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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jeff, thanks a lot for sharing this episode. We haven't watched it yet but we'll take a look tonight when we get a chance.
Existing online shops give florists a lot of leeway in the arrangements they put together. BloomThat, however, works very closely with our partners, providing exact specifications for each arrangement.
By keeping the offering limited and holding everyone to a high standard, we're able to ensure quality across the board.
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?
Thanks for using BloomThat! The impact of sending flowers in the moment just to say thanks is really powerful. It's great to see people use the service for things other than the twice annual obligatory flower sends.
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!
Hi Kyro, thanks for the comment! These are great ideas. Expanding our offering to include gifts is a great idea and we'll definitely consider as we continue to grow. Thanks!
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.
Hi, thanks for the comment! Trust me, we asked ourselves the same question when we first launched our MVP. Do people really need flowers in 90 minutes? The answer has been surprising - YES!
On multiple occasions we've delivered flowers to people in places and at times we never would have imagined. In June we delivered flowers to a person studying for the bar exam in a coffee shop. On Mother's Day we delivered several bouquets right to the brunch table.
It's very rewarding for us to see people use the service in ways never thought possible.
So this is an interesting point... Indeed some of the greatest advocates of alternative parking solutions are businesses. More parking = more business.
To test this hypothesis, we tested in neighborhoods in San Francisco that had crowded business areas (like the Mission) and dense residential areas (like Nob Hill). Unfortunately this doesn't solve the peak demand problem, which mostly occurs in the evening and at night.
"So it is no surprise that as the Fed readies another round of money printing, more and more Amercians want to experiment with alternative currencies. Hence the intense interest in the digital phenomenon called the Bitcoin."
Hey Jason, thanks a lot for your reply. Your answer is helpful. Since posting, I discovered investor's tend to be forthright with discount and cap expectations. Going into early discussions I wanted to avoid being caught off guard. Thanks again.
Great post. When will search engines start punishing keyword stuffing below the fold - hell, below the footer? For example, Google 'flowers' and scroll to the bottom of the top three sites. Other than bots, no one reads this 8pt font noise.