When Lucy Serafi visited her Aunt in Vancouver, she had no idea that the family visit would inspire the start of a global brand. Super mum of two Lucy shares her experience of what can happen when you take massive action.
Highlights
Biggest Challenges
- Entering an area in which she had no previous knowledge
- Finding the right supply chain partners overseas
Words Of Wisdom
- Build strong relationships with partners and suppliers as these are key
- Do not be afraid to try things, if it doesn’t work, you can always change!
- Keep an open mind. Great ideas and opportunities can come from anywhere
- Nothing is ever a waste of time. Focus on learning from every experience
- Never give up!
Links & Tips
Check out more stunning pieces like this one at The Urban Botanist
Full Interview
AO: Hey everybody welcome to this episode of she own success, today I’m absolutely delighted to be speaking to Lucy Serafi. Lucy is the founder of The Urban Botanist which exists to help people experience see plants in a different way. Lucy founded the Urban botanist in 2013 and has since had displays at the Chelsea Flower Show, and her terrariums stocked in the likes of John Lewis. Lucy, very exciting! We’re so pleased to have you with us today thank you for coming we’ll dive straight in!
What inspired you to start your business?
LS: It all started from a family trip to Vancouver two and a half or three years ago whilst I was out there for a family break and my aunty had a terrarium in her kitchen which had some very interesting plants which I had never seen before. Some were air plants some were succulents and basically she commented that “this is a terrarium everybody has one” and I went online, had a look and discovered that whilst out in the States in Canada and Australia it was a day- to- day household product, it was not a concept that had been brought to the UK or Europe at all and that’s where I then embarked on a very rapid research program for 3 months before myself and my brother decided to launch the product and the brand the February after. It was about to 6 months of research and set up phase.
AO: Gosh, once you had decided you had discovered this untapped item, tell us the first steps and actions that you took. In terms of the research, what exactly did you have to do?
LS: Firstly, it was looking into exactly what is the product. The rest of my time out there was spent researching the products that were on the market, what seemed to work well, going to florists garden centres, interior design centres etc. and looking into what sells, designs, and the actual plants and to be honest it was a case of coming back here to the UK and deciding what it was that we wanted to do with it.
It could have been selling the product in the market stores local to Cheshire but actually, what we decided to do was to create a big brand with the idea that terrarium would be the launch product. It would not be limited to terrarium and you can see if you go on the website now, that have launched a range of different botanist type products. It was all about supply chain, thinking about how we were going to actually make them, who was going to make them, looking into warehousing facilities, how easy it would be to replicate all the raw materials and then obviously looking at what vehicle we would use to sell and market the business.
AO: A lot to do within a 6 month period by the sounds of it
LS: Yes, especially with my youngest who was preschool at the time. He was at home, so yes I went slightly bonkers for 6 months but it was worth it in the end.
What we did was book a stand at the spring fair wholesale trade show at the NEC in Birmingham for the February, so we knew we had a deadline, by which day we had to have the product, Brand and everything set up ready to go and that’s what we did.
AO: Fantastic, you had the deadline you did the research it must have been a challenging journey during that period but what was the single most difficult challenge that you had to overcome?
LS: I think the biggest thing was delving into areas in which I have no past experience. Things like looking at where we could buy the raw materials from in reasonably small volumes, as at this stage we did not know whether the whole concept was going to work but pricewise we knew we had to get to the bottom of the supply chain so it meant trusting suppliers overseas in overseas markets which can be quite daunting when you have not got that level of experience or the language. So the likes of China and India, putting trust in those people to get the product. Was the product right ? was it to the right quality? Could we build a virtual relationship with these people who we were likely never going to meet, and it was about establishing those relationships in order to get to a point where we could order in relatively small volumes to minimise cash flow impact and risk to the business
AO: In terms of oversees, for anybody thinking of, or in the process of trying to find their overseas partners were there any specific people that worked for you or is there any specific resource that you would recommend?
LS: No it was purely and simply myself on Google if I’m absolutely honest, or ordering samples from a range of suppliers and then just going with intuition and gut feel in terms of who was the right partner for us and moving forward, touch-wood those decisions have turned out to be the right ones for us and we are still very much working with those original suppliers to pretty much cover the majority of our product range now
AO: Fantastic thank you. We are going to shift now to your day today because the people listening might be at the very early stages of their entrepreneurial journey or doing something on the side and I think we’re always wondering what happens behind the scenes once you’re there and you’re running a successful business. Give us a brief insight into what a great day for you looks like.
LS: It usually starts with with mad chaos getting the boys out of the door with their various PE kits and sports kits and then very quickly at 9 o’clock it completely changes and it varies. I’m out and about a lot of the time, I’m in the home office and depending on the time of year, I’m either working on new product ideas or potentially with suppliers looking at samples or I’m working with a current suppliers in the UK or third parties that work on operational and marketing sides of the business. So working with them to look at current campaigns, looking after their performance and dealing with customers and then obviously looking at expanding into new areas more on the commercial side or the B2B side as opposed to the B2C and that can range from face-to-face meetings telephone calls I could find myself at business events evening’s etc. it really does very completely day today.
What I do know is that it is very packed and it’s also time spent looking at ways of expanding the business working with government bodies that can support weather that’s business growth hubs, looking to enter the international trade side of things as we are now looking at opening up in Germany and France in the next two weeks prior to Christmas
AO: Fantastic we’ll be coming onto the exciting things that are happening and coming up in your business and you’ve given us a sneak preview there. In terms of motivation and productivity you have talked about how packed, and it sounds extremely packed, your schedule is so we are thankful that you’ve had the time to fit us in. What two daily habits have you developed for Success?
LS: The key thing that has always been part of me as a person and in my life from a young age that I have come to rely on more and more since starting a business is my list making. One thing I do is I have a master list and at the end of every day I rewrite my list for the following day and I highlight on there which 6, 7, or 8 things absolutely 100% have to be ticked off the following day so that come the evening I can switch off from work to an extent because I feel like it is all written down and I know what my starting point is the following morning. Literally that is it, once the boys are gone I start working my way through that list and that massively helps me keep the business moving day today and ensure that absolutely nothing stops.
AO: And you have that Focus then
LS: And a base that list around what I have going on, so if I know I’m going to be tied up in meetings there will be less on there that has to be done that day. But it massively helps me maintain the business flow, that and making sure I have good relationships with all my supplier’s and third parties.
The whole business is reliant on that, it is vital to our success moving forward.
AO: In terms of time are there any tools that you use in your business that help save you time
LS: Do you mean IT or something like that? Not really I am probably a little bit old fashioned in the way I work it is very much handwritten lists that is what works for me and I think what’s important is that people are honest with themselves and really know themselves in terms of how they work. For me that works, it would not work for me having all of that information stored electronically but that’s just me knowing who I am and the way I operate.
LS: Although even with technology they do say writing things down is so critical to actually making it happen so it is probably a great thing to do.
LS: Well yes, you are mentally committing and I think that is part of the reason that it works so well for me
AO: In terms of you as an entrepreneur you talked about knowing yourself which is such an important thing what do you think your biggest strengths are as an entrepreneur?
LS: I think the strong operational focus. I can see what will work from a practical perspective. It’s ok to be very creative and having great ideas and concepts but I think one of my skills that I have which really has developed over the last two years is being able to say, ok we have these 10 ideas but which are the most cost effective and operationally viable to deliver to the consumer and I think that, combined with good relationship building.
I have a good relationship building skills for when things go wrong, and things will go wrong, operationally or from a customer service perspective, I have the relationships which I can fall back on and without that it would be very difficult to allow the business to effectively be run by third parties as opposed to having to take on an entire team and employ everybody ourselves
AO: Such great advice, that implementation piece, and that relationship piece is so critical. You have also proven to us that you have got speed of implementation from how quickly you were able to get the business up and running once you had the idea
LS: I think part of that is having worked in big organisations and commercial environments previously and having very much felt frustrated by the lack of speed and the processes and departments not accepting. That is one massive advantage of working for yourself, basically if I want to do something it’s down to me it’s my limitations and the limit I put on myself that will stop that happening therefore with an idea, pretty much if we think it’s a go, we just do it. It’s been like that right from the very beginning. There is no massive sign up processes, departmental heads having to argue- will it work, won’t it, if we think it will work it’s really literally a case of working with our Supply base to Action very quickly which is what we do
AO: Just to follow on from that it’s not being afraid to go with these things. Do you have an example of where just for our listeners who are thinking I have this idea but they are holding back because they’re thinking it might not work or it might not be quiet straight, do you have an example of where you have had an idea and you’ve implemented it and it hasn’t worked?
LS: We’ve got a couple of products that we took a risk on and no it hasn’t worked but we’re in the process of making adaptations it’s about being able to take it on the chin and learn, ask yourself what was the thought process, why was this product even taken on as a concept and as a product, Why were we willing to place orders from wholesalers and then ask yourself why has it not worked what bit did we get wrong. But we will give things to try if we think that there is even half a chance something will work we will give it a go and we will test it very quickly and get it on the website. So the key to it is having the relationships with suppliers so you’re not committing to high volumes of stock so you can turn things around pretty quickly if then you do find it doesn’t work
AO: let’s fast forward. You talked about expanding into Germany, what exciting things are coming up for you in your business?
LS: We are rolling out the website for that side of things in Germany next week, we then have roll out to the US and about five or six other European countries mainly the e-commerce site side of a business that we will roll out by Spring next year and then it’s a case of looking for on the commercial supplying all those markets so looking at who we can partner with within the market we do a lot of work selling for bars restaurants hotels so expanding more into those areas and we also do a lot of visual merchandising project for retailers so again looking at how quickly we can expand into those markets within Europe.
AO: So loads happening
LS: Yes, it’s effectively replicating what we have already done here in the UK and rolling out the processes that we know works but doing it on a much bigger scale
AO: What is your ultimate vision for the Urban botanist
LS: Just to have it as a globally recognised brand that people trust and know, that within the field we are the experts at what we do and that the product is absolutely top quality which has always been one of our requirements of any product that we have launched. Right at the very beginning when we embarked upon setting up the business we were very clear that the only way were going to do this was with quality items. it has to be that top class high end product and people have to feel that what they see on the site, when they see our brand and when it is delivered by the courier it matches up to the image that they have picked up from the site and the literature.
AO: That quality is such a big thing, particularly when you do buy products and things online and they turn up and it is something completely different, it is very disappointing
LS: Yes one of the biggest successes is that we have been very fortunate to develop a really great database of repeat customers and we see year in year out the same name’s buying from us , weather its first birthdays anniversaries weddings Christmases it’s the same people that we order and reorder and they expand out from the original product type whether it was a terrarium or not that they originally bought, they are now buying into the kids range the herb planters etcetera we are getting are diverse range of products being ordered by the same people on the same customer base
AO: Fantastic. Final words of wisdom, obviously it’s been quite a journey for you so far and there is plenty still to go but what is the one thing that you wish that somebody had told you when you were starting out that you think every single entrepreneur should know?
LS: That’s such a good question I think the main thing is that no matter how focused you are, always be flexible as to how things can change and be willing to go with the flow because actually those random opportunities can often be the diamond amongst everything that actually turns out to be the best and biggest opportunity that you would never have actually thought of. It’s having that willingness and that flexibility to be open minded to the fact that situation change, no matter how good a business plan or operational plan you have mapped, you just need to make sure that you actually have that flexibility to adapt should something come along that makes you think “hang on a minute there’s an alternative way to doing things” I think that’s really critical because I think people are very focused and lots of entrepreneurs the reason we do what we do is because we do have that focus and determination but it’s the moment you can’t see that there are other opportunities. It’s that balance between the two remaining focused but always having open mindedness to the fact that something could be a better option or a smart option in terms of the ways of working
AO: Such great advice, keep open and don’t be blinkered and keep your eyes out for anything because great ideas and great opportunity can come from all over the place can’t they
LS: Yes, absolutely I have seen that time and time again with our business, even from the way it started. It really was a flippant idea in my aunt’s kitchen while she was making me coffee one morning and literally within a matter of weeks it turned into a proper global brand proposition and it was amazing the speed with which that happened, it was about not being frightened and having ability to know I didn’t have the answers but I knew that I would find out where to get them and that’s what we’ve done
AO: That is such a powerful story as you say the way that it started. What are some of the things that you’ve learned along the way so far, could you give us a couple of things have surprised you or big learning points for you?
LS: Again it goes back to what I said already being focused and flexible all the time and I think the thing I’ve learned is that I’ve drawn on previous skills that I didn’t know I had or on things I had done in previous roles in the past and commercial environments that quite frankly weren’t roles that stimulated me and didn’t fit into my natural personality but then now I’m so grateful for those experiences because for what I’ve been doing for the last two years, I’ve ended up depending on those skills but I didn’t even really fully or consciously acknowledge they existed and they existed in areas of my life that at the time I didn’t feel particularly fulfilled me.
It has been very interesting realising that the last 10 to 15 years of the various roles that I have been fortunate enough to do in various environments has actually come together to form a really good skill set and base that has enabled me to do this and that has surprised me and I’m surprised myself with the things that are always coming up, for instance, I never did and still don’t consider myself to be creative, yet I have created all of the products so while I say that, and I still genuinely don’t, I see things with very practical perspective and I would never consider myself to be design-led or anything like that but those are the products that I have produced so that has surprised me along the way
AO: That is amazing although they say that you do therefore you are looking at these products I assume that you are creative so to hear you say that you’re not creative I just can’t believe that looking at the stunning things that you have created
LS: I think some of it is having a gut feel what I think will sell and what the market wants, so I can go out and see plants and suppliers I can hone in on something. There can be hundreds and hundreds of things in front of me at the wholesaler and I will hone in on one thing and think that is amazing it may not be necessarily amazing to me but I can see that that will sell and consumers are going to like and want that product and how can we fit that into our portfolio of what we already have, so yes I would not consider myself creative. When I was first creating these items in a storage unit in Macclesfield which is what it was with gravel resin plants glass, it really was not my bag at all so it’s ironic that it’s developed into what it has!
AO: Fantastic and actually I love what you told us about the fact that you draw on the skills and experience from roles of that you had previously that perhaps didn’t float your boat or you didn’t feel were that stimulating, because lots of people when you’re going through and experience or you’re in a position where you’re not that stimulated, you’re not finding it exciting you can feel like you’re wasting your time and wiling your life away but it’s never wasted it always going to be valuable, you will always come back to something from there and you can always learn something from every experience.
Thank you so much for sharing that. Finally, then what would you like our listeners to take away this interview, from your story and your journey?
LS: I think the main thing is never to give up and if you have an idea don’t just think it, actually do it because so many people, women particularly, I think women, people that have had good commercial careers and then had a family and gone part-time or given up their careers to raise their families – it is easy to lose confidence in your abilities and actually they should see that this time of our life our ability to multitask is probably greater than it ever been due to having had family and things and actually you still can do it. I’ve done this as a single mum with two boys one of whom has a lot of health problems, and it really hasn’t stopped me in any way I don’t have family on my doorstep to help me but I have a great support network of friends but it’s all possible and it’s about prioritizing. You can’t do everything so work out what you up to lately have to do and carry on doing those things and get help on other areas that you need to make your life run smoother but it doesn’t mean you don’t spend time with your children, I pick my kids up at normal time most days and I work in evenings to make up for that last time the hour or hour and a half late afternoon and I think the main thing is just literally don’t give up if you have an idea don’t use any of those things as an excuse to justify not doing it
AO: That’s fantastic and inspiring advice Lucy don’t just think it do it, exactly if you have children it’s such an inspiring story to hear that you have children and that for you it may be very difficult due to health conditions but actually you have been able to achieve so many amazing things with your business and that hasn’t stopped you so really inspiring
LS: Thank you I’ll always remember my youngest had major surgery last year, and we were going up to the ward before he had the surgery just to familiarise him with the environment. He was going to be in for a good 10 days. At the time my priority was him and him being settled, but I had to check that I had Wi-Fi and my phone signal worked because I had to keep the business running for the ten days that we were on that ward and it didn’t even face me, it didn’t stress me that my business would come to grinding halt, I just knew that somehow I would make it work and it was fine, absolutely fine.
We were in there for one week but there was nothing stopping the business for moving forward. My supplier’s all knew what was going on so everybody was very understanding. I had built those relationships so therefore people really helped me and wanted to help me so they contacted me only when they really needed to and the business was kept running and people did all they possibly could to minimize the impact on me and the work I needed to do which was massively appreciated at the time and that was only possible having developed those types of relationships with suppliers and third parties.
AO: Thank you so Lucy. Those relationships, that’s one thing I really take away from this, the importance of building relationships and the strength of the relationships that you build. There is nothing more important than that. Just seeing how that impacted you and helped you along the way has just been incredible, it’s a story of so much Courage, the fact that you went for it believed in yourself, believed in your idea and just gave it a go. Hopefully, more people hearing this will go out there and do it!
LS: Fingers crossed. There are so many ideas and that’s the other thing, now I’m constantly thinking of more and more ideas of things that I want to do, but they really will really have to wait till I have time. We need to get this one bedded down, but it does give you absolute confidence that there are so many opportunities out there.
AO: You have been absolutely incredible thank you so much for being so open and for sharing everything about your journey and also for all of the great words of wisdom and advice that you’ve given our wonderful top women in the audience out there. Before we let you go, please tell us, where we can find you, how can we connect with you and anything else that you would like to share before we say goodbye
LS: The main thing is, just go to our website www.theurbanbotanist.co.uk. You can see all our products there and you can contact us there as well. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all the usual channels. We are pretty much there and we have our telephone number there so you can call and we’ll give anybody all the advice that we can.
AO: And they are stunning, stunning, things. So, the gift ideas are sorted for everybody
LS: Thank you very much
AO: Thank so much Lucy, you have been a star thank you so much for joining us.
