“I've always been an artist,” says Rob Gooljar, founder of IRIS Blossom. “I've always been a creative person. I've created a variety of mixed media, including paintings, drawings, music, and photography, but my medium has shifted to flowers.”
In 2020, Gooljar was battling depression while studying for his Ph.D. He specializes in urban, social, and economic geography, and he credits his then-roommate Becca Whittier with being the “catalyst” for his new creative outlet. Whittier brought home flowers from Trader Joe's, and Goulger arranged them.
Image credit: Provided by IRIS Blossom
Arranging flowers became a passion, and Gooljar took to Instagram to bring others along on her artistic journey, especially those who feel excluded from an industry known for its lack of diversity. I decided to start. According to Zippia data, the average age of florists in the U.S. is 47 years old, and most are female (77.2%) and white (77.3%).
Gourjar used his social media platform to put out the representation he wanted to see. “Hey, I'm a queer black florist. I'm not really. I'm just playing with flowers, but look at me, and let's see.” What happens? “
What happened was that Iris Blossom, named after Iris, a pit bull that Gooljar rescued, became a successful business.
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People saw Gooljar's posts on his Instagram account, which grew from zero followers to more than 40,000, and began asking to buy arrangements. Over the past three and a half years, the bootstrapped company has fulfilled thousands of orders and generated more than $500,000 in revenue, and this is just the beginning.
Image credit: Provided by IRIS Blossom
Gooljar is expanding IRIS Blossom to South Florida, where it moved last year, and Whittier and two employees will continue to lead the company's operations in Greater Charlotte. Meanwhile, he is working with another business partner, Jihan Hanchel, to launch IRIS Blossom's sister business, Island IRIS, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The idea behind this is to provide “authentic design” for luxury events.
“He was really nice, but he looked at me and said, 'You can't get a business loan.'”
He points out that Mr. Gooljar is not entering this flower business “blindly.” He also runs a holding company and a consulting company. Still, despite Gooljar's entrepreneurial spirit and his IRIS track record of success and growth, his journey along the way has not been without some serious challenges. According to Gooljar, the biggest barriers he sees are two: funding and space. And in the flower industry, these tend to go hand in hand.
“It's very difficult for small businesses to survive without having an existing store in Charlotte,” Goulger said. “The existing meanings are: A, you come from money, or B, you have someone to help you. So we worked out of a two-bedroom apartment.” [when] We were hosting $15,000 to $16,000 events and doing it on a six-and-a-half foot long kitchen island. There were buckets all over the house. ”
Since its inception, IRIS Blossom has been “100% bootstrapped, and we've been able to achieve everything thanks to our supportive customers,” Gooljar said. The money we earn goes back into growing the company, and this strategy helped us reach the $500,000 revenue milestone in just a few years. But in the early days, Gooljar tried to secure a business loan but was turned down.
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“There was a white banker in Charlotte. He was very nice, but he looked at me and said, 'Well, you're not going to get a business loan because you have to stay in business for a few years.' '' Gooljar recalled. “And I asked, 'So how do people who are just starting a business get financing?' 'Oh, they probably have an online presence or maybe they get into it with money. And then you can put in the money yourself.'' Such a pseudonymous and less convincing explanation for fundraising and gatekeeping funds. ”
Finding space in Charlotte remained a major hurdle. Eventually, Goulger and Whittier moved into her three-bedroom apartment. But the rapidly growing business still didn't have enough room, and Gooljar didn't want to spend all the money he earned on rent. At one point, when I was looking for a reliable place to store expensive and perishable materials, someone offered to rent me an Airstream travel trailer for several thousand dollars a month without air conditioning or running water.
Gooljar currently lives and works from a home in Florida.
Image credit: Provided by IRIS Blossom
“It's great when people look at me and wonder how my business is doing. All I can do is smile and say, 'Yeah, it is.'”
While IRIS was blossoming, Gooljar says he had to “tread a few toes” within a closed-door industry and answer the pointed question, “So, who are you?” Masu. “Will your business last?” “How is your small business doing?” “How are your flowers doing?”
But none of that deterred Goulger. He comes from “a very long history of people working hard.”
“My grandmother cut down sugar cane in Trinidad for 40 years,” Goulger says. “My parents came here with nothing and worked and did their best. And I'm trying to change that. So people look at me and see that my business is doing well. It's great to wonder if you're doing it. That's all I can do.'' All you have to do is smile and say, “You know, I'm working on it.'' ”
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Goolger acknowledges that there is “still a long way to go” to transform the industry into a more inclusive space, but he is pleased to see other diverse flower businesses following in his footsteps in Charlotte. “Because there's room for everyone.''
“You see parts of the landscape change, especially when you walk into a flower cooler and you see a black person, or you walk into a flower cooler and you see a young person, or you walk into a flower cooler and you see someone with pink hair or something. ” says Gooljar.
“You have to keep moving forward in the face of obstacles, because there will always be people out to bring you down.”
Next, Gooljar plans to implement a national subscription program for IRIS, a kind of “color-by-numbers” approach. He ships flowers all over the country, and customers can watch videos of his arrangements. “Just as I needed an outlet for creativity, I want people who don’t feel creative in their current jobs or in their current lives to have that outlet,” he says. says.
In the long term, Gooljar's goal is to work with technology companies to allow people to order IRIS flowers through an app “like they would use Uber.” But even though Gooljar envisions his IRIS as a large-scale service that allows employees to “bloom their own little mini-IRIS flowers from home,” quality remains a top priority.
Image credit: Provided by IRIS Blossom
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Gooljar is committed to training team members to maintain the brand's high standards as the company continues to expand into other U.S. cities. It's not always easy. Gooljar admits there were “many times” when he thought of giving up, but he always kept moving forward. His belief that great things were on the other side never wavered.
“Ask anyone I know and they'll tell you they don't know anyone who's as abrasive as I am,” Goolger says. “And I'm not saying you have to always throw yourself into everything. But a big part of this is that you have to face those obstacles and keep moving forward. I think so, because there are always people who are preying on it.''
