8 years?!?!
It may not sound crazy to you, but it feels incredibly crazy and humbling to me.
For those who don't know, I'm Shane, and I'm the 3rd generation in my family to own and operate a business selling plants at the same property both my Dad and I grew up at in both of our respective childhoods. In 2017, I took over managing my Dad's wholesale indoor foliage business in Oviedo, FL, and despite growing up and being familiar with the business, I truly never had the intention of staying in the business for my career—just helping him slowly wind it down after he took a new job.
That all changed in August of 2018, when I realized one of the plants we had been growing for nearly a decade, Philodendron 'Pink Princess,' was exploding in popularity. Little did I know at the time, we were the only commercial grower of them in the country.
One thing led to another, and I launched an Etsy page 8 years ago today to sell our 6" Pink Princess with 5 rooted cuttings. I made a simple logo myself, launched the Etsy store, and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, all 10 of the Pink Princess I had listed had sold out, and I realized that I might be onto something.
In the handful of months that followed in 2018, I was added to numerous Facebook groups and introduced to the plant community by several of our customers. I am forever grateful for those who took the time to help me understand the active and thriving community that already existed, and helped introduce me and our family story.
By December of 2018, we had launched a website and began converting my Dad's business to focus more exclusively on e-commerce sales.
If you want a more detailed telling of the early days, there are several blog posts/notes that I've posted in our Behind The Scenes group over the years....
Long story short: I eventually ended up buying my Dad's business in 2021 and devoted my entire life and energy to continuing to grow the incredible direct-to-consumer business that I had somewhat launched by accident. We eventually became the first previously wholesale business to transition to direct-to-consumer, something that was later copied by hundreds of family businesses, including ones thousands of times our size.
In the last 8 years, we've shipped hundreds and hundreds of thousands of plants, and I hope that they've been able to put a smile on the face of each of their new owners.
Each anniversary of that Etsy launch date is a moment for me to reflect. And I nearly always have the same feelings:
Gratitude & Excitement.
I am beyond grateful for the trust each of you has placed in me over the years. I am thankful for the team we've had, past and present, and the work they do to exceed expectations and ensure you all have affordable, healthy, and happy plants that ship directly From Our Greenhouse To Your House.
I am also excited... a renewed excitement.
While the business operates most day-to-day operations quite effectively, I always find myself excited for what we can change to make our customer experience even better, year after year.
One of our slogans is Always Growing More, and that's meant so many different things to me over the last 8 years. We've grown millions of plants, we've grown the size of our team and our customer base, but most importantly, we've all grown up... in experience and age.
Nothing has meant as much to me in regard to that slogan as when my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child in 2024.
We got to share that excitement with you and even gave you the chance to guess whether it'd be a boy or a girl...
And when we had our son, Asher, our team stepped up in ways I couldn't even imagine, making sure the business ran with minimal involvement from me... essentially just checking in with the team, answering a few questions a week, and handling the administration/payroll side of the business.
Those early months with Asher and Miriam, and being able to spend so much time with them, were a true dream come true for me. I know I'm beyond blessed to be able to say/type this and to have had that experience.
I'm also excited for all the new things we're rolling out this year, including so many new plants that I'm super stoked about. We're also making some big updates to the customer experience elements that have helped make Gabriella Plants unique over the years.
One of those is a brand-new Story Stake system that I've spent the last week working to get online before our anniversary. While the new stakes won't start shipping for another few weeks, the new system will greatly improve the information we're able to share with you about your plants—and, hopefully, be far more reliable.
Our original system was built completely from scratch back in 2021/2022, and over the years it's become increasingly difficult to keep online and working the way we want it to. This new system solves those issues while bringing an entirely new look and experience that I can't wait to share with you.
There are a lot of things we're working on behind the scenes right now, and after 8 years, I'm still just as excited about finding new ways to make the experience better for you.
Our team is incredible. They care for you, they care for our plants, they care for each other, and they care greatly about your experience.
Grateful just doesn't even seem like enough to express my true feelings at times.
I told myself I'd keep this letter shorter than some of the ones I've written over the last 8 years... so I'll just keep it to this:
Thank you. Sincerely. From the true bottom of my heart.
I just can't say enough about how kind, supportive, and amazing you've been to me, my family, and our team.
To celebrate 8 amazing, challenging, incredible & grateful years... we're running a sale on our website this weekend. Save 26% off with code 8YEARS... and I'll be doing a special livestream on Friday night, first in our BTS group, and later possibly on Instagram, just to chat with you all and answer any questions. And, I'll be showing off our new Story Stakes portal, including learning your plant's astrological sign.
And I'll be giving away a few really cool plants on the stream too... so you'll certainly want to tune in!
Thank you, again. Especially if you read this all the way to the end.
Your friendly grower,
Shane Maloy
Owner of Gabriella Plants
