Happy 15th Birthday, Farmgirl!

Hi friends,

It wouldn’t be a Farmgirl anniversary without a long a** email, so of course — here we are. And it’s not just any anniversary, of course — or at least that’s what my team keeps telling me. It’s our fifteenth.

And what do you even say about 15 years? Something wise? Something profound? I don’t feel like I have much of either in me at this particular moment. But mostly what I do have is stories — of time. Of choices. Of mistakes and wins and some weird middle parts that made me who I am now.

Some were good, some were, well, not good. But all of them mattered. And every single one — good, bad, or messy — has me sitting here feeling grateful. Mostly for you. Because none of this would have happened without all of you who ordered, shared, rooted for, or even just quietly watched Farmgirl grow all these years.

So thank you. Really. And if you’d like a few minutes back in your day, you can stop here. But if you’re a glutton for long-form content, saddle up for a few thousand more words.

When I started Farmgirl, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and so full of hope. So much hope, in fact, that not even my 3:30 a.m. daily wake-up call, or the fact that I was illegally operating a flower business out of the two-story, 650-square-foot walk-up apartment I founded the business in, could get me down. I wanted to be a founder. I wanted that story — the light bulb moment, then working your butt off to bring it to market, then working your butt off even more to scale it. And, at the “end” of the road, you get to walk past a magazine rack full of glossy, small versions of your face smiling confidently back at you from the cover of Entrepreneur or Inc., with three full pages inside detailing how you made it happen. Cue the trumpets!

If you’ve been around long enough, you know that’s not exactly how it happened. I’m also still waiting for that cover, and if I have any say in it, I’m going to need a lot more than three pages when that cover story finally comes calling. But I digress.

Before Farmgirl, I came up with hundreds of ideas. Maybe thousands. There was none of that “I followed my passion” thing that some founders start with. There was no garden that I lovingly tended and that, in turn, helped me grow the idea to start a flower business. I grew up in rural Indiana, in a two-stoplight town. That “garden” was a corn and soybean farm — and there’s nothing less romantic than that, believe me. And the only degree I have to my name was issued by my public high school. So I always knew if I was going to make it, I’d have to do it on my own.

Read: there’s no one coming to save (or fund) the solo, Indiana public-high-school-educated founder who decided to make a go of it in an industry with staggeringly low margins and little to no hope for an Entrepreneur- or Inc.-worthy exit. But I am getting ahead of myself again.

Before the whole flower part, and just two weeks after acquiring said high school degree, I moved to New York. The founder bug hadn’t bitten me yet, so my light bulb moment at that moment was to become an actress. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen. What did happen? In a moment that only hindsight can recognize as foreshadowing, I worked. A lot. And usually multiple jobs at once, which sometimes meant 18 or 20 hours a day — all just to pay rent. I learned pretty early that without a fancy degree, pedigree, or handshake from the old boys’ club, the only way to move up was to literally outwork everyone else.

For a large part of my pre-Farmgirl journey, I thought not having a degree meant I wasn’t educated. I now know that’s not true. My education — then and now — came from doing. From figuring it out the hard way. And from a lot of teaching myself how to do everything from designing flowers (thank you, YouTube) to writing our first business model (thank you, Lynda). Then re-writing it once I figured out in real time that $.25 per order for marketing was not going to cut it. While I don’t really believe in luck — not in the way that most people do — I think that coming into my entrepreneurial era in the golden age of the internet and democratization of information was the perfect combination of preparation meeting opportunity. I had a will — and the privilege of a computer — and so I found a way. A dogged refusal to quit once I set my mind to something didn’t hurt either.

There’s a Will Smith quote where he talks about not being the most talented person in the room, or even the smartest, but that if you get on a treadmill at the same time as he does, one of two things is going to happen: either he’ll stay on longer or he’ll die trying. That’s me, too. And I know some people will read that and say, “You shouldn’t have to work that hard.” Or, “Why are you working so hard?” And honestly, that’s a fair question. But in those early days, and on our hardest days, if I’d sought “work/life balance,” or eight hours of sleep, or a self-care Sunday, there’s no chance Farmgirl would be here today.

So while my first dream of bright marquee lights and a big city didn’t pan out, Plan B — or rather, plan pay-my-rent-or-move-back-to-Indiana-with-my-tail-between-my-legs — worked out in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated. It laid the foundation for me to become the type of founder that, with a little “luck,” could have a chance of starting and bootstrapping a business like Farmgirl.

There are so many things I wish I knew back then. But wow, I am also so grateful to have learned these lessons by living them. For me, so often the only way through it is to do it. But while it makes for a good — or at least a long ;) — story, it doesn’t mean it’s an easy one.

Like quitting my job with no safety net and $49K in the bank at the tail end of the recession. Asking a nice man splitting wood in Pescadero, CA if I could take a photo using his barn for our first website — not realizing until later that none of the pictures were quite in focus, but launching with them anyway. And keeping that blurry picture on the website for a full two years.

It’s working overnights at the flower mart, thinking I was talking to the cats, only to realize they were giant rats (still traumatized). And teaching myself InDesign in the wee hours of the night so I could make the cheapest possible marketing cards to drop off with arrangements at coffee shops around the city — and a certain Starbucks manager I’m forever indebted to, who allowed me to do it even though they later got in trouble for it.

It’s squatting illegally in the basement of my apartment building with friends making our first Valentine’s Day flowers — every fire escape step loaded to the brim with bouquets (sorry, Cal Fire). It’s the memory of the news team who showed up to film us in that same illegal basement and smiling through the panic, pretending we were totally allowed to be there.

Then it’s moving into the San Francisco Flower Market and wondering how we’d ever fill 1,100 square feet after coming from a mere 100. And not realizing how many 18-wheelers would show up until they were all there, blocking traffic. It’s getting yelled at for the 40,000th time for being “over the yellow line.” And renting every available space at the market, including the “creepy cooler,” which smelled of stale water and made it impossible to know, once inside, whether it was 4 a.m. or 4 p.m.

Then came our first real warehouse — all 11,000 square feet of it, which turned into 35,000 square feet in pretty quick succession — and again, that feeling of how are we ever going to fill this? But we always did. It’s rolling 200 PSLs down the street on carts on the first day of fall. It’s prepping for SO MANY flower holidays. It’s sleuthing bugs on the website at 2 a.m. because we were our own tech team. It’s learning how air brakes worked while hauling peonies to South San Francisco in a truck larger than we should have ever been driving. And then figuring out (through painful trial and error) exactly how many Yerba Mates are too many within a 36-hour, no-sleep period.

It was walking the floor before the 10 p.m. shift showed up — the smell of flowers, cold concrete, and adrenaline — double-checking every station before we started an overnight shift. And the MVP awards we used to vote on after our busier than busy holidays. These are some of my favorite moments. The camaraderie, the inside jokes, the laughter that would turn into tears and back again. Those long nights when we thought we were finally done, only to find 300 “cards” (read: bouquets to make) — and somehow, we’d dig deep and make it happen before our carrier picked up.

It’s rebuilding Farmgirl more times than I can count. And now, it’s the memories we’re making as we build our new Farm Quarters in Washington — our own little version of Turkey Hill — that we can’t wait to share with you. Last year, we put our first crops in the ground, and something tells me they’ll bring plenty more memories (and lessons) in the years ahead.

And then there are your stories. The messages about what our flowers have meant in your lives — the joy, the heartbreak, the grit. The stories of you wearing our enamel pins to your chemo appointment, or to your best friend’s funeral, or through another scary chapter of your own. I still cry thinking about them. You’ve let us be a tiny part of your big moments, and that will never stop meaning everything to me.

Those memories — all of them — are the real story of Farmgirl. Not the press features or the glossy photos or the numbers on a spreadsheet. Just a whole lot of heart, hard work, and a mountain of mistakes that somehow turned into something beautiful. All those moments taught me more than any business class ever could. Every one of them — the near disasters, the sleepless nights, the big wins, and the little ones — became part of the foundation that got us here. So, fifteen years later, I’m older. Wiser? Maybe. Definitely a little more tired. But also more grounded. More sure of who I am and what actually matters.

And I’ve finally learned that success isn’t the cover story or the valuation or the follower count. It’s getting to do work you believe in. It’s the people who choose to do it alongside you. It’s getting through the hard times and still showing up the next day. And it’s you — the community that’s stuck with us through it all. Whether you’ve been here since the first burlap-wrapped bouquets or just found us yesterday, you’re part of this story. And I can’t thank you enough for that.

So, here’s to whatever comes next — hopefully with a little more wisdom, a little more rest, and the same amount of resilience and grit.

Thanks for being here. Always.

With so much gratitude,

Christina