Millennial Maker: Kate Gilman, Founder of Petal by Pedal

What inspired you to start Petal by Pedal?

Petal by Pedal was inspired by the fact that in New York City (and almost everywhere) there was no option for buying locally grown flowers online. In a much broader sense, I found inspiration in how green the flower industry was not. Beyond the lack of accountability and heart when buying flowers on traditional online customer courier websites, the story of how most flowers come to be in your vase was not being told. I believed there had to be a more meaningful way, so I sought out to create an alternative.

On a personal level, I chose to switch gears into entrepreneurship after law school because I was motivated by the creativity that running your own company allows (and demands).

How would you describe the purpose of Petal by Pedal?

Petal by Pedal seeks to disrupt and redefine the timeless gesture of sending flowers. We are simplifying the process and finding the sweet spot of farmers market quality and e-commerce accessibility.

How are you creating a community around the Petal by Pedal brand, both on the sourcing and consumer side?

Within Petal by Pedal, one of the communities we embrace is the farmers from which we source. We look to build trusted partnerships with each of our famers in order to exchange constant feedback on what grows best for us with each farmer, what lasts the longest for the customer in the vase, and what our growers need from us in the way of support beyond purchase. In what can only be called a dying American industry, the small farmer holds a unique place in our business ecosystem and it is a pleasure to work with and support them.

Another community at the opposite end of the Petal by Pedal experience are our bicycle messengers. These are the select trained riders we entrust with our product, who are very much a part of our brand. We need our flowers, succulents and wreaths looking just like how they did when they left our hands at the workshop, and we need them arriving in as green a way as we can — we do this through curating a talented group of bikers to deliver them to your door.

With most flower companies, the delivery arm is an afterthought, but because we commit to the entirety of our story, how our product gets to the customer and who brings it is just as important as how we get our flowers in the first place.

On the consumer side, our communities range from people who subscribe to routine flower deliveries and follow us on all of our social media, to users who love our automation of thoughtfulness and want to spend as little time as possible ordering flowers (buy in bulk schedule out all of your deliveries at once), to corporate partners that we work with for large scale events. With all of these disparate communities, our favorite thing to do is bring them all together under one roof for our Petal by Pedal workshop events and pop-up sales in partner retail spaces.

How is Petal by Petal bridging the online and offline world and why is that so appealing to our generation?

As an e-commerce business, we have to be intentional about creating an in-person experience for our customers beyond just sending and receiving bouquets.

We love to bridge the online and offline worlds and connect the many arms of our operation through our bouquet and wreath building workshops and at our pop-up sales events.

We find that there is a kind of magic that happens in New York City when a group of perfect strangers come together for a single purpose — especially to create bouquets together. There is an incredible sense of connection when everyone is a curious beginner at something.

What advice would you give to future Millennial Makers?

You are young enough to take the leap to do what you’re passionate about. Keep an open mind. Let your life change and your imagination for your life change with it…and try to have the right patience and impatience with yourself along the way.

“Let your life change and your imagination for your life change with it.”

Most memorable startup moment?

Valentine’s 2014, our soft launch, which I spent running around New York City in a snow blizzard trying to get Petal by Pedal bouquet deliveries back on schedule in the storm. Our eight foot long white cargo bikes were lost in the snow and we had 100 bouquets to deliver in just a few hours.

That day helped me learn to not allow my eyes to be bigger than my stomach with what we could get done each day.

Words to live by?

This quote by Gilda Radner keeps me grounded in the many uncertain moments of entrepreneurship — to strive for balance and not perfection and to practice calm in the chaos:

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”