My New Idea

[Greenspace45]

Hi,

I have spent the last few weeks readying every “New business /growing your start up thread” since 2017. This is in an attempt to not repeat others mistakes and make sure my idea is workable. And…. Drum roll please….. IT IS!

So far I have

· Read Business for Dummies (library copy obviously– cant be wasting cash this early on)

· Written a rough business plan for me (I dont need outside funding)

· Opened a business bank account (as a sole trader)

· Registered a domain name for business and started on the website (well my IT brother is doing the brunt work and I am providing images and text)

· Starting working out the margin and mark up needed to remain competitive and earn a living

I still need to

· Set up fb and Instagram pages to market my business and decide on the other marketing plans.

· Trial the packaging options

· Work out all the varieties of item I will be selling

· Decide what my USP will be

· Decide on the best way to take payment from people


I am able to do this business alongside my current job role however I would like to drop down to 3 days a week at “real work”, and as long as I can earn enough in year 1 to cover the drop in pension contributions from employer by dropping hours I will be extremely happy.

So now – Please pick apart my idea and point out some flaws!

The Idea! I am going to start a plug plant business. Plug plants are the small plants that people buy to grow plants when they cant be bothered to sow seeds. There are a few big players who do this and several small players. I will be a small player. This year a lot of the big players posted out rubbish plants so have lost many customers; also the big players tend to only sell boring varieties and people want more fun varieties and head to specialist sellers to provide these. Also many people started to grow their own in lockdown as they had extra time and will want to continue but wont have the time to sow seeds, or space.

I have worked in horticulture for 10 years and have the space to do this in my garden (2 greenhouses and a polytunnel) to start so there is minimal outgoings.

Flaws I have thought of are that what if nobody buys any and I am stuck with lots of plants but a lot of people pre -order their plants and I thought any that were left over could be offered on local fb pages with free delivery/ turned into compost.

 

[Mr D]

Sounds reasonable.

May want to promote your business as 'Taking advance orders of 'Triffid' for dispatch from 30th November onwards' in time enough to plan your planting in advance.
If needing a week or two to get plant grown then put that into the description.

I'm technically one of your potential customers. I grow from seeds currently for most stuff but as you know the number of viable plants in a nursery can be a little variable.
Have had to throw away dozens of plants over the course of a year because I don't have the space in the spare room for them (hydroponics).

I know one of the little old ladies round the corner goes shopping all over to find nice young plants to put in her garden. Or she did up to this year.

Getting your business noticed is always going to the tough part.

This year is probably a no-show for this stuff but may want to figure out how to do a plant stall at local events next year.
I use a site called stallfinder to find out what events are happening near me, nothing like putting your products physically in front of people. And events usually are £5 to £15 a table.
Visitors can be handed your business card and a brochure, purchasers can have that placed in the bag / handed over too.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Firstly, well done on getting yourself informed of the basics - it really does help.

In your position my next step would be to think very seriously about who your target customer is - in great detail. Find out where they gather & consume information. Become a 'person of interest' on those platorms - answer questions, post fun articles, give tips etc.

 

[fisicx]

We get our plugs from dobies. They don’t grow anything until they get the orders in.

You will need catalogues to mail out and a huuuuuge field with greenhouses.

Don’t bother with FB/instagram. You need a decent marketing budget to compete with any of the existing providers. Unless you just plan on doing local in which case boot sales are a great place to flog ‘em.

 

[Greenspace45]

Thank you for your comments

@MrD yes absolutely will have advance orders with dispatch dates given. Good idea about the local events. We have alot in the village year year (currently 2 have tables from the allotment association so as long as I am at the preceding events each time that would work well).

@MarkTJones Im currently on alot of growing facebook pages with most having 10k-30k members. I am already quiet active on these (more organic pest/disease control based as that is what I originally qualified in) but I am far from a "top fan". Perhaps I should start using my business FB page to make these comments and up my involvement. Thank you for that idea. The customer base is a little harder as many many people buy plugs and all for different reasons. At this time of year its people who have suddenly realised they can get brassicas in the ground for winter if they buy plugs asap. Mid summer it can be people who have lost the first lot of plants to slugs. I need to work on how to appeal to them all but not waterdown my "brand". Extra thinking needed there.

@fisicx - Dobbies are what I would call a large player, but we all have to start somewhere dont we. It gives the option to scale up if its working, or close it down if it doesnt pay the bills. There are a few smaller players which is where I see myself sitting who use social media so I will give it a go. One in particular is very good and can see that their marketing appears to work (been around 10 years). If i am looking like my advance sales are minimal online by mid-March I will head to the car boot sales.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Things to consider is safe postage of the plugs, and would you be better off doing one selected range

My next door neighbour used to supply Just Sweet pea plugs from his greenhouse in Lincolnshire and grew it into quite a large company, experts on one chosen subject, worth thinking about rather than trying to be everything

 

[fisicx]

There are a few smaller players which is where I see myself sitting who use social media so I will give it a go.

Indeed. Use SM to tell your followers where you will be next Saturday or about the leeks you have for sale in your driveway. Keep it local, keep it personal and you can do really well. There is a lady near use who posts on various platforms and people just turn up to her house where she has loads of trays of plugs and young plants.

I really wouldn't bother with trying to do online sales. The packaging costs will wipe out all your profits unless you are fulfilling thousands of orders.

An alternative is to do a click and collect type thing. That way you can prepare the orders and they just pick then up at an arranged time.

This has got so much potential, just keep it simple.