Is this a business or a really expensive hobby?

“You have to spend money to make money.” Have you heard that before? We have too and clearly there’s some truth to the statement. But we do ask ourselves sometimes “how much money should we sink into this flower farm dream of ours before we decide that this is a really expensive hobby, not a business? What if flower farming can’t pay our mortgage, let alone take us on a vacation?

During our first season, these questions were only slightly bothersome. We were not too far in debt, we were experimenting with the whole idea of creating a lifestyle around flower farming, but we were both still working fulltime and earning decent incomes, so the risks felt fairly minimal. By the second season, we were determined to make some money. And we did. In spite of working fulltime jobs and not living on the farm. We were pleased with 10 times the revenue in 2019, oh but did I mention that the expenses went up too? They went WAY up.

We knew that in order to be a business we were going to have to get busy learning how to become more profitable. We bought the house and farm where we were growing flowers. We applied for and we were chosen to be members of the entrepreneurial incubator grant program through Bethesda Green, a non-profit environmental organization in Bethesda, Maryland. Tom quit his sales job. Now things were getting serious.

We dove into “all things business.” Business plans, bookkeeping, financial statements and projections, pitch decks, meeting with mentors, learning about marketing strategies. We got busy meeting with our target customers: floral designers. We dove headfirst into a website that was modern, educational, and sold flowers through e-commerce. We created a crop plan that was 5 times more diverse than it had been in 2019. We bought a delivery vehicle. You get the picture…we busted our asses and continue to do so now.

And right around the time, in early March, when we started gearing up ( with eternal optimism) for our most successful season so far, a global COVID pandemic hit, and, for a moment, everything stopped. We have been surprised by how much we’ve managed to sell in spite of a recession and stay at home orders, but it’s hard to know what things would have looked like without that huge turn of events.

So I think we are feeling more and more confident that what we are doing is a “business” and not just an expensive “hobby,” we still have so much to learn about profitability; while maintaining a strong grip on our original goal: we will create a life of more meaning and purpose, driven by core values of integrity, sustainability and collaboration, even if it means not being as “profitable” as we could be. Some things are just more valuable than money.

Next week on the blog…

Our Growing Practices…