Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with David King, President and Founder of Promise Supply, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Promise Supply is a Toronto-based online botanical boutique specializing in indoor tropical plants. Our mission is to help everyone live surrounded by life. Our team believes that plants bring positive energy to where we work, live, and play. We make it easy to discover and shop an expansive selection of tropical plants available online for delivery.
Our selection is inspired by tropical regions ranging from the Mediterranean, the Andes mountain range, the jungles of Southeast Asia, the grasslands of Africa, and the beaches of the Caribbean. Whether you're looking for a 10-foot Olive tree for a big sunny window or a small low-light plant to bring a darker corner to life, we carry plants for spaces of all shapes and sizes. We offer plants for individuals and businesses and work with interior designers, retailers, restauranteurs, and companies to help everyone live surrounded by life.
Tell us about yourself
We started selling plants as a small percentage of what we sold in 2020 because several of our team members were already avid plant collectors at home, and customers kept asking us if they could buy the plants we had as decor in our retail store. Over the next few months, we faced additional lockdowns and were forced to pivot to selling online. We decided exclusively on plants when we started selling plants online in the middle of December during a government-mandated lockdown in Toronto, and sure, surprisingly, it grew.
Over the next three months, we improved every week at selling and delivering plants across the GTA, and in the summer of 2021, the business increased when we were allowed to re-open. Over the last year, we've focused on becoming the best place to find interesting, unique, and large indoor plants. We have expanded into selling plants to offices, retail stores, and hospitality companies.
We believe we can improve the experience of buying plants for customers, and that's all that matters at the end of the day. Every customer who thanks us for finding what they couldn't find elsewhere or who picks up their first plant in-store keeps us motivated to continue building a better customer experience.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
The best has yet to come, but we have a great team who love what we do, which comes across to customers. Building a team that wants to deliver happiness for your customers is more complicated than it sounds. You have to find people who care about the content and the business. Hiring people who want more than a job is critical to success.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
The best way to describe owning a business is that you are walking around naked. You feel like everyone can see you. When starting and running a business, it is tough to hide behind others. You need to be able and willing to put yourself in front of your customers, suppliers, and partners. There is no substitute for building relationships, and there is no substitute for standing behind and at the front of your business. When pursued with open-mindedness, it will force you to understand yourself, work on yourself, and hopefully become the best version of yourself.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
First, ask yourself if you need to do this. If you don't need to start a business, you should keep learning more about what you want to build and why.
Generally speaking, being an entrepreneur is framed as a way to escape the 9 to 5 and not have to answer to someone. Building your own business only increases the number of people you have to answer to and will guarantee that you work longer than 9-5 to make it successful. If you have an idea you need to create for your community and yourself, and if you're ambitious enough, the rest of the world is the start.
Every business is a calculated risk, but there is always a risk. For every person who is on the cover of a magazine, many are struggling. Most people had to struggle to get on that magazine's cover. It isn't worth it if you aren't willing to do the work. The thing about entrepreneurship is you can't hide behind your organization. You feel exposed. You need to know that you have to work on what you are trying to build, and you need to plan to execute against a vision while remaining open to changing your plans when the world provides you feedback.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://promisesupply.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/promisesupplyca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/promisesupplyca/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/promisesupplyca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/promise-supply/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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