GARY: Next on Start Up, we head to Tampa, Florida to meet up with David and Stephanie Frank, the founders of Posies Flower Truck, a make-your-own- bouquet popup business.

All of this and more is next on Start Up.

♪ ANNOUNCER: The first time you made a sale online with GoDaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named Dinosaur, Colorado.

MAN: We just got an order from Dinosaur, Colorado.

ANNOUNCER: Build a website to help reach more customers.

WOMAN: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, one more.

ANNOUNCER: Learn more at GoDaddy dot com.

ANNOUNCER: Wearing a lot of hats can bog you down.

Thryv, the all-in-one small business management software can help you manage every aspect of your business, from a single screen with one log in and one dashboard.

Thryv is a proud supporter of Start Up.

ADRIENNE: There is a challenge every day when you've got a small business.

It's a little nerve wrecking, but it's also fun.

ANNOUNCER: More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Adrienne at Blue Henry.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: At Florida State University, entrepreneurship and innovation are core values.

The FSU Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship offers bachelor's and master's programs taught by entrepreneurs willing to share their knowledge and connections.

FSU is a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Spectrum Business is a proud supporter of Start Up.

Providing connectivity for small businesses with internet, phone and mobile solutions available.

Information available at Spectrum dot com slash business.

♪ GARY: My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country continues to recover from extraordinary challenges, small business owners are showing us why they are the backbone of the American economy.

We've set out for our 11th consecutive season, talking with a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they've learned, to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves.

♪ This is Start Up.

♪ Forestry is the production, commerce, and trade in flowers.

It encompasses flower care and handling, floral design and arrangement, merchandising, production, display, and flower delivery.

Retail florists offer fresh flowers and related products and services to consumers.

Today, I'm traveling to Tampa, Florida to meet up with David and Stephanie Frank, the owners of Posies, a popup, make-your-own- bouquet flower truck.

From what I know, David and Stephanie owned two tech- based businesses in the Tampa Bay area for over 30 years.

But when the opportunity came up to buy a classic VW bus in 2017, they jumped at the chance, and Posies was reborn.

I'm excited to meet the Franks and learn more about their journey from tech to flowers.

♪ What is Posies?

STEPHANIE: Wow.

Right off the bat.

GARY: Boom.

I'm coming out the gate hot.

(laughs) STEPHANIE: Posies is an experience.

It's an opportunity to make your own personalized bouquet using single stems out of a classic vehicle.

I call myself the accidental florist.

GARY: Awesome.

STEPHANIE: I spent the majority of my career in technical, IT support, web development, marketing, social media, and had the opportunity to jump into this amazing little business of happiness.

And (chuckles) it's been nothing short of remarkable.

GARY: I would assume you owned your own firm or business.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

Yes.

GARY: Tell me about that.

STEPHANIE: My husband and I, some 30 years ago, started an IT company and, yeah.

So for 30 years, side by side, he and I have worked together.

And throughout the career and time, we jumped into web development and created two companies.

I ran the web, he ran the IT.

When we had the opportunity to dive into this business, we looked at it as our second act.

Like, let's be done... GARY: Okay, it's awesome.

STEPHANIE: With the tech world and the fast paced of the web world... GARY: Yup.

STEPHANIE: And kind of ride off into the sunset in a cool vehicle selling flowers, and let's just operate it out of the garage.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: And it just be this cool thing we do because neither my husband nor I wanted to sit around.

And little did we know, we just basically stepped into a vortex of fun.

♪ GARY: In what ways did that help to create a foundation for Posies?

DAVID: Really went through everything as a startup.

We had the infamous Y2K, the 2000s.

GARY: I remember it.

DAVID: We had 2008, 2009.

The economy was really tough.

GARY: Yep.

DAVID: We went through COVID and how are you gonna adjust and make it through COVID.

If you don't have all the skills in the beginning, you're gonna learn them, too.

You're gonna learn a little bit about marketing, a little bit about accounting, and how to make sure that you're staying on top of bills and revenue, and that things are still on track to make money.

So, able to really pull all of that together over the years... GARY: Yeah DAVID: And apply it a second time in another startup.

GARY: Did you sell the businesses, the digital businesses?

STEPHANIE: So we did sell the IT company.

It'll be two years in November.

That went through an acquisition.

My husband is working with the company that acquired us at this moment.

The web business, I still own and operate.

GARY: Okay.

STEPHANIE: So I'm running both at the moment, and it's been a challenge.

GARY: Talk about the moment that the opportunity presented itself for this.

STEPHANIE: We purchased our much beloved Sky VW bus six years ago, and Sky was sort of a dream of mine.

It was a '65 split-window bus.

I always wanted one.

I don't know why.

I love the way they smell.

I love the way they sound.

One day, driving Sky into our mechanic, I call him the VW Whisperer.

He comes running to me, the VW Whisperer, and says, "I think the Posie business is going up for sale."

Posie had made an appearance in Tampa Bay about three months after we purchased Sky.

GARY: Okay.

STEPHANIE: The minute I saw it, I fell in love.

I was blown away.

I was like, "That is just the coolest thing ever."

GARY: What was Posie at that point?

In a VW?

STEPHANIE: Posie was a flower truck.

Yeah, Posies was this.

So, I followed Posie.

I was a stalker.

I loved everything about the business.

I thought the brand was spot on from my marketing background, just everything I loved.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: And my mechanic knew that I had this affection towards the truck.

So the minute he saw the opportunity, when I pulled in, literally, he ran to me and says, "I think Posies business is going up for sale."

My husband was pulling in behind me.

I told him, he's like, "Call her."

So I called her and made my introduction and said, "We're really interested."

At that point, it was kind of this, like, dream.

Is this really going to happen?

GARY: Mm-hmm.

STEPHANIE: You know, we kinda have a little vision board.

I wrote, "Make it happen."

And we just, from that point, just worked diligently to make everything happen to acquire this business.

GARY: Was the business in a good spot?

And why was she selling?

STEPHANIE: Oh.

So, this is a hard business.

It is physical.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: There is a lot that goes into it.

GARY: I can imagine.

STEPHANIE: And I don't know 100%.

As I'm learning, when you add more trucks, you add more volume, and it's just more work.

GARY: More work.

STEPHANIE: And she was running out of her garage, which we were like, "Cool, we're gonna do the same thing.

Easy peasy.

Couple days a week.

Ride off into the sunset selling flowers."

And it quickly became apparent that it was way more than what we could do out of the garage.

GARY: So the demand was there.

STEPHANIE: Oh, the demand... GARY: You're like... STEPHANIE: Is what surprised me.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: The volume and the demand.

There is no way to describe how this opens doors to places that, from small to medium-sized businesses, to brand names, to...

It's just been incredible who we've been able to work with, from some of the biggest companies here locally to some national brands that just adore the product.

GARY: They just want it around... STEPHANIE: They want it.

GARY: 'Cause it looks so cool.

STEPHANIE: It does.

It's one of the top 10 most Instagram-able things here in the state of Florida.

GARY: Really?

STEPHANIE: Oh, yeah.

So we have people come from all over just to get their 'gram moment with the truck.

GARY: Wow.

STEPHANIE: And they not only want a picture with the truck.

They want a picture with the Posie logo.

You can't pay for that, you know.

GARY: No, you cannot.

STEPHANIE: The community in this area has just stepped in, and they just have embraced this business.

They love it.

Posie just screams happy.

And I realized early, when I stepped into this, that I've stepped into something really special.

DAVID: The Posie opportunity was out there, and we're like, "We could add that with Sky, and we could kinda create a business."

And we thought... GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: Originally, maybe something small and a little bit simple, but we don't do anything simple, so.

GARY: The ball gets rolling, and then all of a sudden, it's a global enterprise.

DAVID: Yeah, I did all this work to build out our garage.

GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: I rented places for the cars.

I turned the garage into a studio, and I did all that work for six months.

And then we needed to move into big warehouse space, so.

GARY: Wow.

DAVID: But at least my garage looks great now, so.

GARY: Let's talk about the purchase process.

STEPHANIE: We applied and did get some funding from a local credit union who bent over backwards.

And we also self- funded the other half.

GARY: How long did you roll with that first one, pun intended, before you realized we need a second truck for volume?

STEPHANIE: It became quickly apparent that the demand was so high that we needed more than one truck.

So, six months later, we had our second truck, and I have called it Daisy.

Come to find out, Daisy is 100% original.

GARY: Wow.

STEPHANIE: So everything about her is stock.

Original engine.

Odometer works.

We paused and said, "Oh, boy, do we really wanna put her to work?"

Because she's so special.

GARY: No early retirement for Daisy.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that brought us to the third truck, because Daisy's too special.

Can't work her as hard as we do Miss Posie.

This is that vortex... GARY: Universe.

STEPHANIE: Or universe that I talk about.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: My daughter, Madison, who you'll get to meet, had called me hysterical about a bar cart that she saw.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: And she's like, "Mom, you gotta get this bar cart."

And it was yellow.

And I said, "It's yellow.

No, it doesn't fit."

About an hour later, we get a little message on Instagram, and it's from a woman in Georgia who had a flower truck company, and her and her husband made the hard decision to sell that company.

GARY: Okay.

STEPHANIE: And she asked us if we would be interested in acquiring their assets, which included two more trucks... GARY: Wow.

STEPHANIE: Hence four and five.

GARY: Another company.

STEPHANIE: Another company.

I also got a little message from the woman selling, "And by the way, I'm gonna throw in this bar cart that we got."

GARY: So there's the bar cart.

STEPHANIE: And it was blue.

GARY: Oh, my gosh.

This is too much.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

So, we were like, "Yeah, we're gonna buy the business."

And so we pretty much right then and there told her, "Yes."

♪ GARY: Tell me about this baby right here.

DAVID: Well, this is the first one.

This is Posies, right?

GARY: Okay.

DAVID: And this started the whole thing.

Custom aluminum built, lightweight bucket holders trimmed with the wood, gives it that nice, nice look.

GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: And it's a '68.

GARY: Red interior.

DAVID: It's got the bright red interior.

We're really solid on the branding.

And it's based on the blue.

GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: And it's based on the Posie name, and the whole thing becomes this lovable character.

Here's the work.

The show and the magic is when we're out on site, and we pop up somewhere, the people come out.

GARY: Yep.

DAVID: The stories come out.

The good times, taking their picture.

GARY: Mm-hmm.

DAVID: We do anything to help that experience.

That 20 minutes or so, they build an experience.

We sit back and watch it, and we're totally amazed.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ GARY: In terms of like setting the truck up somewhere to generate sales, does it work similarly to, like, food trucks where you have to get a license?

DAVID: Our lease agreement is a high-end shopping location.

And you may have seen this trend in the past where a mall will use outside space or even inside space to set up smaller kiosk-like businesses.

GARY: Kiosks, yeah.

DAVID: We have a lease agreement there.

And in that location, it's worth it.

It's a great location.

But that's the anomaly, because all the other things are collaboration with the business owners.

It's private property.

Don't need any kind of permit.

They're inviting us onto their property.

We're setting up there.

We're bringing customers to them.

GARY: Yep.

DAVID: Their customers are shopping with us.

GARY: It's synergy, yep.

DAVID: It's a collaboration.

The flowers are fresh cut flowers.

They don't fall under any kinda agriculture rule like planted flowers.

So there's really no real oversight on fresh cut stem flowers.

That's why we do flowers.

GARY: Sure.

DAVID: And we don't do plants.

GARY: Where do you and how do you source your flowers?

STEPHANIE: So our flowers are sourced from farms across the world.

GARY: Across the world?

STEPHANIE: Across the world.

GARY: Interesting.

STEPHANIE: It is crazy.

Florida is harsh.

There's not a lot that we can really grow here.

So we do have to source.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: And we go to California.

We go to Holland.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: We pride ourselves on sourcing from the best.

And we want that high- quality flower all the time.

GARY: With that comes a probably pretty extreme reduction in your margin.

STEPHANIE: You would be surprised.

GARY: Really?

STEPHANIE: Brick and mortar florist typically has about a 500% markup.

GARY: Really?

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

GARY: I'm in the wrong business.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: The flower business is good.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: But it's hard, hard work.

GARY: You said a 500% margin roughly on a brick and mortar, which you don't have the fixed expenses of a brick and mortar... STEPHANIE: Correct.

GARY: So your margin's higher.

STEPHANIE: Yes.

GARY: Okay.

STEPHANIE: Correct.

We're not marking it up as high as a brick and mortar because we don't have to.

So our prices... GARY: Gotcha.

STEPHANIE: Tend to be a little better.

GARY: I'm very inexperienced when it comes to cutting flowers, preparing a bouquet.

I'm more of a go to the store and buy it kinda guy.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

GARY: So, I'm excited.

STEPHANIE: You're the perfect kind of Posie customer.

GARY: Okay, perfect.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, we're gonna convert you.

So basically, what we do is we just start to build.

We take all of our different flowers.

This is, of course, a garden rose.

This is a sunflower.

GARY: Is there any science to arranging a bouquet?

Is it truly subjective?

All about your creative taste?

STEPHANIE: You cannot do it wrong.

GARY: That looks beautiful.

STEPHANIE: So here's- this is sort of a typical Posie bouquet.

GARY: Okay.

And what would that cost if I came up to the truck to arrange that?

STEPHANIE: So this one, probably, we've got some of the higher end, the protea, the peonies, of course, is always a little bit more expensive.

GARY: Sure.

STEPHANIE: It's probably in a 50, $60 range.

GARY: That's still really great.

STEPHANIE: It is.

GARY: I mean, that's not even a third of the cost of two roses on Valentine's Day.

STEPHANIE: Oh, yeah.

And what's- the beauty of this is, is that the person that comes to the truck, they could just do one and spend $3 or $5.

GARY: And walk away?

Yeah.

STEPHANIE: Nobody is saying, "Oh, you have to spend X."

♪ GARY: Amazing.

STEPHANIE: Yeah.

GARY: Thank you.

STEPHANIE: You're welcome.

GARY: Talk about, I guess, from like a connectivity standpoint right now.

Talk about that.

STEPHANIE: We have our, of course, have our website.

That is a big part of what we do.

We have e-commerce set up on it.

When we decided to put point of sale on the trucks, we went full point of sale.

We didn't do just a little handheld device.

GARY: Sure.

STEPHANIE: Didn't wanna use a tablet.

We just wanted that full, GARY: An actual POS system.

STEPHANIE: An actual POS system.

Again, having that technology background has really served us well in the business from that standpoint.

GARY: Talk about everyone who works in the Posie business with you right now.

STEPHANIE: We are the definition of a small business.

My daughter, Madison, has stepped in, thankfully, to help.

My husband, David, is in the background.

And then we rely heavily on our freelance people that come in to help during those busy holidays.

We want to continue to grow and bring people in.

That's the next step, is to kind of go from this small, everybody does 15 things, to where we start to release some of that.

GARY: What do you do at Posies?

MADISON: Well, it's more like what do I not do?

GARY: What don't you do?

Yeah.

MADISON: Yeah.

Mainly, my title is Buyer and Special Event Planner/Coordinator.

I went to Florida State University.

I graduated in 2014 from their retail merchandising and product development program.

It taught me how to source the goods, looking for the lowest cost, doing a lot of the analytics on the financials, what sells the best.

GARY: What did you think when your parents came to you and you learned like they were gonna start a flower truck business?

MADISON: I was like, "She's obsessed.

She might need an intervention."

Like it's all she could talk about for, like, months.

And I couldn't quite understand and grasp the concept and the impact that it had... GARY: Yeah.

MADISON: Until I joined on about a year ago, almost a year ago, and it's eyeopening.

I understand the obsession now.

We're building a legacy, and the goal at some point is, I think, for me to take over the company when they're ready to be done.

GARY: Yeah.

MADISON: And that is just such a- it's a gift.

And then it's also like, no pressure.

GARY: The brand is so awesome.

Like in what other ways could this crossover into other forms of media?

DAVID: We started some things with merchandise with like shirts and things like that.

Again, because people love the name, and so they wanna see that in other formats as well.

GARY: Sure.

DAVID: Families come to do the flowers.

They have their kids in tow.

We created coloring pages for them, and they love it.

And that keeps them busy while mom's building a bouquet.

So, the next possibility of that, we've been kicking around, is taking that to a full children's book or a full coloring book.

And then people bring their dogs.

They'll pick 'em up, and they'll put 'em on the bus, and they'll take a picture, the cutest picture of the little puppy with all the flowers.

GARY: Yeah.

DAVID: We have so many of those that we're thinking about creating... GARY: A book?

A coffee table book?

DAVID: Like a coffee table book.

"The Dogs of Posie," right?

GARY: Oh, that is great.

This business is only a couple years old, correct?

So still really a baby.

It's brand new.

STEPHANIE: It is.

GARY: At what point do you foresee becoming profitable?

STEPHANIE: We're really hoping by year three, 'cause we're in year two.

GARY: Okay.

Wow.

STEPHANIE: That we're gonna start to turn that corner.

GARY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: The goal is by having more trucks on the road.

GARY: More value.

STEPHANIE: More value.

And we are in the early stages of potentially franchising.

GARY: What would a franchisee get?

STEPHANIE: So the franchisee will get a truck.

It's gonna be completely built out, branded.

And then they're gonna get all the back office support.

GARY: Yep.

STEPHANIE: Web development, we're gonna help them with that.

We'll do all the social media.

And then... GARY: Wow.

STEPHANIE: We're gonna be able to source all the flowers together, which is gonna continue to bring the cost down because now our volume's even higher.

GARY: Ever since I arrived here, I've heard a lot of mentions about the universe, and the universe bringing things in.

Talk about what that is and what that means to you.

DAVID: One of the ways that started was, is that Stephanie created a kind of like a wish board, like a make it happen.

GARY: A vision board.

DAVID: A vision board.

"We're gonna get that bus."

And then we get it.

"Okay, well, then we're gonna get more buses."

If you have goals, you gotta write 'em down.

When you write them down... GARY: They become real.

DAVID: It becomes a little bit more real.

Then you're looking at that, and you're thinking about it that more often.

GARY: What advice would you have for second career folks that have maybe done something for a long time, one thing, but aren't ready to hang it up and retire?

DAVID: I would say more times than not, a lot of people have something that they wish that they had done.

GARY: Yes.

DAVID: But they stayed on this other career path for 30 years.

Well, guess what?

Now's the time you can go back and chase this other dream.

"It's never too late," is what they say.

So, whether it's something completely unexpected or something that you always wanted to do, why not give it a try?

GARY: David and Stephanie's story is incredibly inspiring.

And it goes to show that it's never too late to write your own second act in life.

And talking to Stephanie made me realize that their story is so much about the power of manifestation, also known as the Law of Attraction.

It's about visualizing your desired outcome so vividly that it feels real, and then trusting the universe to make it happen.

And from what Stephanie said, this is exactly how Posies was born.

She obsessed over it.

And as her daughter said, it's all she could think and talk about for months.

So she was already living in the reality that she wanted to create.

This concept became popularized by the book and film called "The Secret."

But ultra-successful people have sworn by this belief principle for ages.

And I've witnessed this energy in many successful people over the years, and David and Stephanie are no exception.

From their marketing and IT business, and now with Posies, where they focus on bringing joy and beauty into people's lives, they're part of an amazing community, and they're spreading a nostalgic message of peace with their classic VW buses and making people smile while creating their perfect bouquet of flowers.

It's all positive.

And regardless of what stage of life that you're in, when you pursue your dreams with integrity, passion, and purpose, the universe always seems to respond by presenting the exact life that you deserve.

I can't wait to see what the future holds for Posies, but I have no doubt that it will be exactly how David and Stephanie imagined it to be.

For more information, visit our website and search episodes for Posies.

Next time on Start Up, we head to Armada, Michigan to meet up with Barb Kent and Joanna Serra, the founders of Birdie Boutique, a Michigan-based textile manufacturing company.

Be sure to join us next time on Start Up.

Would you like to learn more about the show or maybe nominate a business?

Visit our website at startup-usa.com and connect with us on social media.

GARY: (gasps) What happened?

PASCAL: I put the bird strikes on.

GARY: Oh!

WOMAN: Yay.

(laughs) GARY: Thank you so much.

WOMAN 2: You're welcome.

WOMAN 3: Next on Start Up.

(laughs) WOMAN 4: Gary Bredow.

Superstar.

Okay.

GARY: With no nose.

ANNOUNCER: Spectrum Business is a proud supporter of Start Up.

Providing connectivity for small businesses with internet, phone and mobile solutions available.

Information available at Spectrum dot com slash business.

ANNOUNCER: At Florida State University, entrepreneurship and innovation are core values.

The FSU Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship offers bachelor's and master's programs taught by entrepreneurs willing to share their knowledge and connections.

FSU is a proud supporter of Start Up.

NADIA: My dad always told me to be passionate about what you do.

and if you're truly passionate about what you do every day, it's not hard work.

ANNOUNCER: More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers like Nadia at Dumpling Daughter.

Amazon, a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: Wearing a lot of hats can bog you down.

Thryv, the all-in-one small business management software can help you manage every aspect of your business, from a single screen with one log in and one dashboard.

Thryv is a proud supporter of Start Up.

ANNOUNCER: The first time you made a sale online with GoDaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named Dinosaur, Colorado.

MAN: We just got an order from Dinosaur, Colorado.

ANNOUNCER: Build a website to help reach more customers.

WOMAN: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, one more.

ANNOUNCER: Learn more at GoDaddy dot com.