
Magic Does Exist With “Uber-For-Flowers” Startup Bloomthat (YC S13) - chadlpowell
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/16/bloomthat/
======
jl
I now use Bloomthat for everything (YC and personal). The arrangements are
always charming. It's also so easy (and immediate) that I find myself sending
flowers to friends and colleagues much more often -- just for little
reasons/thankyou's.

~~~
sjwalter
My wife's day is going to get a bit better in 88 minutes, just because the
process was so simple.

~~~
robflynn
How was the process?

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evmar
I don't know how Bloomthat works, but I'm a little suspicious of anything that
offers pre-arranged bouquets without any consideration to which flowers are in
season. San Franciscans who like flowers might like
[http://farmgirlflowers.com/](http://farmgirlflowers.com/) : locally farmed
flowers with beautiful arrangements and home delivery.

(Disclaimer: I have no connection to Farmgirl beyond being a happy customer. I
feel like every time I carry my bouquet home I end up gaining them another
customer though because people always ask me where I found such nice flowers!)

~~~
chadlpowell
Hi evmar, we really appreciate your feedback. We rotate our arranged bouquets
seasonally and we're big proponents of supporting local flower growers and
local brick and mortar florists.

At any time, about 80% of our flowers come from California, and the majority
of those are grown within a couple hundred miles of their final destination.
Thanks for your comment!

~~~
evmar
That's great to read. The last time I looked into purchasing flowers outside
of SF I was sad to discover that most local florists are themselves
effectively just resellers of gross FTD flowers, so it seems like a service
like yours can go far. I wish you luck.

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raldi
If this weren't a YC company, "Magic does exist" would have been edited out of
the title by now.

~~~
amirmc
Why? It's the same title as the article, so why would it be edited? Unless the
TC article had a different title when you posted.

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orofino
So the big differentiator here is delivery in under 90 minutes?

Perhaps I'm jaded by my experience in the industry (parents = florists and I
worked for FTD in the past), but that seems like enough to get just a handful
of orders. Broadening to the entire market might be a struggle. You've got
many local florists, drop shippers, and supermarkets to contend with.

I love the website. I can see that perhaps having and beautiful app + trendy
website might give you traction in a younger crowd, a group that purchases
fewer flowers today. A focus on quality will give you a leg up over a huge
percentage of local florists, for many quality just isn't there.

Are you opening locations in each locale wish to serve? That's capital
intensive and leads to procurement issues.

If you gain traction, I hope you're ready for what Valentines/Mother's day
bring.

~~~
chadlpowell
Thanks for your comment. Your experience in the space is insightful.

We see delivering products (of any kind) in as fast as possible more
inevitable than as our differentiator. For a large group of consumers, Uber
has contributed to the shift of consumer expectations to mobile, instant and
high quality.

We actually don't think of local florists as competition. Rather we partner
with the good ones, provide the tools and training to make awesome
arrangements, and bring in the urban logistics to make on-demand delivery
possible. As you said, vertically integrating all of this new infrastructure
would be way too capital intensive. There's a fairly new entrant to the market
doing that now and it's taken a long time to hit a $4mm run rate.

On the consumer side of things, you're absolutely right. Great branding and
awesome customer service will solve a ton of problems. Worst case for BT, a
little bit rubs off on the incumbents and customers still win. Thanks again
for your comment.

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JeffJenkins
After seeing the episode of The Lookout[1] about online flower services which
contract out to local florists I decided to use the local florists directly.
The gist of it was that the local flower shops will tend to give a more skimpy
arrangement for online orders since they have to give a cut to the website.

If you're in NYC I highly recommend Starbright[2]. They have arrangements as
nice or nicer than a fancy florist like Ovando, but the prices are way better.

[1] [http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/full-bloom-online-
flow...](http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/full-bloom-online-flower-
purchases-19695280) [2]
[http://www.starbrightnyc.com/](http://www.starbrightnyc.com/)

~~~
GarrettBeck
I completely disagree with you. Local florists are to Target, as BloomThat is
to Google Shopping Express. All the benefits of shopping online with delivery
in less than 90 minutes. WAY more convenient than spending an hour driving,
browsing, buying, driving.

And as Chad said below, they hold all florist to a high standard "to ensure
quality across the board."

~~~
rdl
This isn't a great analogy as way to explain this (I still have no idea what
you're saying). The only company I have direct experience with is Target; I'm
unfamiliar with the purchasing experience of local florists or BloomThat, and
didn't even know Google Shopping Express was a thing. I'm not really
unrepresentative.

You should use ~2 widely known things and a known relationship (senators are
to the senate as morks are to morkdom), or 3-4 well known things to show a new
relationship.

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bcjordan
This is a space ripe for disruption.

I ordered a bouquet from ProFlowers 5 years ago using a throwaway email
(spamgourmet). Fast forward a few months and I'm getting unsolicited spam from
businesses completely unaffiliated with ProFlowers at that one-time-use
address. I called customer support to ask how to be removed from the list and
got put on hold and hung up on. Not an uncommon experience:

[http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ProFlowers](http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ProFlowers)

New startup formula:

1\. Find "(Expertsexchange|ProFlowers) of X"

2\. Build "(StackOverflow|Uber|Yelp) of X", don't sell your entire customer
base down the river

3\. Profit

~~~
chadlpowell
Thanks for your comment. You nailed it re: spam. They play a similar game with
CPC ads - cornering the real estate with resellers and effectively bidding up
the CPC on themselves. Speaking of which, I love the ads for the same
companies underneath the horrible consumer ratings in the link you posted!

------
rdl
I like the idea of a non-SEO/CPA, non-crappy flower company. My problem is the
only people I need to send flowers to are outside the Bay Area, and generally
in second or third tier markets you'll probably never serve directly. I have
no idea what I should be doing -- I use Calyx now, which is overpriced and
kind of crappy in a lot of ways. I tried the "local florist" in "place where
parents live" and that was too much of a hassle, too. Searching for the city
name and florist brings me 4 "local florists", only one I vaguely recall (same
town I lived when I was 8-14 and not really in the floral market). 2 are
"teleflora network", one appears to be a real independent shop, another
appears to be wedding focused. I generally don't care about this very much, so
I use a known vendor who lets me avoid the worst case but doesn't really
provide a good average or best case. I'd normally use Yelp or TripAdvisor or
something to check reviews, but each vendor has 0 or 1 reviews -- not exactly
SF.

For me, a local florist matters less to me (because I can just go to the
Flower Mart, if I really want flowers, or really go anywhere and visually
inspect them; the flowers at Whole Foods aren't amazing but they're fine
sometimes) than one which is flowers-at-a-distance.

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wikwocket
I like this idea. The flower delivery market has plenty of players, but also
plenty of room for disruption.

I can't think of a time when I've needed flowers in the next 90 minutes, but
if you want flowers even in the next week, you tend to get gouged by e.g. 1800
Flowers, so it's nice to see a new offering there.

If/when they try to spread to a new city, I wonder if the community will
welcome them, or the establish ed competition will work against them?

~~~
ianterrell
> _I can 't think of a time when I've needed flowers in the next 90 minutes,
> but if you want flowers even in the next week, you tend to get gouged_...

Exactly. I can't think of a time when I've needed flowers in 90 minutes, but I
can think of a half a dozen times when I've wanted them same day, and at least
a dozen or more when I've wanted them next day without paying a gigantic
surcharge.

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kyro
This is great. I've ordered many bouquets and it's always been somewhat
stressful. I used to be in a long distance relationship, and so ordering a
bouquet online required finding 1) reputable florists that could 2) deliver on
time to the 3) region I want. So something like this is more than welcome.

I would suggest that Bloomthat also expand their offerings. Don't limit
yourselves to flowers and bouquets. Gift delivery goes way beyond that --
chocolates, stuffed animals, etc.

I can see a new market emerging from a service like this. A market of people
who engage in daily on-demand gift delivery. Someone did something nice to you
this morning? Send them some flowers after lunch. Wife text you about her bad
day at work? Have flowers at her desk in under an hour. Normally this wouldn't
happen considering all the research and logistics involved, but this could
spur an entire back-and-forth gift-giving frenzy!

~~~
mgkimsal
There was a local florist where I used to live that was frustrating (but
really, most of them I've used over the years have been).

My wife was not well, I was out of town, and I called to have flowers
delivered. I asked for an extra, and got it, but had to talk to the owner, and
it was like twisting their arm to get this done.

I asked for a small box of chocolates and a DVD to be included (I asked for a
specific DVD). I offered to pay extra - the DVD was $19 - and I didn't care on
the size of chocolates - just something. I kept getting "but we don't do
that". I begged and pleaded. Got the owner. "But we don't do that". I said -
"look, charge me an extra $50, just please go buy that DVD and include it with
the flowers". They finally did, I think I got charged $35 extra for the DVD
and chocolates, and it made her day.

This was well before streaming home video stuff, and my wife had hurt her foot
- not able to drive anywhere for a bit.

I was shocked at how hard it was to get a local florist to even _consider_
adding in real extra value-add gifts. Throwing in a "romantic/comedy DVD of
the season" option and tacking on an extra $25 or so seemed like "found money"
imo. Yes, I'm not a florist by trade, but I've seen that there's a lot more
that could be done.

Throwing in a movie and some candy and microwave popcorn along with the
flowers seems tantalizingly easy to do. Heck - why didn't video stores deliver
back in the day? (maybe some did?)

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nostromo
Figuring out how to market affordably (and in a defensible way) is really key
to this space. A friend works for 1800 Flowers and it sounds like the entire
industry competes on marketing, not on product, because the products are
indistinguishable.

[http://i.imgur.com/GUZRdUE.png](http://i.imgur.com/GUZRdUE.png)

~~~
chadlpowell
Great insight. You're absolutely right. For this reason, we take a lot of
inspiration from Warby Parker. By building an awesome brand that people want
to associate with, you can (hopefully) avoid playing the super expensive
demand harvest game.

Thanks for your comment!

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k-mcgrady
Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see this being more than a small
business. The only reason I can see to choose this over a local flower
business is that it delivers in 90 minutes. A very limited number of bouquets
is a big downside meaning you can't really deliver to the same person more
than a few times. Also, is the 90 minute thing really a big selling point? How
often is anyone going to need flowers delivered that quickly? Normally you
send for an occasion which you know in advance and if you're sending them to
thank someone for something that just happened next day would be fine.

~~~
chadlpowell
Thanks for your comment. You bring up good points.

Most of our users are sending flowers in creative ways outside of the
obligatory flower send occasions. For this reason and others, we see the total
addressable market to be quite large. In fact, we've reached substantial small
biz levels of revenue in a matter of months.

Delivery in 90 minutes is what allows people to send flowers in creative ways.
But hey, we're happy to concede 90 minute delivery isn't a game changer these
days - it's a requirement.

Our users tell us the power flowers arriving moments after leaving a meeting
or closing a deal is quite real.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Thanks for responding, it's good to hear your side of things. I'm sure you
understand the market a lot better than me (I very rarely use flower delivery
services).

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gboudrias
Nice idea but holy crap don't do this:

> One intrepid friend of mine suggested: “Find two people you think clearly
> should be banging and send them each flowers addressed from the other.”

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scubasteve
I literally just ordered flowers from ProFlowers and the whole flower ordering
business sucks. I can't stand seeing flowers on a site for $19.99 then on the
last page seeing that shipping and handling is another $20 bucks. And seeing
an option for a coupon and searching the web for something is also absurd. I'm
digging the flat model and speed. I'm not in the SF area, but I'm looking
forward to this spreading through the US.

~~~
chadlpowell
Hey scubasteve - great name - and thanks for the comment. You're absolutely
right: pricing tricks and up charges are not cool. The price we display is the
price you'll pay (plus a little tax). We're working hard to spread to other
cities super fast. Where are you located?

~~~
scubasteve
Thanks for the reply! I'm in Atlanta, GA. Looking forward to your growth.

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skrebbel
This is interesting, and they appear to be having a valid business plan, but
how 'tech' is this startup really? It seems to be about flowers and logistics.
Sure, that doesn't matter for the business, but I wonder if these guys
would've been on sites like _tech_ crunch and _hacker_ news if YC hadn't taken
them on.

~~~
chadlpowell
Hi, thanks for your comment! What you see online now is the MVP we used to
validate demand. We're working on some pretty cool tech too.

In fact, technology is what allows this to be possible today. Our API routes
orders by zip code to guarantee quick and efficient delivery. Our vendor
dashboard displays orders in real time to our floral and delivery partners.
We'll also be releasing a mobile app soon that I hope you're able to checkout
and provide feedback.

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nawitus
"Indeed, while there are your typical use cases like boyfriend-forgets-
anniversary"

What about girlfriends sending flowers to boyfriends? I'll bet that majority
of purchases to a significant other are made by a male, which is not really
gender equal.

I've never given a SO flowers, such a practise seems pretty silly. It's like
paying for caring.

~~~
igorgue
Not sure if we (guys) like flowers as much as girls. But honestly, I think
it'd be a very nice detail.

I don't see it as paying for caring, the times I've giving flowers to SO is
when the way flowers look makes me think of them. Yeah technically you're
paying for a good... But I'd steal it too.

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Kiro
Is it available in Växjö?

~~~
Zircom
"They promise to deliver flowers to anywhere in _San Francisco_ in less than
90 minutes."

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techsupporter
How you will know when Austin, Kansas City, Seattle, Boston, or Tallahassee
are just as startup-hip as San Francisco: When we read that "startup
InterestingName with CleverProduct done on a local scale has launched in
AnyCityBesidesSFO."

~~~
aclimatt
Density. Certainly it's possible to start a courier business in a less-dense
city (and not saying there aren't others -- Boston and NYC especially) but
you've now made getting off the ground a lot harder. Obviously the culture in
SF has made courier start-up pretty popular lately, but without density I bet
that we'd be seeing far less of them.

Density allows these P2P start-ups to succeed with a lot less hassle, and from
there they can grow the capital they need to expand.

~~~
chadlpowell
Agreed. Density is a key component here. The good news is that nearly 80% of
Americans live in places considered to be urban (50k + population). Are they
dense enough for a model like this to work is yet to be seen.

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parennoob
If people are curious about the price, they seem to start at 14 tulips for
$35.00 or a succulent plant for $25.00.

I guess given my income and life priorities, I can't afford that much money
for a one-time gift; but more power to those of you that can :)

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mindotus
Is it available in New York City?

~~~
pushpins
Yes - H.Bloom. [http://www.hbloom.com](http://www.hbloom.com)

~~~
robflynn
That appears to be a subscription service mostly? I didn't see any mention of
same day on demand delivery. I may have missed it, though.

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Myrmornis
I don't really like the idea of sending someone a dying organism. (Although my
girlfriend I believe enjoys receiving such a thing.) But I guess they do real
live plants as the article mentioned a succulent.

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changdizzle
Use case: "Oh shit it's February 14th!"

~~~
super-serial
When a friend says that now you can respond: "BloomThat Shit"

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ryguytilidie
We're doing the "Uber for X" in a non-ironic fashion still? Surprising...

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toomuchtodo
When can we get this in Chicago?

~~~
ilithiumi
Chicago is definitely on our roadmap!!! Keep your eye out :)

