The Anti-Floral Flower Company: How Ty Hiss Built Fresh Sends From a 900 Square Foot Duplex

Welcome back to another episode of Running with Wolves. I am so excited about today's guest because I am sitting down with Ty, his who is the CEO and co-founder of Fresh Sense, the modern gifting brand that set out to completely reinvent the way that we send flowers. And what started with Ty doing wedding florals eventually turned into Fresh Sense, which she and her husband, Jessie launched in their 900 square foot duplex. I can relate 100%. And since then they have built an incredible, recognizable brand, grown largely through organic marketing and word of mouth, and expanded their vision, far beyond flowers, into becoming the go-to gifting brand for the next generation. So today we're talking all about how she built it, the marketing behind the brand, what actually drove their growth and everything she's learned scaling fresh sense. So Ty, welcome. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Of course, I'm so excited to hear all about this because it's so funny. I actually had no idea that you were the founder of Fresh Sense or co-founder and the CEO. We use you guys all the time for our company gifting. So I was like, oh my gosh, this is so perfect. That means the world, and I'm actually so happy. I know, well, so I'm so excited to hear more. So take me back into the origins of Fresh Sense. And before I would say it even existed, you were doing wedding florals. So talk to me a little bit about that version of you. Did you think that you were going to be building this massive company at that point or were you kind of just figuring out what you wanted to do? Yeah, and so I guess the shorter answer is no. I did not imagine myself building a company. I was fresh out of college and just had seen people was inspired by people who could strike it out on their own and build something themselves. I had no floral experience. I was like, I saw my sister get married this summer before I graduated college and just saw a lot of the wedding process. I studied advertising in school. And so I had a lot of opinions about what I thought things should look like and how I should be executed. And I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. And so it was fun to try to put a service and a product, a product that was also a service out there and see it was really my first experience in getting a taste of what business was, which was super helpful. And eventually was the start and the origin story of what Fresh Sense was. I sort of felt like I fell into the world of flowers which I never really imagined myself doing necessarily. And here we are now with a full on nationwide flower business. - I don't know about you. - You're like, yeah, it was kind of an accident and now we're like a nationwide brand. It's insane. (laughs) - It was sort of, yeah, it was weddings are so fine and so beautiful, but they are also such a grind. I was so young, I was like 22 years old so I had no idea how to really build out a team and so I was really just focusing on how to execute on a weekend basis. And I was actually doing it as a side hustle. So I got a job just out of college at a tech startup that ended up losing funding. So they were like, you can continue to work here, but for free, you know what I think I have to figure out how to do this on my own. And so that's when the idea of Fresh Sense really came about of trying to figure out how we could bring more personality and heart to this moment of people sending flowers. So I would deliver flowers Monday through Friday and I would do weddings on the weekend. I was leasing a car and putting like 10 X the amount of miles that was allowed on the lease. But that was really Fresh Sense 1.0 of like, does this concept work and what is this moment between people? - I love that. Okay, so take me back into that moment where you're like, you fall into this world of flowers, right, you're doing weddings on the weekend. What is the moment where you're like, okay, this could actually be a legitimate company. I'm gonna go all in on this. - Yeah, gosh, that is such a great question. Because the demand that Fresh Sense 1.0 had that operated underneath my wedding and event business was not blowing up. It was not like people were obsessed with, oh my gosh, I just have to get this delivered. Even though the concept was very similar, but I think the thing that inspired me so much was just seeing what this moment of connection was between people. I was like, you see some of people's best moments of new jobs and new homes and new babies and some really challenging moments that they're walking through of loss and struggle and hardship and just being reminded that they're not alone in whatever they're walking through. And I was like, I'm so passionate about that particular moment and Fresh Sense is that and then it also just took, honestly, it was a moment where my father and law was like, I think that this could really be something. He was also an entrepreneur and he was like, I think that this could really be it if you could figure out how to outsource the delivery and that was where we're like, yeah, we can really do it if we could serve the whole nation and have a bigger market. - Yeah, I love that. And obviously that is the gifting space and the floral space is what some people would call like a quote unquote saturated industry or market, right? Is that something that made you nervous at all or was having his encouragement as an entrepreneur almost like proof of the concept of like, it doesn't matter we can make this work? - Yeah, I think both were probably true. I think as an entrepreneur you're someone who has a bit of hyper competitiveness to you where you're like, what I'm gonna bring to the table, what we're gonna bring to the table is gonna be better have a different point of view, have a strong point of view where we are gonna have a customer who it resonates with them. So there is a part of the saturated market that fueled me and fueled us to be like, let's bring this to market and let's do it in a way where it's a product that we would wanna send. So there was that. And then also, yeah, just I guess I have heard people say, and I think it is true to a point that even if the market is saturated, it sort of proves out product market fit. And there's something really beautiful and something that I guess I'm so passionate about now is sending flowers and sending a gift. It's just one of the most timeless gestures of all time. Like you, it always, sending flowers always lands, right? It's always, it's a gift that doesn't disappoint. Hopefully if you can do it, right? But I just think it's something that will never go out of style. And so how we can make it resonate with our generation and the future generation is really what we're getting after. - I love that. And what did you see in like that traditional flower delivery industry that at the time, and still is, was like a little bit saturated, but what did you see specifically where you're like, it proves the market fit, yes. But then like this is broken and I can like make it better, right? For our generation, like you were just saying. - Yeah, I think having visuals and language and an experience even from how you interact with us on Instagram or how we're talking on our website to look and sound like how we actually look and talk. That's really what our goal was. Our positioning as a brand has always been that we want to feel like a friend. We want to feel like that friend that you can always reach out to and has the right words to say can be that perfect balance of deep but light-hearted, can be like, can go deep if you need it to, but also can be light-hearted and bring a smile to your face. That's always how we have approached the brand. And we just really thought that we could bring, I guess an additional layer of depth to the gifting and flower delivery space because the concept that we really started with was how can we have a card that you would pick out maybe at a store but a card that you're really proud to send with a personalized message on the back and the card's not just a small one-by-two business card size. And has a handwritten no on the back. Like it's super simple, a super simple idea and how can we make sure that every detail of the gifting experience is something that you're really excited to send and then the recipient is also amazed once they open it. - I love that. So I mean, similar concept but it feels like obviously you're making it so much more personalized, you're bringing more to the meaning behind that gesture. And then also it sounds like you really were adapting like how they interacted with the brand to how even like our generations like millennials and Gen Z interact with brands. So you're almost making it a little bit more current for the times, if you will. - Totally, yeah. And that even goes into like how we approached content that we wanted to put out on socials and I'm sure we can dive into this later too. Just the type of content that resonates with people and that people are excited to share is not always necessarily directly related to your product, an image of your product or just being educational about your product. But it can even what we've found is that it's much more emotional than that. Like can we post an encouraging or inspiring message that is not written on a bench and people want to share that same message to their following. And so we found so much success with that right there. It's like how can we be talking about our message in mission in a way that is shareable? - Yeah, I love that. Well, we're gonna dig into your marketing in just a second 'cause I'm really excited to hear more about that. But I'm curious as you were kinda scaling fresh sends, right? In terms of like a specific order volume or month or like viral moment, when do you feel like your audience really showed you 'cause you understood you had proof of concept. You're like, we know this is an amazing idea. Was there a moment with your audience where you're like, oh my God, they get it and they love this too. - Hmm, I would say before I even really knew what TikTok. was or we really even knew what TikTok was. One of our recipients shared about her receiving a fresh send on TikTok and that TikTok went viral. So it was her unboxing the fresh send and it went so viral just her showing the product and talking about how excited she was that she was receiving this and our website sessions absolutely skyrocketed. We were like, what is TikTok? And we were like, what? And we actually did see a huge amount of conversions. It wasn't just sessions. It wasn't just people checking out the brand. It was people who were like, whoa, I actually want to send this today, which is interesting because our product is not 99% of people who are buying our product. They're buying it for someone else. Right. And so it's less of an impulse buy because you typically are trying to find a moment or a reason to actually send someone flowers. And it was amazing to see that that was a pretty immediate response of like huge spike in website sessions and also a huge spike in conversions. And so we were like, there's absolutely something here with people seeing the product, seeing the brand and then wanting to make a purchase. Yeah. I love that. And that's, I mean, I talk about that all the time. That's an amazing example of social proof, right? People a lot of times will trust a product or a service so much more when it comes from a consumer who is experiencing like the impact or the transformation of that product or service in their own lives and not just the owner or the brand or the team talking about how amazing it is. So it sounds like that kind of happened super organically, but I'm excited to hear like more about what you learned from that when we kind of talked about your marketing. So I love that. Absolutely. I'm really curious because as I was researching you guys, I didn't realize you launched basically like right before COVID. So that is like an insane time to launch something like this. But also I would say kind of perfect timing in like a terrible way. But suddenly, right? Like people can't physically be with the people that they love. Do you feel like that moment hurt the trajectory of your business or kind of skyrocketed it? Definitely helped the business for sure. I think, I mean, I guess everything has two sides to the same coin. From one aspect, it was a great opportunity for people to be like, Oh, I'm innocent flowers. I can't be with my grandma for her birthday or I can't be there for that graduation. Right. On the flip side, it made things difficult sometimes from a logistics standpoint. We were at just at the beginning of operating this business. My husband and I were living in my sister's basement and driving into our old, what used to be our house, which was our pseudo HQ. And so we, when I look back on that time, it sort of is a blur because you, it's so day by day and you're figuring things out. And COVID definitely was a moment when people were spending so much time on their phones too. So much time virtually. So I think that there was a great awareness that we were able to gain there. But it was definitely mixed and coming out of that time, it was also interesting just to see how can we continue to evolve and spread our message and mission of how meaningful it is just to remind people that you care and to show up for the people in your life, even when it's not a global pandemic. Right. Yeah. Because I, I was the same way I launched when I was 22 and I launched like right during COVID and it kind of was like an accidental like fell into it. Same thing. And with marketing, I felt very similarly that it was like everyone was wondering, okay, how do we like walk our business through this period of time, right? So it almost like helped in a certain way. But I obviously know that there were a lot of industries where what that was not the case for them. So I love that that almost gave people like this natural inclination to use your like product slash service. Totally. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the building of the brand. So flowers are arguably a commodity, right? I can buy flowers from a local florist. I can buy it from Trader Joe's. I can buy them from 100 flowers or like a million places online, shifting gears a little bit. How did you build a brand where people specifically wanted to send and receive fresh sends? Was there anything where you're like, we did that really well to make us be their go to person? Gosh, I would like to say so many things about it and there's probably not one specific thing that we can pinpoint to. But I do just want to say I have to give so much credit to our chief creative officer, who's also one of our founding team members Kirby, who is just so talented and has always had such a unique point of view visually for the brand, too. I mean, even just like our original logo, which is still the logo that we use today, and we always joke she was also my college roommate. So all of this originated from college. I love that. My friend who's now my husband just like, it's so funny to think about. Yeah, you never really know what a college roommate might lead to in the future, could be a business partner. Right. Like chaos of college and all the things are going through. If you couldn't do that, you can run a business together totally. Yes, people always warn you about going into business with friends and family, which I understand. But I think the flip side of that is there's a huge amount of trust and camaraderie and rapport that you've built with those people that actually can be magic too. Like if you figure it out and figure out how to work through conflict and misunderstanding, there's magic that can come on the other side of that as well. So that's just a little tip bit that you can also go and if you if you want to and you have an idea go into business with friends and family. I love that. So from a brand perspective, we always have had the idea and concept that each there's never a detail that's too small. So from our aesthetic of our newspapers, one of our iconic elements that's very fresh sense. It's a moment that is synonymous with our brand. And so we started out originally just wrapping our bouquets in newspaper. We wanted to have a different look. I loved how people when you leave the the wholesale or like a flower market, they'll wrap up your flowers in newspaper because they just add extra newspaper around. They'll pack it in the bottom of your boxes. So that was a fun moment that kind of looks like you went to a floral market all the way down to our cards and all of the packaging elements that go along. Like we wanted to make sure that every detail was thought of from making it a beautiful something beautiful that you wanted to take a photo of, but then also had meaning and had thought behind why we put that there. So for example, when you take our bouquet out of the box, there is a message that speaks to the mission of fresh sense. Like you're receiving this gift because you matter to someone. And so going on a little blurb that hopefully it will just resonate with people on one layer that it's a beautiful experience and on a deeper level that there's great meaning and that we care deeply about about you unboxing this product. So yeah, we've always had the mindset of even if it costs more money, we are willing to spend more to make sure that our brand standard is being upheld and that people are really proud of the gift that they're sending. Yeah, I love that. So you're really making sure that like the experience that they have when they're opening up fresh sense, the message behind it and the goal behind it is really like you matter to someone, right? And so they get to experience that throughout their entire, I hate the word experience again, but with fresh sense, right? From every single moment between when the person picks out what they're sending to the unboxing, to the newspaper, like everything basically says, like, hey, you matter to someone. And I don't know that there are a lot of other floral companies, whether it's, you know, like I said, one 800 flowers, Trader Joe's, any of those things that really have that like emotional sentimental tie to them. It's built in because it's a gifting industry, but I don't think there are a lot of other brands that are super intentional about that. And I think that's huge for making you guys stand out as a brand. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for saying that. That views the world to us. I, yeah, there's been really cool moments that have just been coincidences of we change out our newspaper seasonally, and you'll have like a friend or an acquaintance who will text you and let you know that like this newspaper in particular really touched them because of a moment that happened in their life. And so there's just been some really cool things that we've seen. And I think people like a similar, I mean, there's so many brands in the, I guess the 2010s that came to market that and you're you're very right. And that flowers are in many ways a commodity, like getting them at the grocery store. Like we love people who have flowers in their own home. And I'm like, I buy my own flowers for my own home at Trader Joe's, you know, I could run back to the cooler, which is great because they're so affordable. Yeah. And we're always like, you should do that. Our, our particular positioning is that we are, we are a gift. We want you to send our product to someone else. And our hope is that it makes you so proud to send. And it makes the recipient even that they're so happy to receive it. And it just everyone is so pleased with the experience. But yeah, we've, from the very beginning, I think when we were writing our very first press release trying to get some traction, we called ourselves the anti floral flower company. Just because we're like, it's not necessarily about the flowers, even though we care about delivering the most beautiful experience. And we will always go the extra mile to make sure that we always make it right if anything goes wrong for, for a customer. But we're like, it's really about this moment between people and less about the actual flowers. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And it's interesting because you're so intentional with that. And I also was kind of when I was doing some research on you guys. I've noticed that you are also very intentional about like restraint with branding. Right. And you've talked about like what knowing not to do too, so you are like, okay, we're really intentional over here with what we do with our brand. What are some things that fresh send could probably do to make more money in the short term, but then you're like, no, that's not our brand. Well, that from a restraint point of view and I guess even from a product launch point of view, so we have a very intentional limited offering. And that's because we really think that there are so many options of sending flowers that it can be overwhelming sort of like the triple A model where you go in and there are a few options and it's very easy for you to make a decision. So I guess some of the language we've used is we try to reduce decision fatigue because sometimes you just need to make a decision very quickly from an SEO point of view having a very limited offering doesn't always help you like the right. The whole worldwide web loves crawling products and product names. So we've had to think about and even from a marketing point of view like we don't have a lot of launches or drops that we do we're not coming up with a new product that is going to make you so excited. We have to continue to be creative to think about how we're going to position our product that is pretty much the exact same and make it interesting and new for the customer on a daily basis, weekly basis, which is really fun. It's a fun creative challenge we've had some fun we really focus on these moments and occasions so we've seen a lot of success with our products like the new baby send the birthday send we have a pasta night send. We have a coffee send because like who doesn't love getting flowers and coffee to get that are perfect together. So yeah, we have a very intentionally limited offering and we try to be really specific about what's going to bring value to our customers and does it make sense for them. I love that and I will say like most brands that I've seen that are wildly successful. I always say they know how to like stay in their lane if you will you know it's like they know what works for them and their clients or their customers. And they stick to that they are always in tune with what they need but they know like this is on brand for us this is not. And I think that's a huge part of why you guys have been super successful is because you know who fresh sends is and every move you make whether it's production or marketing or any of those things always goes back to that core right. Thank you so much for saying that means that is like music to my ears. Absolutely. I've heard someone say that distraction is one of the key silent killers in any business for any entrepreneur and that focus can be a superpower so being really focused on what we're doing who we're serving and how we can continue to bring more value to them has been something that actually in many ways it can feel kind of limiting. On the flip side the restrict like those guardrails can be really like freeing yes exactly I think that can be like we know what we're doing we know who we're serving and it kind of increases your confidence in what you're bringing to the table. Yeah I call that bright shiny object syndrome because I feel like every business owner gets it they're like okay you know what this is what I'm doing no oh my gosh I want to talk about this or I want a lot of this product it's like no stick to what you know I always say like eyes on your own paper just focus on your stuff. Yeah exactly guardrails blinders whatever you want to call them I love it yes okay and so you do this really well obviously with your marketing too so I want to kind of shift gears and talk about that a little bit because I know we sprinkled things in a little in the beginning but I'm excited to hear more. So you've obviously said that fresh sense has grown a lot through word of mouth everyone says that they want word of mouth right but you can't exactly expect and like put viral via word of mouth into a marketing plan. So what do you think that you have really intentionally built into the product or the customer experience that makes people want to talk about it because that was even something you said made you go viral in the first place. Yeah yeah I think it's not overlooking the small details so for us like having language we've even changed it up over the years just testing out what works best for us but like the really simple language of you get flowers today. It really has become an iconic thing at fresh sense what people have come to know us for and so when people open up that box it's like a very obvious statement that they're getting flowers today but it's like a very heartwarming you're like oh my gosh how fun and then opening up this box and seeing a really beautiful product. I think something like the newspaper in particular it has never been because it is the easiest from an operational standpoint or least cost effective wrapping a bouquet in newspaper and we are so particular about our newspaper to make sure that it's crisp and clean and looks really beautiful newspaper. If you have a handle these paper recently which I know a lot of people haven't because they're becoming less or less or obsolete on the paper these days even though it's like I just imagined like a breakfast reading the paper like so it's like a perfect morning not that I have really ever done that yeah but like my grandparents I can imagine them. A newspaper it takes a lot of time to train someone how to wrap a bouquet in paper I do it really well so even something as small as that to our cards like the complexity that that comes with a card a custom card that says something like go shoddy it's your birthday or home is where your mom is or like all of those cards we have many many card options. That's where we have lots of options rather than our floral options but making sure that that card has the correct message and it's paired with the correct bouquet the operational complexity that comes with that is a lot but we've seen people who keep their cards forever and like keep them on their fridge and we're like that's really the moment that matters and I think that that impact less more than more than just like the I don't know how to focus only on operational efficiency. Yeah and it's interesting because what I'll hear from my clients around like getting people to talk about their product or services they're like I really struggle with that because I don't know how to motivate people right so aside from everything that you do on the product side the beautiful newspaper the card everything what do you guys do are there any like tips or tricks that you can give my listeners for getting people to give you reviews or to talk about it or posted on socials is there anything you found to really work for you guys. That's such a good question. I think even just like the simple fundamentals of like following up we have a great follow up email that I love and it's like mayoral street yelling a little gift of her yelling out like how did we do and something that makes it fun and engaging that's like oh maybe my friend would send that to me. Yeah so like kind of the fundamentals making sure that you're not missing out on those how we also incur I mean we've tested out many different incentive programs just to get people to come back or how to talk about it more and different codes to get people to a try out fresh sense for the first time from people who made a purchase previously and yeah just trying to create content that makes it shareable where you're like oh fresh sense I've seen them in multiple different spots and across it's not just necessarily the product I'm seeing them put out content we have an encouraging text that goes out every Monday called the encouragement hotlines are like trying to not just focus on only the product necessarily but how can we create brand fans that are excited about not only the product but also the entire brand experience and the service that we offer. I love that and then you talked a little bit in the beginning about you know the emotional side of it or the inspirational side of it or the motivational side. What do you think that you guys know that a lot of other brands get wrong about organic social media marketing? Yeah I think it's exactly what we were talking about earlier like I think people when they are hoping to have some breakthrough they're hoping that they can either educate more or show the product in a new and different way or maybe have a visual that lands more which I don't think that any of those things are a strategy that you shouldn't try I think certainly try those things. But for us the content that we've found is the content that really is very much so lifestyle and can resonate with people and is incredibly shareable. So like even content and I honestly feel like the glossiers and the outdoor voices and the ways and warpy parkers of the 2010s did a really good job of paving the way that we've taken some of their playbook and utilize that in our own marketing is what type of content just makes you genuinely happy to see kind of like your Pinterest for you your like explore page that makes you feel inspired or happy that would like in it might make you to save that pin. What can we do to do that on Instagram or TikTok mostly Instagram though that would it creates a I guess virality around the sharing of it so like an elderly couple sitting on the subway and he has flowers for her. It doesn't show our product at all but it shows the gesture and the sentiment behind what we do someone thinking of someone else and that type of content might get 30,000 shares. Yeah, we didn't we just found that image is encouraging to see I love that and that obviously is what's getting you great visibility and shares. Are there any differences because you talked about this a little bit in the beginning that you see between marketing that gets you more community members right gets your message out to the world more versus what turns into actual like revenue for you guys. Yeah, yeah, that's a great question and I think the question sometimes is what comes first the chicken or the egg right there are going to be sometimes those customers that pop right in. they're making their purchase and that's how they get into the community and then there are other people who might see a piece of content and they're like, oh my gosh, I always feel uplifted when I see a fresh sentence post. Yeah. I don't have any reason to send flowers or it's a bit out of my price range. I'm going to go in with some friends later. So that's always something that we're contemplating just about the psychology of the customer and the different demographics that we're serving. And so yeah, I think getting to, I guess not discounting either one of those experiences, like can we make sure that we're having touch points that if someone's coming in and they're just buying flowers for their girlfriend for Valentine's Day, how can we still bring them into the fold of what we're doing at fresh sends? Right. And then how can we, if you've never made a purchase at fresh sends and, but you're hoping to one day, but you just don't have that moment to do it, how can we encourage them to stick around and we're still going to bring value to you, even if you've never made a purchase with us. So it's like trying to think about the psychology of each person who's, who's in our demographic. I love that because that's, I mean, a huge part, I think of what I talk about when it comes to marketing is really incorporating that buyer psychology into it. So it's like, this is what you need. Here's why we're the perfect fit for you answering even those questions in terms of buying that they might have in their head. Like you said, even if they're not ready. So I love that you kind of draw that distinction between the two. And it is a very much a chicken and egg situation. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they don't. When it comes to developing your like ongoing marketing strategy, do you guys utilize a lot of like your data around what you're seeing works or what does that process look like for you guys on a consistent basis? Yeah, I mean, as we have grown and scaled the company, I mean from the very beginning, when your marketing budget is, it's not that easy. Yeah. We, I guess something also interesting is we didn't raise money from venture to start this business. The business has been mostly bootstrapped. So figuring out how in order to be staying in order to stay in business, of course, profitability really matters in figuring out how to not run out of money while continuing to get the message of who fresh sense is. So over the years, we've learned what what we can potentially do, what type of marketing we can do to get the most data. So obviously now that we're running more real bus campaigns across meta and Google and TikTok, we're able to extrapolate the meaningful pieces of creative that are working really well and what type of campaigns are going to convert people on Google and those types of things. But I think what we've seen, what we've learned over the years is just kind of the seasonality and the intangibles of the business that sometimes just take experience, it just takes sheer time to figure out. And so growing our email list has been something that has been an amazing data point for us, like trying to understand how often we can and should be emailing them to remind them about certain things. What type of segmenting we can be doing SMS and I guess discounts and promotions have been something that have been really interesting for us because we typically do not discount at all. Like Black Friday Cyber Monday has been a holiday that we never really jump in on because our product is so specific that they're not buying it for themselves. They're not necessarily wrapping it under the Christmas tree either. It's really specific on like, do they have a moment in their life that they need to be gifting for? I guess one other piece of marketing advisor data point is we send out an email called our midweek feels and it's notes and messages that have inspired us from the previous week that are anonymous. But we just post just the messages and we're like, here are favorite messages from this week that inspired us. We hope that they inspire you and we don't promote our, we don't have any images of our products. At that email get some of the highest engagement. It's not necessarily creating conversions. But people come and want to open up that fresh sense midweek feels email because hopefully it makes them feel encouraged. It's like a great story, a great read. So that is always something that we're weighing to is like they might not create the conversions but does that make someone even more excited to open up an email from us when we are creating a new product or launching a new collection? Right. Well, and I always say like marketing is such a balance, right? You can't just hit them with like such aggressive promotional marketing every single holiday, every single occasion. So you have to find ways to create like affinity for your brand, right? Which is exactly what you're talking about with this email. It's like every time they see the name fresh sends pop up in their inbox if they're used to getting that midweek like feels email from you. They almost, and I think that this is so refreshing not to make a pun. But like it is so refreshing in a world where we have so much over consumerism, we have brands that will not shut up about selling to you. It's like it creates this like deep breath feeling almost when they see your name pop up in their inbox instead of like another brand emailing me delete. You know what I mean? Totally. So it's like it creates this trust of what they go to fresh sends for, which is that inspiration that, you know, you uplifting them, which then every single time they think about gifting flowers, they're like, well, I want to go with the company that makes me feel good because I know all that make the people who I'm buying them for feel good. So I love that. Totally. Yeah. Thank you so much. Of course. Absolutely. Okay. I want to talk about brands you've partnered with because you guys have some really cool brands. So you've partnered with Bumble, Revolve, Benefit, Prime Video, and Tower 28 just to list a few. How do you think about brand partnerships as like an actual acquisition or growth strategy rather than just like, oh my God, look how cool this is that we partnered with this brand. Yes. Partnerships has been one of the most fun aspects of the business that really had no initial strategy and has been so fun to see unfold because so much of our partnership, the partnerships that we've done have been completely organic and people just inquiring about working with fresh sends. And it has been just a, like, truly a joy to hopefully meet our partners needs. We have two different ways that we approach partners now, which is we're able to do corporate gifting in a way that is hopefully really meaningful and has that same level of intention and thoughtfulness that we have for our standard customers. So we're able to co-brand our newspaper, our card, our tape for people who are doing gifting to their influencers or to their employee base, hopefully improving retention, just like reminding people that they are willing to spend money on them and send them a beautiful gift just for the sake of sending a gift. We also can include other brand's products in our boxes, in a really beautiful way, which is fun. And that has been such a such an exciting part of our business that we're excited to see grow has been a major growth lever for us. From a partnership standpoint, from the way that we market our brand, like when we worked with Bumble and how they're there, so they're obviously all about connection. Yeah. And how they would be gifting their community members. It was so fun to see the creative come to life there and how they could send out their message alongside hours working with tower 20 and benefit cosmetics beauty brands. We have had so much synergy with because it's just sending beautiful things, things that are beautiful when you unbox and things that make you feel more beautiful. That's been really cool. And with benefit, we were able to do it for Valentine's Day specifically, which was really cool. So it made a lot of sense like flowers and a benetins, who doesn't want to get that. And then tower 28 to helping them launch a new product and doing something very limited edition. These are such great touch points for us to just like, like I mentioned earlier, make things feel exciting and new for us even though our product is essentially remaining the same. We're able to come at it from a different angle and provide a different value for our customers. We're like, oh, I love tower 28. Oh, I love fresh sense. I'm totally going to get it on this. I'm going to send this to my best friend. I know that she loves it too. That has been really fun for us because it just creates these different moments that people could potentially be gifting for or find a new level of interest for the brands. I love that. And obviously we talked about this a little bit in the beginning of you being really clear on what is on brand versus what is not and not getting distracted. Is there something that you always go back to when you're looking at partnerships of like, this is what makes a partnership with us makes sense. And here's what does not. Yeah. We are always thinking about our customer and ultimately what is going to be a product and a value proposition that is interesting to them. So a lot of brands and two, I completely understand they'd be like, hey, can we create a collaborative send? Because we're promoting this product. And for us, we always have to be able to justify if our customer at large would potentially be interested in this product and how we can position it. So if it's just a product that's fairly niche, it's difficult for us to figure out how we can exactly help them market that in a way that makes sense for our customer. So we always have to, that's really interesting for us to weigh. We want it to be a win for our partner, but then we also have to consider how is it a win for our customer and fresh sense. So that's been something that we've learned. And it's so amazing because we're able to find difference energies. If it's not necessarily, if it doesn't work out for an actual collaborative product, is there a moment that we can work on for like, either give away or how can we, how can we help them spread their message in a different way that isn't necessarily to our general customer base? Yeah. So always going back to like, what does our customer want? What's important to them? Will they actually use this? Will this benefit them? Right. So always really thinking about the customer first. And it sounds like that's how you're making a lot of business, partnership, marketing decisions as a whole. Absolutely. I love that. Okay. Last marketing question for you. I'm curious if there is a marketing channel or strategy that you were told, like, you have to do this. It's going to blow you guys up. And then it just did no not work that you were like, okay, that's just not for us and you pivoted away from that. Yeah, totally. There's been so many moments of that and I think that's just being in business. You run these little test experiments and you're like, this is absolutely going to work. And then you're like, that was a total flop. Let's move quickly and be able to pivot and evolve quickly. I think is a superpower in business, especially when you can agree and move quickly. That's so great. I guess figuring out how you can move as quickly as possible and get enough data to make that decision is always the tricky part. Right. For us, Gifting has always been a major strategy of how we can get our product in people's hands. That was how we essentially grew and launched this business, was through what we called it the fresh clubs. You could be a part of the fresh club. You didn't have to, you don't have to be an influencer or a creator. We genuinely just want to get fresh sense in the hands of people who would be willing to talk about it. As the creator, economy has evolved. Gifting is still a major strategy for us, but it's not something we rely as heavily on now because there's a lot of different elements that come into creators really feeling incentivized to post about your product. There's a lot of, there's a lot of dollars that go around brands paying creators to post. So because we are a smaller brand and a bootstrapped team mostly, we have to be really intentional about where we put our dollars. So it's just interesting to see how Gifting has evolved over time. YouTube was something where like, oh my gosh, our product is so visual. We didn't see as much success from our YouTube creative than we expected. We've had some ebbs and flows on TikTok as well, putting dollars behind TikTok. We've had seasons of absolutely crushing and our row as is amazing. And then seasons have been like, oh my goodness, we need to pivot away from this entirely. Yes. So it's just, I heard someone say that being an entrepreneur and a business owner is that feeling of having to pit in your stomach almost all the time, which sounds very dreadful. It's not always all that dreadful. So you've never, you've never fully figured it out. You're like, something's always changing. If you didn't think it was broken, it could potentially break in the future. Of course, you try to create systems to like not have as many breaks and system failures. Yeah. But you kind of just solve the problems as they come. Yeah. And it's the same for me. I mean, I always talk about even myself and even for my clients as well. Almost everything will work for almost every single brand. It just depends on if you can find like the right data, the right strategy, and you have the right amount of time to be able to figure it out, right? Like it depends on your business goals. So yeah, I mean, YouTube's a hard one. YouTube is such a slow burn. And for something, yes, that is so visual, but is also so product heavy. I can imagine that being a really difficult channel to get some traction with. Yes. We were so surprised. And like, of course, there's YouTube shorts, but we were also destroying YouTube ads for who knows we could be testing out again. We're very curious about streaming. We've never. Yeah. Streamings that might be a channel that we dip our toes into. And you might see us. And hopefully we remain amazing. You're like, and we will be there and we'll see what happens. And we stood around. Who knows? But that's just being a business owner. Like that's the reality of it. Yeah. You're like, okay, let's test it out. If it works, we'll stay amazing. We'll pop right back out. We'll go back to what you were. And not for this day. I love that. Okay. Well, with our like kind of final couple minutes, I want to ask you just a few things about scaling, becoming really like the full CEO of fresh sons. I'm curious to know just as we're kind of talking about like being a business owner and going through difficult times and having that pit in your stomach kind of consistently, do you feel like there was a specific stage in like the last six years that was like your hardest stage to get through? And I'm curious if there was like a lesson that that taught you. Oh, my gosh. That is such a good question. But there is, there is a time. And it was when we had experienced quite a bit of like we had a lot of social proof. We were continuing the business was having good growth. But figuring out how we could make sure that the business was the healthiest from a unit economic standpoint. And what was going to be the path forward from a financing point of view and a marketing point of view how much can we actually invest in acquiring more customers to get as much potential demand and awareness as we think fresh sends deserves. Yeah. That's always been the question. And we'll continue to be the question of like we believe that fresh sends will be and can be the next generations go to Gifting brand? I guess it's just at what pace? When do we get there? How fast can we get there? And what are we willing to sacrifice for speed? And so for us, it has always been that question of we want to prioritize growth. But we have to equally prioritize profitability. And we came to an inflection point in the business where we were trying to do both. We were trying to grow. And of course, we're trying to do both, but growth was more of a priority than profitability. And there's just some realities of in order to stay in business, you have you cannot the name of the game is don't run out of money. Right. And so always being able to figure out what is the next step? What are the next three to six months look like for us? What are like when Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are on the horizon? And when you potentially when when some doors are closing in your face, but you believe so wholeheartedly in your mission, I remember a day so vividly where a couple doors closed and my husband and I looked at each other and we were like, can we do this? Yeah. I just know if we can do this, like and my sister and brother-in-law that people who we lived in their basement, they were amazing. We actually lived in the apartment above their garage because that's the life of the entrepreneur is living in small spaces and not getting paid very much and working 15 hours a day completely like yeah, you're never off. And they were just like, you guys you guys are going to do you're going to figure it out. This isn't the end. And that word of encouragement was just what we needed to hear in that moment because you believe in your mission so wholeheartedly but when doors are closing, you're like, is this actually going to work in your head as an entrepreneur? You always see the day where you imagine it's going to work and everything works out and you actually start cash flowing in growth. You're able to read best into growth, but when you're in the moment where it's not quite working yet, it can be difficult to keep up the perseverance and persistence to get there. So yeah, I mean, and there's so many moments across the lifespan of the business that we've had those moments. And I think there will continue to be those moments, but there I think as long as you focus on some of the business fundamentals, I think I had no idea really what healthy margins were or how to run, how to understand the business. And it just takes some of that time and experience of my dad likes to call it the school of hard knocks. Like sometimes you just paid a tuition. You got to pay the tuition and you're better off on the other side of it. And yeah, it's been such a wild journey. If you're an entrepreneur out there, you know it's kind of that adrenaline of the thrill, the rush of how intense and scary it can be, but how rewarding it can be when things do work and you're seeing the progress. Yeah, that perseverance, I mean being able to push through the difficult times and like hold the vision of like no, no, no, I know that this will eventually come to fruition. That's I think for me, the the one thing that's gotten me through it. Literally is just like, I think the most successful business owners are the ones that have been able to hold on through the hardest shit. Like they're just the ones that are like I refuse to give up. Completely, yes, sheer perseverance. I think so many of the entrepreneurs say that and I think it can sound really good where you're like, just persevere and I like just the grittiness of being in those dark places. If you've ever read Phil Knight's shoe dog of the origin story of Nike, that book honestly saved me. Okay. In some of the darkest places of the business because Nike almost failed so many times. It's so encouraging to know that businesses have been on the brink of failure and then they find a breakthrough moment and you're exactly what you're saying your breakthrough can and will come. You just have to continue to to push on what make it one more day. Yeah. And that was called it's shoe dog by Phil Knight. By Phil Knight. Okay. I think a lot of my listeners are in that that growth phase, right? Where they're like, is there a line at the end of the tunnel? So giving them those resources that has helped other business owners through those difficult times is super important. I love that. Yes. Okay. So talk to me a little bit about the future of FreshSense. So obviously you started with one bouquet. Yeah. What do you want this company to mean to people like 10 years from now? I love that question too. Savannah, your questions. I'm just out here giving you the questions. I, the vision for FreshSense is that we are top of mind when it comes to any moment that happens in your life celebration or hardship that FreshSense can meet you there in that moment. We, I mean the floral gifting and just gifting space in general, it's like an 80 billion dollar business in the US. I'm saying. And we really believe that we can lead the category in innovation and messaging and product. So that's the goal. The goal, the vision is big to be, to be the next 1,800 flowers absolutely. And how we get there, I think is exactly what we've talked about that focus, that restraint saying being able to say yes to the things that mean so much to us and being able to say no if it's, if it's not quite the right fit. And yeah, I think we, we are so committed to seeing all that we think FreshSense can be. And it is sort of its own little toddler baby. Now it has a life of its own. And so being able to steward that and walk that and see it through has been so. such an honor. I love that. Well, I mean, I think you are well on your way to becoming the next 1,800 followers. Like I said, we use you at my company. I know so many other people who use fresh sense. You guys are doing an amazing job. You are so kind. So much. Okay, we'll tell my listeners anything that you have coming up. I know you don't do Black Friday, which is we're recording right before this. But is there anything fun that you have coming up for holidays? New years? Give them a little run through of that and where they can connect with you. Yeah. So we love the holiday season at Fresh Sense. We have some really amazing and new offerings that we're doing this year. So our holiday collection launches on November 1st, right after Halloween, we have our classic wreaths, which are one of my favorite products that we have. They're fresh reads. They're so beautiful. And the thing that makes it so fun is that we ship it in a box that looks like a pizza box. So we're delivering a slice of the holidays right to your home. It's so cute. Makes an incredible gift. And it will last all season longer. Like if you're not able to make it home for the holidays, being able to send a wreath in your place, not that it actually can replace you, but it's certainly a beautiful, a beautiful gift. Yeah. So we have that. We also have a product called the Santasand, which is so cute. It looks like a Christmas gift. All of the packaging elements look like a holiday gift in and of themselves. And we have some really fun upsells that will be coming with it. So like some special, special consumable items like popcorn and toffee and special cookies that will be included. So really makes, there's something for everyone for the holiday season. But if you love yummy treats, this collection is for you. I love that. And I love that idea of a wreath. I feel like that's such a classy, like holiday gift instead of flowers. It's unique, but it also something people are going to love. And it feels like the holidays. So I love that. And we have some fun little variants. We've got some red bows, a bigger red bow and some cute little mini bows that are like a perfect embellishment for the reef. Amazing. Well, no, I'm keeping my eye out for that because there's holidays that I'm not going to be able to attend this year. So I will keep my eye out for that. And then tell my listeners where they can connect with you and stay up to date with fresh sends. Yes. So fresh sends on all of our handles is just for at freshsens, freshsens.com for all of the purchases that you need to make, all the gifting that you need to do. And then me, I am at Thai girl hiss because my joke was always that my middle name was growing up because my full name is Thai. But my joke is always my middle name is girl. They'd be like, is that your full name? And I'd be like, yes, but my middle name is girl. Can you believe it? It's not actually. But my handle is tiger hiss. I believe it's across all socials. Okay. I'm sure you can find me if you just Google me. Yeah, exactly. That's amazing. And we'll put all of that in the show notes. But I love that so much. It's like a tiger and a cat hissing. That's amazing. Yes. It is actually with my married name now. Obviously, you don't plan that. But I stuck with the same little name, the play on the name. Obviously, having a unique name, you got to come up with an interesting story. Yeah. You have to. Mine is, I'll tell you mine later. Mine is terrible. My full name is like a freaking stripper name. It's ridiculous. My middle name is star with two R's. It's wild. I'm like Savannah star. And then my boyfriend's last name is starts with an S as well. And it's like insanely long. Like good, good, good. This is going to be like an SS. It's crazy. Games, you know, you can't pick your name. You can't pick me work. But you can make fun. Exactly. I love that. Great story. So much time for coming. This was such a fun episode. I loved hearing all about fresh sense. And thank you guys for listening. We'll see you in the next episode. Bye guys.