The Farmgirl Classic That Started it All

When I founded Farmgirl almost 11 years ago, I was 32 years old and on a mission to start and scale a successful business. So in 2010, after about a million other ideas, I took the plunge. I wanted to single-handedly take on the giants of the e-comm flower world and change the way flowers were purchased online by providing much fewer, but way better options. What I didn’t know back then was, well, just about everything. And it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t know how crazy hard it was going to be to bootstrap a perishable product business because had I known, I’m not sure I’d have done it. And then I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this email to you. So thank goodness only hindsight is 20/20 and ignorance truly is bliss huh?

From time to time I’ll look back on some of the early (and even later) decisions I’ve made in my first few weeks, months, and years running Farmgirl and usually, it makes me laugh. Well, cringe and then laugh, because laughing is so much better than crying amiright? Although I’ve done my fair share of that too over the years if I’m going to keep it completely real. When I look back on my decision to wrap our daily arrangements in reused burlap coffee bags though, I have to chuckle because I would never in a million years have guessed that the burlap wrap would have become as well-loved as it has, 10 plus years later. You can read about how I eventually landed on burlap in this blog post, but suffice it to say, it was not my first choice (two words: banana leaf). It did accomplish what I was hoping it would and created a brand for us so we weren’t just a product. So thank you for loving it, and we, as well as you, have over the years.

I’ll be honest, there have been many times over the last few years that my team and I have wanted to do away with burlap altogether and replace it with something new and fresh. I mean think about how many different styles of jeans we’ve worn in the past 10 years - from low riders to super skinny to high rise mom jeans, to now cropped straight legs being the only way (yes, we got the memo). But I’ve heard from enough of you to know that unboxing a gorgeous arrangement of Farmgirl flowers, all bundled in the classic burlap wrapping that we’re known for, is just as special today as it was 10 years ago. So, rest assured - it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Over the years, our burlaps have gone through a whole lot of tweaks and changes to become the classic, signature Farmgirl bouquet it is today. Want to see for yourself? Let’s take a quick burlap-wrapped walk down memory lane, shall we?

That’s it for now!

xx,
Christina