three years for your first harvest. So again, that's why investors would never let you put the money into it now. And the flowers that you produce at those farms on that land only go to you or do you sell them to others? Yeah, we'll keep it, you know, right now, the amount that we're growing, we can, we can use that every year. If we decide to keep going, then we can wholesale it it's another revenue chain for us what percentage of the flowers that are grown there like does that satisfy of the flowers that you use in a single year like a couple percent okay so still it's still yeah really but you would never get you would never be able to get to the point because of the global supply chain where you could actually grow all the flowers you would want never and we don't want to it's too much of a risk you know i learned through covid that i definitely need to diversify more than i had i mean having our facility that made 92 of our our bouquets closed down in one day in 2020.

9:17I remember you talking, yeah. Taught me that that wasn't very smart. So I'm definitely making sure we diversify now. Talk to us about tariffs and the environment. Like I just think, again, why we love, many reasons we love talking to you, but you really give us an idea of what it's like to run a small business. So they made it a bigger business over the years, but stuff coming out of Washington, tariffs, how has that changed? Has it gotten any easier? Yeah, no, we change, you know, and it actually hurts the consumers more. I mean, you know because you raise prices we raise prices or we have to buy off the shelf instead of making custom things that are nicer for them we have to do things like that we have to make concessions because we we don't want to price ourselves out of the market yeah you know we have to use different flowers even though they're not the ones that consumers want you know um there are things like that i hate when florists do that yeah yeah exactly like it's not what we want to do right also i think we're the poster child for having tried to do this like made in america grown in America, like when we started, I only bought American grown flowers.

10:15Right. And we ran out of flowers in 2017, just ran out. Now there's fewer farms than there were in 2017 because labor so high now with immigration issues. I mean, there is I mean, I just came a couple of weeks ago. I was just down in our fields and we were getting it ready for winter. I couldn't walk for three days after doing one week of work in the fields. Like there are not people here that are are wanting to be farm workers, let me just say. So what would you say to folks who are like, no, pushing back on immigration, it makes sense. We have to be doing this. What would you say to folks who are listening or watching right now?

10:52I think that ship has sailed generations ago. There is no way, like, you know, we tried to buy American grown. It wasn't possible. We're not going to bring farming back to this country unless we do something about immigration. There are too many ripple effects going on with why it won't work. Also having production facilities of making bouquets in the United States. We do. We make about 50 % in the United States and 50 % outside of the United States. Can I ask you where outside? South America. South America. Okay. And most of them are in the United States, but the flowers are coming from South America.

11:23We have a few in South America that are making bouquets as well. And, you know, it's, it doesn't work. Like, you know, I think, uh, you know, Ford Motor Company is a good example of this when they're talking about open jobs or, you know, I talked to a guy that has an engine rebuilding plant in the Midwest that had 40 % open positions. We just don't have those people. You know, we're telling people go to college so you don't have to work a factory job. Nobody wants to work a factory job. You also have an aging population, right? So we're not replenishing. So we talked about tariffs. We talked about farming.

11:52We talked quite a bit about your story to the consumer and the American consumer. How is the consumer in your view? The consumer has definitely shifted. I think just like what you were talking about, people right now, it's a little concerning with the economy where people are still spending a lot of money, but the people that can't spend a lot of money can't buy. So it's not the company I want to be where I'm only appealing to one type of consumer. So we're really trying to make sure that we're not doing that. But with tariffs and rising prices and everything, that kind of backs you in a corner of what do you do?

12:29I don't want every bouquet to cost$150 because how many people can afford$150 bouquet to send to the restaurant for their birthday? You know? So we're looking at things like consumer. Like I know I definitely cut back. It's like, you can't do as much as you would like to. Absolutely. And we're in the gifting space. So you just cut gifts out and we don't want that. So we're looking at trying to find ways to get closer to the end consumer so we can cut it in shipping instead of the flower cost and things like that, that we can be a little bit creative with. What? Oh, I guess we have to go. I think we have time for one more from you, Carol.

12:58Wreaths. I don't know if everybody can see the wreath that is on probably. I'll have to lift it up. How big, like, do you do a lot of wreaths? We wish we could do more. We sell out of them all the time. We're working with a lot of new producers. They're high labor. Really? It's a high labor. Yeah. So we are constantly looking. We work with small farms on our wreath making program. So very proud of that and trying to get more for us. but it's like the best way to, you know, come home and feel like it's Thanksgiving, right? I love, I have wreaths. It smells really good. It does smell really good.

13:29You walked into the studio. If you had to do a word to describe the outlook, how do you see it right now? You can do two words. Bleak, but hopeful. Wow. Wow. Yeah, yeah. I think, and this is with somebody who's got business going, job openings. Yeah. Wow. In terms of the context of the last 15 years, Apart from COVID, where is it? Like what year are we in? 10 seconds. We're 15. Bleak, I would just say because of personally how I feel about what's going on. But like we're doing okay. So I'm hopeful that we're going to make some changes. And you bought a farm. Yes, I bought a farm. I love that. I want to be able to say we bought a farm.

14:08Christina Stemble, founder and CEO of Farm Girl Flowers. Always makes us feel good.

14:15What if data didn't sit still? What if intelligence moved with us? not buried in reports, but activated in real time, where lives are being shaped, where decisions are being made. It all starts with a question. Where is the potential? Cotality turns data into clarity, intelligence into insight, insight into action. Because when intelligence moves, we all move forward. Cotality, intelligence beyond bounds.

14:45Christina Stembel:So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now, a global workforce of 300 ,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94 % of common questions. Not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. Deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. At Venture Global, we think about what can be done, not what's usually done. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time.

15:35So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy. Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English. Like, if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S &P 500. Or, if my cash balance goes above$20 ,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest.

16:18Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by public investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track.

17:00For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation. Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut.

17:36Game night rush or any night of the week, really, genius keeps every order moving from online ordering to your kitchen to the front counter big league reliability for any business that's genius these days it seems like ai agents are just about everywhere you turn every field and every function but without identity you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it fortunately okta helps you get identity right by securing your ai agents identities giving you a single layer of control a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity.

18:17Secure every agent, secure any agent. Okta secures AI. Whatever your goal, trade show giveaways, client gifts, or team gear, 4imprint has the promo products to match. With thousands of options, from apparel and drinkware to tech and totes, it's easy to find the right fit for your brand and budget with standout choices at every price point. And with their 360 degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will show up just right, right on time. Explore more at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, 4certain.