How This Popular Gardening Blog Blossomed Into an Empire

0:11Hey there, I'm Shuang Esther Shan and welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. Maybe you are a content creator and you're looking for ways to grow. Sure, you can hire people to help you make more videos or write blog posts, but have you considered getting into e-commerce? Our guest today found huge success when he started an online store to go along with his media brand, Epic Gardening. Today, the store accounts for 90 % of the revenue for this multi-million dollar brand. founder kevin espiritu is here today to talk about balancing content creation with e-commerce and why acquiring another business might be the way to grow thank you kevin thanks for being here thanks for having me um very very excited chat with you because you've had such an incredible career epic gardening actually started over a decade ago as a blog grew into a youtube channel now into a full-blown business.

1:17Talk to us about 2019 and why was it so important for you to enter the world of e-commerce? Yeah, so the quick history there is up until 2019, I'd been doing Epic Gardening for three years full-time. And it was the YouTube channel, it was a blog, it was social media, it was a podcast, which is all media. And the business was making revenue off of that media. So like ads or affiliate deals or brand deals or some of the classic kind of media monetization models. And so I kind of looked at the landscape and I was like, you know, why would I just accept a deal from a brand that I like working with?

1:53What do they really want? They want access to my audience. And I have that. It's my audience. It's the one that I built. So why wouldn't I try at least to offer something directly to that audience? And in gardening, like cooking or carpentry or a lot of these home hobbies. There's just a lot of gear that you can get into if you really want to. And so that's where my mind went is I need to find some way of offering product directly to the audience because we've built a level of trust between myself and them. So why not try it? Yeah. And how did you approach the first product? How did you go through the ideation, contacting manufacturers, suppliers, all of that?

2:32I think the interesting thing about the model that we have run at Epic and you see a lot of other media creators or creators run is that you don't have to do it as traditionally as you would if you were just starting a product company from scratch. Because you don't have to invent anything if you don't want to. You definitely could, but you don't have to. And you also have an audience that's helping guide you towards the things that they really care about. And so for me, what I did is I had products that brands were sending me, products I was testing out in the garden. And I was just kind of listening.

3:06Every time I put out a piece of content, how to prune tomatoes, how to grow garlic, these sorts of things, I was listening to the comments. And people kept asking, what are those little raised bed things that you have in your front yard? I was gardening in a small little front yard at the time. And I was like, you know, that's a good question. I actually don't know. Let me go figure out where these things came from. And I found out and I messaged the manufacturer about three, four times over the course of a year saying like, hey, you know, can I get some of these? Can I offer some of these in America?

3:33They weren't really big in America yet. Eventually they said yes. And that's how the whole Shopify store started. I made my own little Shopify store, the one that we're still in today. It just looks a lot better these days. And imported some product and off to the races we were. So I didn't invent anything. And the manufacturer I found was one that sort of the audience kind of helped me find by the fact that they were really reacting to that in the content. Sounds like the perfect focus group just at your fingertips, giving you ideas and feedback. Obviously, this is like a giant extension of the business.

4:09How did you rearrange your team or expanded your team to accommodate for this new arm of the business? Yeah, that was the that was a bumpy road at the start, because you're right, like, I I didn't have a big team until 2021, actually. This is like years after us doing products. But what I did is I just leveraged help in the world of e-com that most brands have, which is like a third-party logistics company or a company that helps organize your freight to move it across from, in my case, Australia to America. And so that actually was quite helpful. I mean, if you have someone helping you bring the product over, you have someone helping you fulfill the product.

4:47eventually we did in-house our warehousing and that took on you know a bunch of capital to actually buy the building and the forklift and get trained and do all that I was in the warehouse all the time for a period of time at least but the start it was mostly just using vendors that are specialized because I was at least smart enough to know that I didn't know the world I was jumping into and so after some trials and tribulations I eventually just went to like a third-party logistics company and I had Shopify hook into ShipStation and we use ShipStation to fulfill And so a lot of it was done with either software or vendors.

5:19Yeah. So it sounds like it was really nice to test run things with third party partners. And then slowly you hired additional people to be in house. What were some of the initial roles that you looked after as some of the early hires? Yeah, the first role that was specific to product was I had at the time an executive assistant who sort of shifted into a customer service, customer support role. Because that was far and away the biggest time suck after a while. There was just like, you know, the live chat and dealing with emails from prospective customers. That was one big chunk of it. And then like the post-fulfillment care, you know, there was a bump on my product or how do I set this thing up?

6:04It was customer support for a while, which actually our third-party logistics company, 3PL company, helped us out with a bit on that post-purchase stuff. But I had someone helping out. We would get on the phone with people, and we'd call and say, hey, what are you looking for? And we'd make two, three, four,$5 ,000 orders routinely just by having someone manning the phones and talking to people about the products that we were offering. Yeah. So important, right? Because there are so many questions that you wouldn't anticipate until you were interacting with a product. So very cool to hear. I'm sure there's constant readjustment of how you spend your time, but how did you find the balance between your time on the business side and on the media side?

6:48Yeah, there really wasn't a lot of balance for, I would say, at least two and a half years or so. Because once getting product going in 2019, it was like a whole new world. You're not super efficient at that part of the business yet. You're kind of still figuring it out. So you're sinking a lot of hours in there. And then what happens in 2020, 2021, you have big, you know, global pandemic, obviously gardening is a big beneficiary hobby wise from, from that time. And so at that point couldn't really go anywhere and business was exploding and was trying to make the videos and was trying to, you know, buy this warehouse and operate the warehouse.

7:24And so really there wasn't a lot of like balance. I was just kind of doing whatever felt like the most important thing to do at that moment for like 10 plus hours a day. And then I would just go to sleep and wake up and do whatever felt like the next most important thing to do. Eventually I had a gardening assistant at the time who was helping out and he really took to some of the business aspects as well. So we actually like went up to Northern County, San Diego, where I live. We both spent the weekend getting our forklift card. We, I bought a Toyota forklift with like telescoping arms and stuff.

7:55And we would unload containers and I'd send him down to the warehouse while I was filming a video or vice versa. Uh, and we kind of just traded off for a while. Hard to imagine that someone's like favorite YouTuber is out there trying to learn how to drive a forklift, but sometimes that's what you have to do. So where did you land? How do you split your time now, time spent on the business versus creating content? The business looks a lot different now than it did back then. So, you know, we raised some capital for the business. We've also made a couple acquisitions. And one of the biggest ones was a seed company that's based in Denver.

8:31And that seed company has a 35 ,000 square foot warehouse where we receive seed, we test it, we package it, we fulfill it. And so we've moved a lot of our shipping over there. And we've also built out our teams. So we have, you know, a customer experience team, an operations team, a finance team, et cetera, such that all those things that I would be kind of running around trying to fight fires on. Fortunately, now we have people that are focused on them. So I'm able to focus on the media side, like you mentioned. And lately it's a lot of like hiring and product development. So what are the new products that we want to come out with that we think will move the needle?

9:06Because now we're in a position in the business where we're actually developing our own product as well as carrying others. And so that's where I'm focusing. Very cool. Yeah. I think a lot of content creators do struggle with this question is how much of my content do I keep as entertaining, educational, and how much marketing should I do on my channels? How do you balance that ideology or philosophy? It's actually extremely hard because if you only talk about the media, like our mission as a company is teach the world to grow. So the media that we make, the content we make is designed to help you become a better gardener, whether it's a blog article, podcast, or YouTube video, whatever.

9:47That's the primary goal. Sometimes you have products that you make that are in your own video and you go, oh yeah, you know, if you want to try out our tray, it's actually right here. Or maybe a brand still wants to do something because you still have a media business, right? And so you might have a brand that wants to sponsor something like actually shot. We did something with you guys. We did something with Shopify this spring, which was amazing. And it was a great story for us to tell because I'd say, by the way, this video is sponsored by Shopify and you really Epic wouldn't exist in the way it does today without Shopify, right?

10:15So that was a natural integration, but it's a battle we have all the time because much like we watched our comments to see what products people were interested in back in 2019 and found those raised beds. We watch our comments all the time to see if people are loving what we put out, if they're maybe starting to get annoyed by us mentioning our products or mentioning a brand or whatever. And it always kind of cuts both ways. And of course, the mind focuses on the negative a lot when you look at these comments. And so sometimes you see a couple of bad comments, you're like, oh man, am I doing this all wrong?

10:47And so I would say that's one of the harder things when you have a media business that ends up selling a product or a service. It's like, how much do you mention it before people start to get frustrated? But if you don't mention it enough, well, you're not using the advantage of having a platform. And so you have to find some happy medium. Yeah. And then there's also so many different channels you're balancing. Over 3 million subscribers. There's the podcast, the blog that started it all. How do you manage the different channels and kind of allow the different channels to cross collaborate with each other as well?

11:22Historically, I always ran them separate. So like the blog has to make its own money, pay for itself, so to speak. The YouTube channel has to pay its own rent. So, you know, the YouTube channel would have to have made enough off of, let's say ads that I could hire an editor to help me run it. And I wouldn't lose money. Now that we've kind of created a lot of these things, we have to figure out how it all ties together. So what I'll do is I'll take data from any particular platform. Like let's say, you know, our blog is doing really well. And my editor on the blog is like, Hey, you know, pruning roses is a really hot topic right now.

11:55We're getting a bunch of traffic. Have you guys made a video on that or have you not? And I'll go, you know what? I haven't. I didn't think about that. That's a good idea. And maybe we'll green light a video. Maybe we won't, but we don't like synchronize the content so that every week it's like, you know, one blog, one video, one podcast, one, et cetera, is coming out about a particular topic. We try to do what's best for the individual platforms. And then we let the rest kind of fall where it may. And then we'll try to kind of link those things together. Like we might embed a YouTube video on the blog or vice versa.

12:24I think different channels have different topics that are trending and it's tough to stay on top of it all. How do you stay on top of it? Well, I mean, we are gardeners is the thing. So we're in the garden daily growing stuff. And so we're very plugged in seasonally to what's going on, at least in our climate. And so myself, Jacques on our team, who's one of our creators, will be like, you know, what are we focused on right now? What do we actually want to do? Or what chores do we have to do in the garden? What problems are we dealing with? That tends to be pretty seasonal to what everyone else is experiencing.

12:58And then what we've also done is bring on other creators that live in different areas of the country. because gardening is so regional, right? If I live in upstate New York versus San Diego, it's very different recommendation on what to do today. And so we have to bring on other people to help us stay like in touch with what other parts of the country might be interested in. And then we're just sort of watching, you know, we're seeing what did well last year, what we think might do well this year and kind of looking at like maybe holidays that are coming up, like is Earth Day coming up? Let's do something for Earth Day.

13:28So it's a mix of a ton of different things kind of like spit into your brain and then you go like, okay, let's, let's do this. And then of course, with the seasonality, I'm sure there's also that kind of essence of evergreen content, people searching up different questions about their balcony garden or their backyard. How do you make sure that your content stays fresh and it is there when people are looking for it? Yeah, that's a, it's a good question. So on the blog, it's, it's a lot easier for us to do because you can edit blog articles. And so what we'll do is we have a staff horticulturist and then all of our writers are garden writers.

14:05They're trained in some kind of gardening. Maybe their specialty is flowers or ornamentals or bushes or something. And so we'll pick the right writer for the right topic, but then we also have all articles pass through what we call a hort review. And so our horticulturist will look at it, check it for accuracy and make sure that everything that's written is actually accurate to, let's say the particular species or the care guide that that particular plant needs. And then, so every article goes out with that, but then we'll also go backwards like year over year and kind of look at stuff and say like, do we need to refresh that one?

14:37Let's go ahead and take a look, see if we're still accurate there. The beauty of plants is that once you kind of show someone how to prune roses, unless some major innovation on pruning them changes, it's going to be the same thing. But on YouTube, it's a little trickier because you can't go back and like edit a YouTube video. So what you put out is what you put out. And so we focus a lot now on trying to make sure like all of our facts are correct to our own experience as gardeners, but also there's something out there that we can point to like a study or something that says, yeah, this is a good, this is good advice.

15:09Fascinating to hear about your approach in content and entering the world of e-commerce. And we're going to dig into your acquisition very soon. first I like to take a moment to thank you for tuning into the show I hope you're enjoying our conversation make sure wherever you're listening to follow Shopify masters and leave us some feedback for the show we love reading it and incorporating it into our new episodes thank you so much so we mentioned that you purchased a sea company called botanical interest what made you decide that this was a new category you wanted to expand into? I think for a garden company, there's very few things that your customers really not only need to buy every year, but actually look forward to and get really excited by.

16:02And so if you're a gardener and you've gardened for a few years and you get seeds from the internet or from a catalog, you know the moment when these catalogs hit your doorstep. It's a very like classic, almost like a holiday in the world of gardeners, It's kind of like Christmas. Actually, it comes kind of around Christmas. And so these catalogs will show up at your doorstep and you'll thumb through over your holiday break and you'll circle the plants that you want to grow that season. And then you might put the order in online or you might write it in on the catalog. And that's just like a thing in the world of gardening.

16:31We all love to do it. We're all excited. We're all comparing, texting your friends. Oh, what are you growing this year? Which tomatoes are you trying? Which peppers are you trying? And so to me, I thought, what a great opportunity for us to like bring some life to an industry that we felt was not necessarily stale, but just like wasn't up to the way that we were creating the content and education for Epic Gardening. Right. And so when we found botanical interests, I mean, if you're a gardener, you know, this brand and you've seen it in nurseries around the country. It's this beautiful white packet with a heavily detailed illustrated drawing, 650 different varieties of 650 drawings on these packets.

17:10And I had grown it without really knowing like years ago when I first started gardening. It was actually, I think, the first seed pack I ever grew. It was a cucumber. and what made sense to us was what an amazing way to get into a new product line that would be very difficult to build it's seed you're dealing with a live good a seed is actually alive so you're dealing with a live good there's different regulations there's sourcing how do you get all these different seeds how do you test them how do you package them the packaging you know infrastructure is very bespoke like the machines are custom built to pack seed so we were like look look, we want to get into seeds, but there's just no reasonable way we could ever build it at the speed that we would need to build it or want to build it.

17:54So one of the first things we did when we purchased Botanical Interest is we moved them from their commerce platform over to Shopify because it was a really old platform that you had to physically call them to make changes to, which was very outdated. And so it was quite a pleasure when we finally migrated them over. Speaking to that, I feel like it's so intimidating when you're dealing with a live good. So it was cool to go through this acquisition, but it also ballooned your team. It tripled in size. How did you deal with that kind of growth or expansion in the amount of people that you had to look after as well?

18:32Yeah, that was something I guess I didn't expect until it happened. And you're right. Like we went from about 25 to about 90 in a day. Once you acquire a business, you know, that's your team now. And so what we ended up having to do is we were moving really fast at that point in time. And so we just needed to hire leaders to own different parts of the business. And we had to look at the business because now it's, you know, you have Epic Gardening and there's a media side, there's a product side, and then there's Botanicals. interest, which is a seed company, which doesn't have the same structure as Epic.

19:06And so you had to look at the team and say, like, how does this make sense together? And who needs to lead with different teams? And what teams should those be? And who's on those teams? And so there's a lot of sort of looking and watching and adjusting as we combine the companies that it just took a lot of time. And frankly, like there's probably still more things to do there to, to improve the way that these two brands work together. Yeah. Also, how did you adjust yourself, like mentally change your mindset? Because like, did you ever think when you started your blog, you would be acquiring the company that made the seeds that you've used initially?

19:49No, no way. Yeah, not a chance. Not a chance. But no, I think it's a bit of like the game is still the same, but also like it's time to level up at the same time. So, you know, before any of this story really got too crazy from 2019 to 2021, it was just me and four people, four contractors on the team. And then we started hiring after we raised some capital and staffed up. And so it's been a big adjustment of like, oh, you're not just like a scrappy team, do whatever you want, kind of YOLO, you know, get done what needs to get done. Now there's like, no, there's like a lot of inventory. You have to think about how much to buy.

20:31Who's going to decide that, right? And there's all this sort of structure behind it that I had to get my head around because as an entrepreneur, I was much more like, let's just get done what needs to get done right now. and let's get it out the door good enough so that we can move on to something, the next, you know, fire to fight or the next more pressing problem. And so I think it's just like getting accustomed to the organization itself. It took some time. Yeah. Cause to your point, when you are an early entrepreneur, you could be more agile. You can make decisions really quickly and execute really quickly.

21:02But I'm sure looking at this company that's established, you kind of also help each other find that middle ground where you might adopt a little bit more structure as well. And I think they also pushed you into retail. So that's also a completely new channel to understand. How has that been like? Yeah. I mean, that's been very illuminating. So botanical interest is a business that's a primarily wholesale business. So we were stocked at like 4 ,500 stores around the country. And so it's just a completely different way of selling, right? You're obviously selling at wholesale pricing. It's B2B. And so you have to just wear a different hat when you're on that side of the business, thinking about how to service your customer, which isn't the person buying the seed.

21:50It's the nursery that's carrying the seed. And so it's taken some time also to get our head around how that works, especially in the seed business. I mean, the nursery business is just different than, it's not like I'm making a bunch of cups and then selling it to the container store or something. Like those cups could sit there forever if they wanted to. Seeds can't sit on a shelf for more than a year. And so there's a lot of different complexity to that. But there's also a lot of opportunity. What if some of the products that we are making over at Epic Gardening, what if nurseries want those too?

22:20Well, that's a great opportunity to offer more product at scale. And I just think the last handful of years, you've really ramped up. What's your advice for founders who are, I guess, going through those chapters of change where they really have to not scale up the business only, but also themselves and like learn new things while they're also trying to manage a business? I would say don't do what I did and, and like not get a lot of advice. So I would recommend getting, having like a peer group of people who are somewhat near your level, but also having people that are like one step function above.

23:00So like if you're a million dollar commerce business, try to find someone who's a 5 million or a 10 million, maybe even in a similar category so that you can understand what they're operating like, how they had to change. Because presumably they went from one to five, right? And so what do I need to become to be the person that can run this type of business? And a lot of the times it's like mentality. It's like the mentality and structure of how you like like organize your days and what you spend your time on has to change, which is a big learning curve for me. Cause you know, any given day back in the day, I would jump from literally like putting stuff up on the pallets in the warehouse and fulfilling orders to then like, okay, what is the next new product I'm going to launch?

23:43What should it look like? You know, that kind of thing. So like high strategy. And then like down at the warehouse, whereas, you know, these days you really can't spend a ton of time doing like customer service or at the warehouse. You could, you could do it every so often. You want to see what it's like for your team. But yeah, I would say get mentors as soon as you possibly can. Honestly, I found a lot of people just hanging out on Twitter. I found a ton of people just spending time on Twitter and connecting with other builders. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to believe, right? You started this as a personal interest project over a decade ago.

24:17And I'm sure a lot of people ask you about content creation now. And I guess like how should people even think about starting something brand new from scratch that's content based today when things are changing so fast? Yeah, I mean, it's so difficult because I think four or five months ago, I would have said, TikTok, master short form video, expand your TikTok audience through to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube shorts, and then learn how to make long form or mid form content from your short form content, and then build an audience and build some affinity with and trust with that audience, and then see what product or service that they might be most interested in, and then offer that product and voila, you're sort of off to the races.