When a Passion for Plants Grows Into a Business

0:00I really had to shift from a hobby to now I need to make it work. Hey everyone, welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. I'm your host, Shuang Esser-Shan. Many business owners start by using their homes as a place to make their products or fulfill orders. Our guests today even build a greenhouse on their property to grow their business. April and Derek Maul are the couple behind the seven-figure business Unsolicited Plant Talks. They are here to share how their hobby grew too big for their house and how they built an online community that shares their love of plants.

0:43April and Derek, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for giving us the opportunity. Thank you for having us. So happy to chat with both of you because I love how this business is an extension of many unsolicited conversations and also a hobby and a passion. April, why don't we start with you? When did you realize your love for plants is something that you can turn into a business? It's actually a really, I thought it was a really cool story. 2017, I believe, and honestly, I can't answer this specifically how or why I got into plants. I felt like one day I woke up and I I said, I'm gonna go to Home Depot and I'm gonna go get me my first plant.

1:27And ever since then, I thought, oh, this is really cool. And I was a full time nurse at a time. And I think there's that part of me that was longing to care for plants. So I bought my first plant and it just kind of became a crazy hobby from there on. I started researching how to give it its best care. And by researching how to do that, I was able to kind of see the whole world of these collector plants. And obviously, like I went like really crazy about it. And we got to the point where we had so many plants inside the house that Derek actually said, I don't have a place to put our meals on the table because our dining table is full of plants.

2:16and so that's where kind of the hobby started and I had to kind of slow down in the beginning because of that like there's not enough space while on the dining table and the business actually kind of started when Derek had mentioned to me that I am spending a little too much on plants more than I really should be but it was really making me happy so he said well you have to kind going to slow down a little bit so that, you know, we don't kind of spend more money than we should on plants. And I, I just have this feeling or thought of, you know, I, I'm not going to slow, there's got to be a way for me to continue and still fix the problem.

3:00So I started propagating, I started learning how to grow them from cuttings and that and then I would then sell it on the side. And I would make money, I would, I would get my money back that way. So I kept doing that for a little bit until Derek realized what's going on. Like what's going on here? What's happening? And I think that's when he realized there's potential. He's the businessman between the both of us. And I bet it's so satisfying to see your plants grow and then even more so when they propagate. And I also love the story behind the name of the business and how it's kind of like an extension between the interaction you guys have.

3:44Derek, why don't you tell us about the story how the name came to be? Yeah, so this is a fun one. The name actually came from a friend of ours who made the comment and then we kind of jumped on it and we started using it together. So at the end of the evenings, whenever I'd be coming in from work, you know, my relaxed time is to kind of go in the office and play some online games with friends. That was just how I stay connected and that's my relax time. April's is plants. Uh, and so once she got into it, you know, she was taking care of plants and she's doing the propagations, finding, researching, watching videos.

4:17Like she said, it really just happened overnight for her. Um, and she didn't really have anybody to share them with. So she would come walking into the office while we're playing games and she'd be holding something and she'd be like, look at this new leaf, look at this flower, look at what I have here, whatever it may be. And, uh, my buddy was the first one who said it. And he was just like, oh, here comes unsolicited plant talks. And I remember we started using it and April was like, I'm going to make you guys eat those words one day. I remember her saying that in the office. And sure enough, a couple of years later, whenever we actually established the business, she's like, what am I going to name it?

4:52And she's like, oh, I know. I know what I'm going to name it. And so she just kind of ran with unsolicited plant talks and And that's kind of where we took it from. And then April, you also took this idea and also shared your journey of propagating and nursing these plants on social media. So what was it like the early days when you were posting and sharing about all these more solicited plant talks now online? Way back when it was actually really fun. There's a couple of things that I wanted to put a spotlight on. In the very beginning, I think one of the reasons why I really got into plants is because it kind of became a reminder for me of how am I doing mentally.

5:40Being a nurse, especially, I was an on-call working 15-hour shifts, five days a week for seven years. It was very, very draining. And I fully believe this, but plants really became my physical meter of how I'm doing. If my plants are not doing well, they're not well watered, they're wilting, that means I'm not caring for them that much. I had equate that to me, you know, when you're not doing very well, you know, mentally, whether you're feeling really down or just not have any energy to do anything, you tend to forget the tasks that you have to do on your day to day basis. And that has become plants for me.

6:25when they start becoming a little bit wilty and unhappy I know that I am forgetting my task on my day-to-day basis I know that I am not doing very well because I'm not very motivated and I know how much I love plants so that's one of the things why I really fell in love with it in a sense I know it might sound corny but in a sense I feel like it saved me it saved me from those really down days. So that's, there's that. And then like what Derek said, I didn't really have a lot of friends that share the same passion that I did. And but I just couldn't stop talking about it. They make me so happy.

7:01So I would just force them to listen to me all the time. And in the beginning, I started an Instagram and I'm not a very like social media person. But I started Instagram because I wanted to share my passion. And I kind of used it as a diary, a journal of like my plants and my photos. I love taking photos. I did photography back in the day. So it was really like a passion, like crossed over with another passion, you know, plants and photography. So I did that. And I just I guess it just took off from there. I was selling plants, I was posting photos online. So I unintentionally didn't know that I was kind of growing like a following.

7:46And it was really, really cool to see. You were building a community. You were connecting with those who were sharing similar interests and plans. And then at one point, you know, instead of just propagating, selling on the side, the both of you decided that, hey, this could actually be a business that we invest more into it. At what point did you feel comfortable to make bigger investments of time and finances into this idea? Like she said, she started doing it just kind of support, you know, that kind of side hobby at the time. It was plants were actually quite expensive, but there were some that were going$80,$100, you know, a piece.

8:27And so we basically, once I realized how the propagation works and once I started to fill more of a support role as opposed to just letting her do her hobby. And then I started to get a little bit more involved and start understanding. It became clear that I remember the conversation. It was actually, it was a philodendron dark lord. It was one of her first philodendron that she got. And she got it for around$100 or so. And I remember having the conversation with her. I was like, so we can buy this plant and we can make two propagations on it in a year and sell them for the same price. So I could invest$100 and in a year we can turn it into$300.

9:04And then I remember I looked at her and I said, imagine if we had a thousand of these. And that was kind of how it started. And now we have over 12 ,000 plants. And so we kind of took that opportunity to look at how the propagation works. Plants grow and we love sharing them as well. So it just kind of said, okay, well, let's start collecting them. Let's start kind of putting in a little bit more effort into the propagation side of things. We got her a little 10 by 10 grow tent at the time because we didn't have too, too much space in the yard that we were staying in. We moved a bunch of plants into there and then we said, okay, let's actually start to try to make this a little bit more of a business aspect, not just kind of fun selling on the side, but let's try to make it more, I guess, what people would call a side hustle.

9:46And that was probably around maybe a year and a half, a year later, so 2018. And we also kind of dabbled in going out to local nurseries within like an hour or two from us. And we would pick up plants that we thought that we could make propagations on, cuttings on. And that was also how we really started to push a little bit more of the business side of things. And then I would say 2019 is when we really decided to make the jump. and we both quit our jobs and said, okay, we're doing this because we kind of saw the potential in it. I know he was talking about, you know, this business and numbers and he was explaining it to me and he was like, you can make cuttings for a certain amount of time.

10:24You can get your money back. And all I'm hearing was like, oh my God, he's agreeing to my ideas. I can buy more plants. That's literally all I had in my mind. There was one point when I was learning how to import because now I'm like diving into this so many like, you know, certifications and how to properly sell plants. And you know what I mean? So I wanted to import plants. And the very first Hoya that I saw that really captivated my heart was called Hoya Sunrise. It was this beautiful plant that sun stresses to deep burgundy red color when it's exposed to a lot of light. and I remember seeing that and I remember telling him now this is when I started doing the calculation myself because honestly I was doing the calculation not because the business or um or oh yeah we're gonna get a return I was doing the calculation so I can present to him like this is a good deal this is to like kind of get him to to like hey I promise you this is gonna work out you know what I mean?

11:27Like when you're doing a business pitch, that's what I was doing. So he did his own math on his own head. And he said, Yeah, let's do it. So I spent$4 ,000. This is even pre COVID. So the prices are not very high yet. So I spent$4 ,000, I remember on these plants, and we turned it around. And I think we made like 9 ,000 just from that plant. And how long did that process take? The shipping probably took about two to three weeks. That was my first one. And then rooting it for another month. And so a month and a half to two months, like we got a return back. Wow. That's a great return for such a short amount of time.

12:14It was crazy. And it was making me happy. I'm getting a lot of new growth. It was really, really such a good memory, like core memory that I have. And I think that's such a good validation to keep going, right? Because you started out with this smaller propagation growth tent, and then you kind of expanded into building a greenhouse and investing in that. Talk to us about that next step and what you invested in and how you expanded the propagation. In the beginning, I had those what we call prop stations. And I was just propagating in these racks with trays to have humidity dome with grow lights.

12:55And then the more we kind of expanded, the more I needed more space. So Derek had bought me a 10 by 10 tent that I was able to put on the porch. after that we had to move because our lease came up and we were able to find this property that we were able to put my family and us together in the same place my mom had a stroke 2018 and I was an only child I was the one that's taking care of her and they live in a different property so working 16 hour shifts at night and then having to go to their house in the morning it was very, very rough for me. So we got this property, has a huge plot of land for California, two acres.

13:41And we actually had never even thought of using this property for unsolicited plant stocks, for even growing the business. Then COVID happened. And when COVID happened, I was going into, in the very beginning of COVID, when it was, there's so many uncertainties. I was going to people's homes. I was going to ERs. I was a traveling nurse. And my mom also was immunosuppressed because we found out that she had breast cancer. And I remember sitting down with Derek and saying, if I bring the virus home, I don't think my mom's going to make it. She is 70 years old. And I said, is there something that we could do?

14:25That's when we decided, okay, well, how much savings do we have? How much money do we have? What does that mean if we were to take that leap of faith and go full-time selling plants for now until the COVID dies down and then I'll go back to work? So we did that. I looked online resources and things that I could use for support and I found that NASA actually are giving these loans for agricultures. So I applied and I got approved. So I got my very first greenhouse through NASA funding. And it was this 18 by 36, really heavy duty quality greenhouse. So it was our greenhouse, our very first greenhouse.

15:12I told Derek, this is all I'm going to need. I'm not going to need anymore. A month later, it was full. I had no space. But also being put in that situation where there's no like, oh, maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. being put in a situation where it has to work there's no any other way it was a good push for me to really be like okay let's do this and start thinking about well how can we make it so that people are going to be happy with the plants but also we're going to be getting our returns it's just a lot of just business mind and I really had to shift from oh from a hobby to now I need to make it work.

15:52And Derek was very good at that. Oh, man. I mean, it's such an amazing story to unpack because not only were you able to take a passion, turn it into a business, but it came at such a great time for you in your life where you're able to have that peace of mind to be a caregiver to your mom and also change your career path so you didn't have to be put into places where it could be really dangerous for you and your family. So maybe share a little bit about just making the logistics make sense, making the numbers make sense, and trying to basically have return on this huge investment into this greenhouse.

16:31The greenhouse came in and we, you know, really just kind of went crazy with it. It took us about a month or so, month and a half to build up the greenhouse. We had friends coming over and it was really just a numbers game, I guess, you know, just how much are we spending and how much are we making? And like I said, at the beginning, it was just, can we make sure that we keep food on the table and the house over our head? And that was really all that it was. But after a certain amount of time, after honestly, probably took us about a month, month and a half to build the greenhouse and then probably another month and a half to fill the greenhouse.

17:07And then from there, actually starting to sell was another month or two from there. That's whenever we really had a lot of stock coming in. And it was at that point in time that we realized, not that we were in over our head, but that it was really surpassing a lot of what we had expected in terms of demand and what was out there and how quickly that we had grown the following. April did an amazing job with the social media, it wasn't our intent to build it for a business, but her following was incredibly receptive and incredibly supportive to what it was that we had to offer. And so the talks quickly shifted, like she said, into like, this is now business, you know, like, I know we were doing this for business.

17:54And that that is what we decided, you know, that we were going to try to support ourselves with this thing. But we said, Oh, we can push this thing, we can really push ourselves. And I think within six months, we had another greenhouse that was 30 by 60. And we were taking loans to import a large quantity of plants at a time. At the time, importing was the easiest way. There was a limited supply in the US. And so overseas, it was easier to get larger quantities of supply and in a lot of ways cheaper as well. And then we just kind of got our imports. We did our rehabilitation, you know, made sure they're acclimated, made our cuttings.

18:31And then we really just kind of got to see what we could do with the business. And there was a lot of talks about, okay, well, now how do we position ourselves on the market? And what's our outreach? Social media became more strategy with social media. And we dove in without realizing just how deep the pool was. And that was really fun to explore with her and realized like, oh, this is it. We can really do this. So. And I'm sure the summary is a very highlight of exactly what happened, but I'm sure there's also challenges moving from propagating as a hobby to now propagating as a business and figuring out building the online store, making sure the plants actually arrive in the state that you wanted.

19:15What were some of the hurdles in the early days when you're starting to sell as a business? I think the biggest hurdle that I had in the beginning was, how do I make sure that these plants are secured? Because no matter what kind of stickers or what kind of extra fees that you pay the post office for handling your boxes with care, things happen, you know, just because it has that, you know, extra careful sticker doesn't mean they're actually going to take care of it very, very carefully. So there was a lot of trial and error in the beginning of how well we could pack the plants and how well we could secure them.

19:57And I think that's the biggest hurdle for me in the beginning. And then fast forward to, I believe, early last year, I decided, you know what? We're going to just have this custom box that I designed. And I thought it was hitting all the points that needed to be hit. sturdy the plants are going to be secured very very well in their branding because it is a custom box and it's very unique and a third it was actually making our life easier when it comes to packing because instead of wrapping it with one thing and then cutting the cardboard and wrapping it with the cardboard and taping it now we just have this custom box so we just open tape it put the plant in close and we're done.

20:44So we're cutting a lot of our time in half when it comes to packing. So that extra time gets put into growing more plants and caring for more plants so we can really control the quality. So that hurdle has been surpassed. It has been like great for us. I feel like a lot of the things that we've done have been something that we didn't think that it was going to hit all of those points that it's going to be a hit but it has and we're so grateful the community have been so so welcoming and we're so proud of it you mentioned propagation going from hobby which was kind of april in the evenings going out there and doing some propagations for fun for three to four hours to we would get imports i remember april and i would spend 12 hours straight, making pots, making soil, doing cuttings.

21:36And it was a lot. I mean, when I say that we were doing, you know, seven days a week, 10 to 12 hour days, it got close to burnout for us. Absolutely. And I think that was one of the early lessons that we had to learn was how to manage our time a little bit better because there was so much work and, you know, we were growing so quickly that we had to manage ourselves and really figure out how to manage our time in a way that we weren't going to be burned out. It took us too long to hire workers to realize that, oh, because it was our first time running a business. We're like, oh, we are in desperate need of hiring staff.

22:13What are we doing here? And that was a huge game changer for us. But I think overall, one of the biggest pieces that I think April and I stuck to and that really showcased, like she said with the packing or propagations is that we've always operated on the philosophy, like, if you're going to do something, you do it right. You know, I guess that's like kind of the base phrase that I think we were both raised on when we were younger. If you're going to do something, do it right the first time, so you don't need to do it again. And I think that led to us just really trying to push the highest standards that we could and not being satisfied with current practices that we had.

22:47So no matter what the thing is, and the challenge was that we were countering at the time. That was just kind of our headspace with it. There was no cutting corners really with anything. In fact, there was a lot of corner making to make sure that we were making it as fleshed out and as round as possible for ourselves. Well, it sounds like you're thinking in the mindset of the customer of how you want to receive a plant and that builds so much trust. It allows you to grow your business, yourselves, and also social media presence as well. And a lot of founders are hoping to do what you've done, April, which is build a community before building a brand.

23:25What's your advice today for having a great social media presence and a following? My advice, honestly, would be just be true to what you really feel, especially if you're doing a passion project or a passion business. it's better to post on social media of quality content than posting daily. And it's very generic. Show people what you go through, show people behind closed doors. And that in turn will give the people who are following your dreams with you that feeling of they're a part of it, that they're feeling like you are showing exactly what you're going through and you're very real and very relatable.

24:07You know, I think that's the biggest thing about social media for me is that, you know, I can post plants and I can say like, look at this beautiful plant. But if I show them, look at this plant, this is my hurdle. This is what happens during this time of the year, whatever it may be, or if you don't take care of it properly, that kind of post is much more quality and people are much more ready to latch on than just posting a very generic post. I think that's the best advice that I can give for social media. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think same advice with writing, you know, the more personal you are, you are actually more relatable when it comes to that.

24:45And I think that relates to social media as well. And then Derek, I wanted to dig in a little bit more about the scaling aspect because you're essentially managing a team now where it is also with its different seasons when you're propagating, when you're selling and when you're shipping out products, how are you managing the operations nowadays, now that you kind of understand the seasonality and kind of the different jobs you have in different months? Yeah. I mean, going from just April and I in the beginning to where we are now, we have four full-time employees and a couple of part-time workers that we kind of call on a need basis.

25:28it's different. And in some ways it's more challenging. Working with people always, you know, there's a lot more variables that come into play. And so, you know, it can be more challenging in that aspect, but obviously April and I kind of use the phrase, we're buying time, which is, you know, anytime you hire a worker, that's what it is. You're buying time for yourself. Those eight hours that you're paying somebody is eight hours that you now have back to yourself. I think one of the biggest struggles that we learned, and I guess this is probably a big piece that I would tell any business owner that is trying to start something, is when you put your heart and your soul and it's your, we call it our baby, you know, this is our passion project, our business is our baby.

26:07It's going to be really difficult, and I don't think that it's possible, maybe even, that you're ever going to find somebody that is going to meet your entire standards. and that's not a knock on any sort of employee that I hire anything like that. I have wonderful, wonderful employees that give me anything and everything I ask for. But when it comes to where April and I stand and kind of where we work and where our headspace is, that was a big adjustment that we had to learn of just, you know, they don't have all of the information that we do. The mass amount of information that we have about how the business is running is in a lot of ways impossible to really push onto a worker, somebody who's taking care of a task, whatever we hired, whether that's a greenhouse worker or a shipping worker, and they just don't have all the context.

26:51And so learning to train and get as close to where our goals are as possible with the workers, while also understanding that they're not going to be perfect. And in no way either are April and I perfect with what we do whenever we work things. But that was probably one of the biggest hurdles for us and what we talked about, because I'm not going to lie, sometimes it gets frustrating where you're just like, why didn't they think of that? Why are they making this decision? And then you take a step back and you self-reflect and you're like, well, of course they wouldn't. They don't have all the information that I do.

27:23They don't understand this particular aspect of the business. So how could they have come to that conclusion? It might sound like a very specific example, but we obviously speak with a lot of people in our community and specifically in the plant niche because of the amount of knowledge that goes into things. This is a very widespread problem for a lot of nursery owners specifically, but I would definitely say that it likely applies to other businesses as well and other niches. So in regards to that, I think that that's probably one of the largest hurdles that we faced. Otherwise, I think that for me, it was a lot of fun.