The Sill founder Eliza Blank shares how the ecommerce plant brand uses educational content as a key tool for growth.
In 2012, CEO and founder Eliza Blank bootstrapped The Sill through a Kickstarter campaign and started the ecommerce business locally — hand-delivering indoor potted plants around New York City. Six years later, The Sill is shipping everything from ferns to succulents nationwide.
When plants are your product, the information to keep them alive becomes part of the product offering. By taking the guesswork, and ultimately friction, out of buying and caring for plants, Eliza and her team are seeing the community (and sales) flourish. Their goal? To make the experience enjoyable, even for the sorest of green thumbs.
On this episode of the podcast, Eliza shares how The Sill is making the plant buying process approachable and directional through guidance and a growing supply chain (11:31). She goes through The Sill’s major business milestones and transitions (18:23), and how the brick-and-mortar business shaped how they marketed and sold their products online (20:54). She talks about outgrowing her bootstrapped business (22:31), acting on ambition (24:51), and investing in a solution-oriented online shopping experience (27:40). Finally, Eliza shares how they’re building beyond the zeitgeist of plant parenthood (41:50).
Link and images from this post are on the Lumi Blog.