This week we revisit our very first episode of Who's Driving we go back to Chapter 1 to tell you how we got to where we are today, how we all met, and our friendship dynamic. Daniel (Wesley's husband) owner of Petal Pickers joins us for the ride too. Follow Daniel on Instagram at @Petalpickers Follow Steven on Instagram at @Keepinupwithsteven and follow Wesley on Instagram at @Farmshenanigans. Visit our websites at www.PetalPickers.com for farm fresh flowers and www.TheNestedFig.com for our online home and garden boutique.
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Buckle Up and Hit That Follow Button.
Who's driving with Wesley Turner & Steven Merck will take you on an entertaining ride.
Who's driving is all about the entertaining stories we share & brainstorming topics we discuss as two best friends would on a long road trip. Along the way we will pick up a few friends and offer a wide range of informative topics centered around running small businesses, social media, and all things home and garden.
This week we revisit our very first episode of Who's Driving we go back to Chapter 1 to tell you how we got to where we are today, how we all met, and our friendship dynamic. Daniel (Wesley's husband) owner of Petal Pickers joins us for the ride too. Follow Daniel on Instagram at @Petalpickers Follow Steven on Instagram at @Keepinupwithsteven and follow Wesley on Instagram at @Farmshenanigans. Visit our websites at www.PetalPickers.com for farm fresh flowers and www.TheNestedFig.com for our online home and garden boutique.
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Buckle Up and Hit That Follow Button.
Who's driving with Wesley Turner & Steven Merck will take you on an entertaining ride.
Who's driving is all about the entertaining stories we share & brainstorming topics we discuss as two best friends would on a long road trip. Along the way we will pick up a few friends and offer a wide range of informative topics centered around running small businesses, social media, and all things home and garden.
Let's do it Ready. Let's do it Okay. Okay, Episode one welcome to who's Driving. I'm Wesley Turner.
Speaker 2:And I'm Stephen Merck. We're two best friends and entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Who's Driving is an entertaining look into the behind the scenes of our lives, friendship and business.
Speaker 2:These are the stories we share and topics we discuss, as two best friends would on a long road trip.
Speaker 1:Along the way, we'll check in with friends and offer a wide range of informative topics centered around running small businesses, social media and all things home and garden.
Speaker 2:Buckle up and enjoy the ride. You never know who's driving or where we're headed.
Speaker 1:All we know is it's always a fun ride, and riding along with us today we have my husband and owner of Petal Pickers, Daniel Shavey. Hey, put your seat belts on.
Speaker 3:Buckle up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in today's episode, we thought we would start at the very beginning and fill you in on how we all met, cause we've been knowing each other for a while, long time.
Speaker 2:This is about 14, 15 years, Going on 15. Okay, so we gotta go back to chapter one and catch everyone up.
Speaker 3:How was a baby?
Speaker 1:You were a baby, an infant. An infant Because I get questions every day on how we met, like how we met, how Stephen and I met, how we got to where we are with the business, how we're not a threple.
Speaker 3:That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2:We're not a threple.
Speaker 3:My mom's asked us before no, uh-uh I had to clear that out.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, yeah, around town I feel like people never know who's actually in the relationship together. They don't.
Speaker 3:Because Stephen called me Stephen, people have called Stephen Daniel. We're just like whatever.
Speaker 1:I've just like. Whatever it's true, even at market we've had reps that say something to Stephen Like, oh, how are the flowers going? And Stephen will respond I don't live on a farm, I live in the city. And then he just leaves them standing there and they're so confused.
Speaker 2:And then yeah, because for years they've gone thinking we're a couple, yeah, and I'm like we're not.
Speaker 1:And then they think we've split up. You can read it on the paper. Yeah, they're like so confused.
Speaker 3:And then Daniel pops in after not going to market for four years, and then they're like, ooh, he got a younger man. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we have to go back to like chapter one how it all started. Ok, like, tell us how you guys met.
Speaker 1:Oh, OK, we met. How did we meet?
Speaker 3:In Greenville, south Carolina. I was fresh out of college, like I had just moved to Greenville. I think when we went on our first day it was the first week that I lived downtown Greenville and I was like ready to take on downtown Greenville. I was ready to go party, have fun, and then and you went to Clemson.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you were really doing a good job at doing that Well yeah, but I just moved downtown Like I was about to take it to the next level and then Went from downtown Clemson to downtown Greenville. I did the big city.
Speaker 2:So it was a big move.
Speaker 1:Met West online back before the apps yes, and you had just recently graduated and I had just recently gotten out of a relationship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you were in a five year relationship before we met and I was a little worried about that because it was pretty recent. And you told me, and I was like mm. Yeah, you thought you were going to be the rebound. Yeah, you were worried. I told my best friend I remember saying that like I don't want to be the rebound, but anyways, we set it up to go on a date and I remember I was meeting you like downtown across from Trio restaurant, which is like in the center of downtown Greenville, and you were sitting on a bench and I thought you were really cute. When I walked up and we had a lovely dinner and then I think we like hung out. My friend worked at a bar across the street. I took you there to meet her and we just kind of hit it off and it was like I'd love to see you again. I knew like after two minutes, something is well. Number one, this guy's very attractive and number two, I was like something's different. I could just tell, yeah, there was something different.
Speaker 1:Little did I know there was a lot and then we started dating like right after that and we've been together ever since.
Speaker 3:Like we started, we did like the stay at home Like we each would separate, go to our own places for not very long, like two weeks, and then that was it, like we were together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you had a cool place downtown so we had hang out down there on the weekend and then I think, during the week some you would come to my house and then that was it.
Speaker 3:I had a rooftop patio. That was a really crappy but really cool apartment.
Speaker 2:I remember you taking me up. You took me up to that bar, that rooftop bar, and you were like here's where I live.
Speaker 3:I live, yeah, yeah, new store to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 1:OK, so we met in 2008, and that was the beginning of everything.
Speaker 3:there I was 22 years old.
Speaker 1:That was September. September 30th 2008, is when we met, went on our first date. So then, after that, let's see where did we go from there? So we started dating. Everything was good. Steven wasn't in the picture yet. No, no, no one knew Steven existed. Steven came in later. So, from there, I was working at a garden center and I was the manager at a local garden center. Daniel was fresh out of college, looking for a job. Looking for a job because it was the rough market of 2008, 2009.
Speaker 3:That was a lovely time to graduate college Seriously, and Wes had the idea of wanting to start his own business because he had had one before and other places that he had lived. But you're working at this garden center in town as the manager and you kind of were. You had different ideas than your boss did and wanted to start your own place. So I was able to totally jump on board with that idea and we started roots together on Augusta Street.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we started working on roots. So we met in September of 2008 and we started working on it around. March April 1st End of, because my birthday is March 30th and I remember I just turned 28. And then we started working on it, like the idea of it in April, maybe March April, sort of thing. I was 28 and you were 22?.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 23. Well, I was 23.
Speaker 1:You turned 23 by then and I was 28. How, I don't even know how we got to it. I mean, I was crazy. It was crazy. I was determined. So I was like, ok, I want my own business, I want to do this plant boutique. I had a vision, wanted it to be different, and Daniels was looking for a job. So he was like, well, I can help you with this. So we started looking for places and got the ball rolling and so I ended up we opened it with just $20,000 or was it $25,000?
Speaker 2:Something I think it was 20.
Speaker 3:I think it was 20,000. It was nothing.
Speaker 1:It was nothing. I do not know how we did it. I mean, the thing was I was like, well, I'm just working this job, I haven't really climbed a ladder yet. You were fresh out of college, so you were used to living college life, so we were able to live very cheaply. We hadn't gotten used to the finer things yet. So we started this garden shop and secured the space for it. I was still working at the garden center that I was the manager of, so it was a secret that we were going to do this. So Daniel would work on it all day long while I was at work, and then when I would get off work at night, we would go work on it as well, because the building was just a plane, I mean it needed all the work kind of thing. And so we did that. And then so, when we got that done, we ended up opening in August of that year, and so that was the beginning of the garden shop. So that was Roots, which is now the nested big garden, and we started that in 2009.
Speaker 3:So then we were working there and our friend Steven lived down the street from the garden center.
Speaker 2:Yes, that fall. We met when you were. I remember the first time I met you. I don't know if you remember you. This is good, hit on me, no.
Speaker 1:I did not.
Speaker 2:I came by and you guys were trying to make the front of the store look like a gingerbread house. Oh yeah, Was it working? And it was falling off.
Speaker 3:We were using some kind of adhesive, or was it glue sticks?
Speaker 1:Well, we had taken foam board and cut it to the size of the front of our building in panels, and then we were trying to secure it to the front of the building Because we didn't know the building, we didn't own the building.
Speaker 3:So we couldn't do anything too extreme it was really cute and it was super cute. We did get it.
Speaker 2:That was the first time we met and I was just coming to see the store and we were like talking through it because it wasn't working and we were throwing out ideas on what would make it stay on the building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing, we ran it it fell apart. Yeah, but we kept gluing it back up every day.
Speaker 2:Ok, so the customers didn't know and didn't you win the contest.
Speaker 1:There wasn't a contest.
Speaker 2:I thought there was a contest.
Speaker 3:I thought there was for the Augusta Road, just decorating for the holidays. I think you won oh.
Speaker 1:I thought we just wanted to get noticed.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it was a contest with the Augusta Road Association. Oh, I forgot that part.
Speaker 1:So then after that Stephen started stopping by because you literally lived like one block from the store, so Stephen started hanging out at the store.
Speaker 3:Helping us do displays, just really just helping, because he just liked the store Well, creative outlet.
Speaker 2:It was because I was poor, because I just I mean, just bought my first McDonald's. Yeah, so think you know I was poor. I had all my money went into buying that first McDonald's and I worked seven days a week and I had nothing. I couldn't afford to do anything else but coming out at your store, you're single, so that's single.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's when we met you, so tell us about your history. Where did you grow up? Okay. Where'd you go to school? How did you end up? In McDonald's, okay, and you just mentioned that you bought a McDonald's.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I grew up in the Clemson Six Mile South Carolina area on a pig farm. No, not a pig farm.
Speaker 3:But I say that, but y'all had pigs.
Speaker 2:We did have pigs. His family had pigs. Yes, I grew up farming, literally milking cows and riding horses and all that.
Speaker 1:I had to be a whole past life. I cannot take sure you're doing that or even remotely have an image of it.
Speaker 3:Stephen's always been willing to like jump in and do stuff though, but yeah, and it was you know it was.
Speaker 2:It was fine then and it was. You know, when you grow up in a small town like that, that's all I knew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it wasn't like it was.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't know traveling to other countries or heaven forbid even having any money Right. So I didn't know life and I. So I went to Clemson. I graduated from Clemson, but before then I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. When I was 14, I started working at McDonald's.
Speaker 3:This is such a good. I tell people your story all the time.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a lie, but it was really the truth. Right, I started working at 14 and I went home one day and literally told my mom I was like I think I was 15. I remember the day I said, yeah, I'm going to buy McDonald's. And she said, oh my gosh, please tell me you're not going to just drop out of school and work for McDonald's. And my mother's rolling over in her grave for me telling that. But it was true and it's kind of funny. I said, no, ma'am, I'm going to, I'm going to college, I'm going to graduate, but I'm buying McDonald's. And my mother was awesome and she was like, oh yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 3:What'd you like about McDonald's? I?
Speaker 2:love the people, I love the fast pace and I loved everything about it, but I didn't. I really didn't give myself the credit. I can look back and see now, because I looked around and this sounds ugly and arrogant. I don't mean it that way, but I looked around and I was like, wow, I really get this. I mean, all you're doing is making that burger, you're passing it over the counter, you're bringing in money.
Speaker 3:It's providing a good product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you understood the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was simple.
Speaker 3:It was simple and you're a hard worker, just like us.
Speaker 2:And I looked around and I was like I'm smarter than anybody in here, I can do this, and I don't mean that that sounds bad, but I'm saying from a 14, 15 year old kid's perspective. That's how I looked at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now obviously, everyone else was struggling. They didn't know how to do anything.
Speaker 2:And I guess I was just crazy enough to think, oh, I've got this.
Speaker 1:So I well, and most teenagers at that point, are looking at it it's just a job, right. And you were like I understand this, I could do well. I can do well at this.
Speaker 2:And so I went to Clemson and then in between my breaks at Clemson I did all my management training classes with McDonald's. So when I graduated from Clemson I started out as a restaurant manager, and then I was a training manager, and then I was a supervisor, and then I was a director of operations and so on. And you know, I just kept growing with the business. You just stuck with it.
Speaker 3:Stuck with it. Part of the story I always tell people is about and not just your family to get too close to that or anything. But people looked at you like and they made comments like oh, you graduated Clemson and you still work at McDonald's. Like you persevered through all the criticisms and comments that people would make to you. I literally knew you'd work in at McDonald's with a college degree.
Speaker 2:Yes, I literally had a family member that I will not name.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's name it.
Speaker 2:Him or her. Well, it's the aunt that I no longer claim. Oh, sounds like that. She actually said to me when are you going to get a real job? And it was so. It made me so mad and I just smiled and I said I have a real job. You know, this is my plan and it took me 19 years. But, you stuck with it, I stuck with it and it paid off.
Speaker 3:It paid off Working at McDonald's for 19 years and then.
Speaker 2:I bought my first McDonald's.
Speaker 1:And so you bought your first McDonald's. This ties back into 2009. When you bought it? So that's when we opened the garden shop.
Speaker 2:We'll have to do a whole 2008, 2009.
Speaker 3:Okay, 2008. We'll have to do a whole podcast on your McDonald's story, because that's cool, but I just love that you stuck with it and then got McDonald's, but I think that's with everything Right.
Speaker 2:I think that experience taught me you can persevere and make you know and I grew up from you know poor family, very humble beginnings, and people used to joke how can you ever buy McDonald's? I mean, we had no money Right, and honestly I think I willed it to happen, right, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I just and sometimes, don't you think? You just know, like I knew, I was going to have a retail store.
Speaker 2:I knew I was going to own McDonald's. It wasn't an if and or, but it was when. And then, when I bought one, I knew one didn't work because I'm so ADD I was like, oh my God, I'm so bored with one McDonald's, right.
Speaker 1:So then I had to have-. Well, that's how we ended up with two retail stores, because I was like I can't stand just in one retail store all day because I'll go crazy. So now I need two to divide my time and there's so much opportunity, right?
Speaker 2:So I ended up with three, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Stephen, back to he started coming around. So that's your little history there. So he started hanging out with us at the garden store because it was just Daniel and myself working there at the time, Around the clock, Around the clock we had. You know, like I said, we started it with very little money so we didn't have a ton of inventory. So literally like every day or every other day, we would rearrange displays to make it look like we got new inventory.
Speaker 3:Yeah, people would buy stuff off the shelves, but because it was, it wasn't sparse. We had the store packed full.
Speaker 1:We filled in with plants oh, that's true which took up a lot of visuals.
Speaker 2:You guys work so hard.
Speaker 3:Well, look at, well, we worked too hard because we literally re-spent every night rearranging the store.
Speaker 1:But it's what made it work, yeah.
Speaker 3:It looked beautiful and got everyone's attention.
Speaker 1:And we trained the customer that we had very little quantities of everything and that we may not get it again. So they would come back in and be like I was here two days ago and you had this. We were like, oh, it sold and it's gone. Sorry when you're here, you got to grab things. It goes really quick.
Speaker 3:I mean, we told everybody that they came in the store, which it was true. Yeah, because you were buying samples.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we couldn't buy.
Speaker 3:But most stores you can kind of window shop and think about it and then go back and buy it if you really wanted it. And we were like mm-mm, if you want it, you better grab it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get that card out because it may not be here. There's a lot to be said about that.
Speaker 1:But it trained the customer and they understood that and that's kind of played into our model of why we shop so much at markets, because we're always looking for brand new items and keeping our variety like always turning. So we kind of yeah, fresh. So we've kind of followed that along. So then Steven started helping with doing displays and at the time I would also take on a few weddings. You know, any extra money at that point we would do anything. I would go to people's houses and help pick out painkillers.
Speaker 2:The first wedding I did with you, I looked at you because I wasn't getting paid, because you were broke. I was broke, it was my fun, it was my entertainment, right, but I was really working my ass off and y'all become friends. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, but that was still early on, like the back. How is a?
Speaker 2:really good brand. Yeah, you were and you are. I ask him, I'll never forget this. I'm like I totally do not mind helping you, but I really hope you're making a lot of money, because we were working so hard and like all night long and he said $500. And I said what? Yeah, but $500.
Speaker 1:That was a lot of money then Profit.
Speaker 2:Profit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, part of the problem was you had spent a lot. You kind of overbought flowers, yeah.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, like especially for events like that, and that's a good. I mean, you have to do that. Sometimes I feel like in the beginning of starting a business, I would spend. Yeah, I would spend a little extra money than I should have on the product to make it look like a bigger event, because I saw it as an advertising opportunity.
Speaker 1:And it was Because now all of these guests are going to be saying who did these flowers? And so they're either going to be coming to the store to shop or they're going to want us to do their wedding. So it worked. It worked. It was just a different form of advertising, but, yeah, when we were staying up to the sun came up, it was hard to hear.
Speaker 2:That time it was hard to process Right.
Speaker 1:So that's how it worked and so we just continue to be friends in the store, continue to run. And as the garden shop grew, we always carried a little bit of home decor in the garden shop, more like picture frames, lamps. We would sell the light pictures from the ceiling just because people would ask for them and we'd be like sure, we'd take it, let me get it down. Yeah, so, but as the garden center was growing then some of that sort of thing was getting pushed out and I, steven, would be there helping do displays. And I would just say I think we should open a small decor store, more like a gift store, a little home decor, little home decor store.
Speaker 1:Small. Yeah, it'd be easy. It'd be easy, that's my famous last word. And so, in 2013, we opened the home store, which was Four Rooms, which is now the nested big home as of recent, and so we started that process. At the time, I, steven, was in the middle. Well, that's when you bought two more McDonald's.
Speaker 2:Same I bought. I bought two more McDonald's the same month. Four Rooms opened yeah, March of 2013.
Speaker 1:So at the time Steven had his hands full but I was like, oh, I want you to be sort of involved in this with us, in that sort of thing. So when I opened the home store, steven, uh, wasn't an owner, but you had invested. You invested and had things on consignment.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't a direct owner but as a consignment sort of situation, and then we carried that on. The store grew, it started taking off. We moved to a different location and then we moved the store in 2019 to its current location. At that time is when Steven became a part owner, cause we were making the move and changing things up, so Steven became part owner in the nested big.
Speaker 3:Cause he had sold McDonald's when.
Speaker 2:No, that was uh. Yes, I sold. I've sold all of my restaurants in 2017. And it just Wesley was like, okay, this is what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:And I was like okay, yeah, I think at that point, though you had worked, you were still literally helping in the stores. You would go uh, I mean the best, best friend you could ask for cause you would go fill in as a floral designer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you worked in the stores between four rooms and routes for like eight years. Only you made a little bit of commission off of consignment and you know we let you take stuff home if you really wanted it.
Speaker 1:And you worked there for free all this time. So in 2019 I was like okay, you want to come in and be partners in this. I trust you at this point.
Speaker 2:But you had, and you had taught me it was like I had gone through like a 10 year internship True.
Speaker 1:And I knew everything at that point.
Speaker 2:So I mean, like with the plants and arrangements and and I had taken a lot of electives in horticulture at Clemson, you know just enough to be dangerous. I really didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 3:We all have similar interests.
Speaker 2:We do, we do.
Speaker 3:Especially in gardening horticulture plants, I mean, I love that I did it.
Speaker 2:He just had to scream. Just do it yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. So that brings us up to 2019, and that's when you became a business partner. So let's back up a couple of years, because a few things changed in between there going back to 2016. That's when we moved to the farm, daniel and myself.
Speaker 3:Yes, the farm.
Speaker 1:The farm From downtown Greenville. We were living in like 11 square, 1100 square foot bungalow.
Speaker 3:And it was so cute.
Speaker 2:It was the cutest house.
Speaker 3:It was downtown Greenville, right next to the Cleveland park. We could hear the monkeys at the Greenville Zoo like in the mornings they would be.
Speaker 2:I forgot about that. The yard was beautiful.
Speaker 3:I would hand water our yard every morning. During the summer it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time out there. We lost it was small, we lost our minds.
Speaker 3:I honestly wanted to move to a farm and I was just like, oh really, okay, whatever, like really. And he kept pushing for it. And then I was like just made the decision and jumped on board one day and said, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Well, it kind of happened. I was looking for land because I was like, well, we can just have some land and then I can even have some animals there and then eventually we could build. There was the plan and I had looked for it. I don't know you looked for maybe over a year yeah, definitely over a year, and I had driven out to look at some land I saw on Zillow or somewhere and it was crappy land. But while I was out there I was like, let me look on Zillow, see if anything else pops up in this area, because it was kind of outside of town and our farm popped up and it was. I was like, oh, I know that house. I knew the house because I had been here shopping, because the people who had our farm before us had a house salvage business.
Speaker 3:And we had come out there looking for stuff for displays for the store before and I had been here too. Separately. A lot of people in Greenville have been to our farm when it was the house salvage business, Because the workshop that we work out of now to grow and cut the flowers used to be almost like an antique or what do you call it Junk store. It was a retail space but it was filled to the brim of house salvage.
Speaker 1:Like almost artifacts, yeah Home artifacts Trem, hardwood doors, doorknob, mantles. So even after we bought the farm.
Speaker 3:People came out every Saturday for like a year and a half, oh yeah, and wanting to buy stuff, and then we're just like it's gone. Obviously it's gone. Do you remember what this place looked like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so our farm was basically a graveyard for houses.
Speaker 2:Toilets.
Speaker 1:So the only-.
Speaker 3:Broken windows. I remember we kind of when we moved in we took like a year and we were still running the stores. But especially that summer or slower season at the stores, we spent every day out here and I brought a couple of employees with me to the farm and they would work out here with me every day and we had an employee that would just, for like four hours at a time, walk around and pick up glass and put it in trash bags.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sean, I remember and rolled the magnet around to get up the nails.
Speaker 3:He got like four or five, five gallon buckets full of nails in the driveway where cars are driving.
Speaker 2:And do you know, until this day, I thought about it. Today, when I drive out here, I still have a paranoia of an animal.
Speaker 3:I got four flat tires, the first like six months we were here. It was crazy it was crazy.
Speaker 1:We haven't had any recently and we've gotten new gravel since then, so I think you're good, but anyway. So the previous owner would tear down houses and he would collect all the pieces that he saw value and that's what would go in the workshop and the rest of it would just get dumped on the farm and, like we were saying, siding toilets, sinks just piles and piles all over the farm, which is now impressively a flower farm.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So after we moved here, we started renovating the house we renovated the farm.
Speaker 3:Let's just how did Daniel feel when he first walked onto this farm. The house is five times the size of where we were living and it's literally a landfill.
Speaker 2:I was like what the hell and here's a fun fact, so I don't know if you remember this. So you were like, okay, stephen, you've got to come look at the house with us. And I came out here and they had rugs.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they were still selling off pieces from the house and I bought a beautiful Persian rug.
Speaker 2:That's in my front hallway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 3:I Know that I remember the rugs being here, but I wasn't gonna buy.
Speaker 2:I was like Wesley. I don't want to buy it. If you want it, he's like I don't want it. Yeah, he said I don't want anything our style and you need.
Speaker 3:That's not what you wanted this place to be, but you love the Persian rugs like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was just. I think it was just because it was here before yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that was interesting. So, daniel, but you got on board. Yeah, you weren't like.
Speaker 3:Let's not. I was never against. You were never against it.
Speaker 1:Yeah you were. It was uncharted territory, yeah.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Suburbs yeah we grew up in Rock Hill, south Carolina, suburb of Charlotte. It was a very cute, nice neighborhood. All the kids were my age growing up, good schools. Like I didn't have friends that lived in the country really, so I didn't know anything about that life and always just assumed go to college, get a corporate job and then, like, live downtown somewhere. Yeah, that was my I Trajectory until I met you and threw me way off of that, which you're welcome, I know.
Speaker 1:I love it now. Luckily, I had grown up in the country. I don't think we talked about that in here anywhere. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee and then I went to Mississippi State and got my horticulture degree. That's how I'd ended up at the garden centers managing a garden center, because I did have a do have horticulture degree.
Speaker 2:You went to Mississippi State? Yes, I, I went to Clemson, and then, many years later, daniel graduated from Clemson too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a business degree and that's what Steven has a finance degree yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then we got to the farm and for the first year, or at least eight months, we were focused on renovating the farm and cleaning it up.
Speaker 3:Oh, that, that was the house was the first nine months? Yes, yeah, just the house alone, just the house. We didn't even start on the flower farm part yet and, coincidentally, that is when I got on Instagram.
Speaker 1:That's where Instagram started and it wasn't I didn't know anything about and it wasn't a thing at the time. As far as, if you Want to call it an influencer or whatever, a creator, that wasn't a thing at the time. Instagram was so new. I just knew that was a place where you could post photos, because you couldn't even post videos at the time.
Speaker 3:You were documenting the remodeling of our house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just for me, for us, and that's. But then people started following along. That's how it.
Speaker 3:That's how it started and you know it's cool is you hadn't mentioned this yet, but that someone started following you and she's in Atlanta, georgia. She was a scout who worked for a company that produced TV shows for HGTV, and she reached out to you and I remember we did like a it wasn't a zoom in or it was a zoom, was it?
Speaker 1:yeah, all the way back, and I was like kind of new then as well.
Speaker 3:I was probably the first zoom we've ever done.
Speaker 1:Maybe it was called something. I feel like it was called something different before zoom.
Speaker 2:Okay, I can't remember but it may have been a face Tom, it may have just been face. No, it was on the computer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we had to prop the computer up on like a box because the house was still being remodeled. But yeah, that's how we got. We bought the farm.
Speaker 3:Yep, we filmed the episode and it aired on HGTV and then it's been on Great American Country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, surely it's out of cycle by now, I think so, but it kept going once.
Speaker 2:I saw it once after, like several years later, I was like ah.
Speaker 1:I mean I've had people message me, I know like two years ago, but I don't haven't had anybody in the last year.
Speaker 3:It's been cool, like it's been playing in Australia and people will message us on Instagram. Yeah, like I just watched you guys and looked you up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. I'm the crazy. That was a whole process and that was a whole fun little thing. We can talk about that. A whole. That could be a whole another that's when that destroyed my reality TV Love.
Speaker 2:I was obsessed with reality TV until then until you, we ruined it. But you know everything smoke and mirrors in the world.
Speaker 1:It's true. So we got the farm kind of going as far as our house renovation process. And how, mr Daniel, did you become mr Petal Pickers?
Speaker 3:Well, I think it starts back to the. You had put the idea Out there that we were gonna buy a farm and then we had designers at roots who also Did wedding florals on the side, and I remember one of them mentioned like, oh, I buy flowers from this girl In town or whatever. And so I kind of had looked into that and it was just kind of like Skirting around Facebook and Instagram, like, oh, in our head I think I was just trying to figure out what can we grow there at the farm sunflowers, or oh, I know we have a huge wreath business for the holidays at our garden center, so let's grow all the materials that I have to scavenge around town every holiday season. Yeah, because I would go around to like abandoned places or places that obviously did not care and I would snip, snip. I was doing them a favor, my civic duty of pruning their shrubs during the holidays, and that just was a lot and I was like wouldn't it be nice if we had all the materials growing on our farm? And that's where the idea started before we planted anything.
Speaker 3:Right, then you and I went to Hilton head for a quick vacation in January and on our way back there were signs like visit this flower farm right off the highway and daffodils Are blooming, come stop by. And we never really do side trips and stuff like that, like we're on you know, if we're on our way home, like that's, we're gonna go straight home and Whatever reason we decided to stop off to the side, I guess just because we knew we were gonna buy a farm and wanted to look at it. Yeah, maybe so, and it was a you pick daffodil farm and it was a Sunday afternoon. In like so many people were out there picking daffodils.
Speaker 3:We were like chuching, we were like this is what we're gonna do there was like grandmothers with their grandkids and couples and little their daughters and everyone just running around having the best time ever and it was like Pick your own daffodils for ten dollars a mason jar and everyone's like standing in line with their money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we did it and we picked flowers as well, and it was a great experience and we're like this is what we're gonna do, mm-hmm. And so then we came home and I remember the house was still a Disaster as far as we were still renovating it. But you started looking it up and I guess you just got so interested in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I would like I got hooked on to like one account and then I would start like seeing who are they following and looking into it or If they were sharing other people and stuff, and I just fell down the rabbit hole. Yeah, and I found Lisa mason's eagler with the gardeners workshop farm on Facebook and I think I found florette Aaron Benzacane with florette on Some social, maybe Instagram or Graham, I think so and that was it. I was like these people are growing every flower that I've never heard of before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna do the same thing the good thing is you were already interested in growing, because back at our little bungalow in town, you know, I had a seed starting kid, I started my own vegetables.
Speaker 3:I grew some flowers in our backyard downtown Greenville, but really it was just like the year before you were even thinking about by in the farm. Yeah, I just kind of gotten into it.
Speaker 2:But you were propagating like a lot house plants house tropical plants, that's my favorite thing it still is.
Speaker 3:I Love to grow plants and to watch a plant grow from a seed. I really don't care if it's vegetables or flowers, like I've gotten into the flowers and I love the flowers and they're so beautiful and it's a superior product. Then to what other people can? I can't go by. I can now from other flower farmers but like, remember when you were on your visit?
Speaker 2:Donkeys ear oh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you were. I used to give everybody. Yeah, it was a little succulent plant called donkey's ears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would like propagate them and grow them out and give them to everybody I had them and Clivia did I get that from your mom was, I think, so. Maybe then you went on the Clivia rampage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I love growing. I still have mine, clivia's from seed. I just finished blooming and it takes like three years for it to bloom if you grow it from seed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you grew it and you gave me mine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it blew and you had even set up grow lights in our basement. That little we had a little. I guess you'd call it a basement.
Speaker 3:It was a walk-in seller seller type thing, so yeah so you were basement glowed at night, yeah, and we're downtown Greenville and we're like who knows what people are saying.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you were growing weed yeah.
Speaker 1:So you were already interested in it. But then you just somehow you fell down the rabbit hole and you and I just have to put it Out there I don't grow pot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, west told me when we moved to the farm Okay, you can't start growing marijuana just because we moved to a farm. He's like I don't want people saying anything and I don't want my name associated with that. Listen, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2:You're like, I quit smoking years ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's too funny. So, yeah, so then, I think the really cool thing from me, as your husband and watching it in the flower farm grow, is you literally self-taught yourself yeah, you say that how to flower farm.
Speaker 3:I joined a national organization and there's a lot of educational material through that. There's a couple online courses to get you started, like from a beginner standpoint, but then I took all that information and just have been off and running.
Speaker 2:But I would add to it. I would add to it you're so hardworking and you have such tenacity. You didn't let it go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't just with it.
Speaker 3:I don't even it's like I don't remember that process at all naturally came together. I don't remember from when we started until, like I, was just zoned in and focused.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna make this the best flower farm and as fast as possible, and that was like five years of my life. I blinked, yeah, and I had it. Yeah, I'm like where, the largest flower farm in South Carolina, the entire state. That's insane to me. I grow more dahlias than any other farm in the state of South Carolina and I'm like how did I get here? But I think it was the pressure, because our property is 14 acres. The driveway splits it in half. I always just try to think like why do I do this to myself? But I think it's because we had the excavators come in and clear off eight acres. We kept trees that we wanted, we just got rid of, like the toilets and the sink.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had to clean it up it was a mess and I just think, like I just started filling it up and then I'm like, oh my God, like I can't manage this by myself. We have to hire people. And then you got to make enough money to pay everybody. Yeah, it was just like a whole thing and I just felt this like pressure on me that I had to keep going and it had to be more and had to be bigger, and that's what kept me going for five years.
Speaker 2:Well, I remember coming out and walking through it with you and I was like I mean, it was just small, like a small vegetable garden would be started out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the first year, yeah, the first year.
Speaker 2:But then it every year. It just went more and more and more yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I think this is a good time to let our listeners know that if you want some gorgeous fresh flowers delivered right to your door, you can check out Petal Pickers at PetalPickerscom. So Daniel will ship flowers right here from our farm in Greenville, south Carolina, to your door or to a loved ones door all year long until the end of October.
Speaker 3:So it is seasonally, as from March to October. We ship to the lower 48th state. Yes, so we use FedEx overnight. So literally, we harvest the flowers on Monday and Tuesday, make a bouquet Tuesday afternoon and then Wednesday morning we package it. Fedex comes and picks up and it's at your door Thursday.
Speaker 1:Which is amazing. And they're ridiculously beautiful, and the thing that I love about Petal Pickers or ordering directly from a flower farm is the variety is always changing, so it is truly what is in season and what is growing right then. So in the season, for most plants last maybe three weeks, three to four weeks depending on the season.
Speaker 3:I'd say four weeks. And then I've learned just through getting better at what we're doing, like I can even plant successions of the same plant and really stretch it to six weeks, whereas if you just planted it in your yard you're only going to see it for two to three weeks, right, well?
Speaker 2:and the other thing about ordering flowers from Petal Pickers is the longevity of them. They're so fresh, they last so much longer than if you go to like supermarket. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yes, order yourself some flowers or a loved one. Petal pickerscom.
Speaker 3:Right, that's the place I just threw that right there in the surface.
Speaker 2:I use it a lot yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, stephen is one of our good customers.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love it. I love sending, everyone loves getting those.
Speaker 3:And if you follow us on Instagram at Petal Pickers also, you get to see behind the scenes, which is what I think is so cool, like I'm always posting what we're working on, what we're thinking about in the future, what is coming in your bouquets next week, and so we have a lot of people that sign up for our subscription service, where just you can choose once a week or every other week, or even just once a month, but that way you kind of sign up and then you get to follow through the season with us and you get a good selection of all the different flowers that we grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really cool because, following on Instagram, and then you get to see, like tulips, for example. You get to see when y'all are planting them in the fall and you're like, have the bed laid out with all these bulbs, and then you show them like, oh, the tulips are starting to come up and then they won't be.
Speaker 3:They start to poke up in January, and then February, and then I'm like they're almost here, yeah, and it's just a sea of green leaves. And then bam, all of a sudden the tulips start blooming.
Speaker 1:And then they're blooming, and then I'm designing with them and you're shipping them. So if you're as a viewer, if you're watching that, you get to see that whole process with everything, not just tulips, but that's what it's so fun to watch.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I've ever told you this. I don't know if I've ever told you I did not like tulips. Oh, I love tulips.
Speaker 3:Because you didn't know until all the varieties. Daniel grew them yeah, and it's not the same thing that you see at the grocery store.
Speaker 2:No, Well before I felt like they were so stumpy you couldn't really design with them and you couldn't use them.
Speaker 3:And yours are so tall and beautiful and there's so many different varieties, like the parrot, tulips and I mean it's just so cool and what I love about flower farming is just like I'd never seen any of these flowers before and then even if people you see them here and there, like I've really gotten into it and then kind of my niche is, I want the best. So like you can grow a renunculus on your farm, but I grow Pon-Pon renunculus.
Speaker 1:He's going to grow the best of everything and one day.
Speaker 3:I'm going to make money at this.
Speaker 2:His dahlias are the size of my head. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:If I tell you this on the podcast, you can't kill me, right, because we have to finish. Right, I ordered pastel against peonies. They are the most beautiful peonies in the world. How?
Speaker 1:much was each. They are a root.
Speaker 3:This is wholesale.
Speaker 2:I know that's what he's getting at.
Speaker 3:So you have to have a business license to order them. They're $88 a root.
Speaker 2:Oh, and did you buy 100?
Speaker 1:Yes, did you yes?
Speaker 3:Well it's an investment they're going to last longer than me. God, I've heard that so many times from him, but it's an investment.
Speaker 2:But I have to say you're going to die when you see them.
Speaker 3:You're going to hate me for three years and then, when they bloom, you'll be like I get it. I support you, baby. I know you always have, but literally for everyone listening, wes has been the most supportive person. Stephen has been a supportive friend of all the ideas and everything. But really, being married to Wes, this whole farming journey has been a lot. We can both agree. I've had meltdowns. We've had trip ups, just when we had that shipping incident during Easter two years ago. This is the second anniversary as we're recording this. We're near Easter. Nothing good is easy, though that's true. It's just been a lot. I feel like somehow, after six years of selling cut flowers and figuring it out, I'm in such a better place now. It's like it's established. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's a good thing to point out. No matter I feel like from all of our experience no matter what business you're doing, whether it's opening a retail store, flower farming, whatever you're doing, it takes five years. And you've heard that and you don't really think so true.
Speaker 3:The cash flow doesn't catch up until five years. Your failures and mistakes and all that feels like it's always happening, and then, after five years, it's like the pieces of the puzzle come together.
Speaker 1:It's so fast, it really is so fast you don't know, except for when you're in it.
Speaker 2:When you're in it.
Speaker 1:You're thinking what in the world? So if you're out there and you're listening and you have a small business, stick with it five years.
Speaker 2:Five years is when it's the magic number and you know, even buying, I know people think, oh, so many people have said to me oh, all you have to do is open a McDonald's and it's like, bam, you're a multi-millionaire. No, no.
Speaker 1:How much that loan was pretty wealthy right, we'll talk about real quick how you bought your McDonald's and you said, like the day you bought it, then you realized you didn't have enough money to buy the food.
Speaker 2:I didn't have any money to buy the food for my first truck True story and I won't get into it but I'm still so loyal to that bank because I had no more collateral, I had no money, I had nothing Right and they gave me $50,000.
Speaker 1:So I will just own your word.
Speaker 2:A signature loan. I will bank with them until the day I die, and that's how you were able to get your food in that thing.
Speaker 1:I mean that got every day old and that's very similar. We skimmed over this or we didn't talk about it in our history, but at one point, roots, our garden shop, moved from what we were expanding in like a year. It was a year and a half after we opened. We were expanding into a larger space next door and that place had to be completely renovated and of course the timing didn't work out, so it wasn't finished, but we had to be out of our current space.
Speaker 1:Your releases did not align, yeah our leases did not align in the construction we were stuck out in the parking lot for how many months? In a tent In a tent. So I wanted, I was like we just have to shut down and come back. The employees at that time we had like two employees that are like we want to work, we'll do something.
Speaker 2:And I was like no. I said we're going to set up a tent and you were like we'll just close.
Speaker 1:I'm like so we rented a tent, like you would see, like fireworks, but like a wedding tent, like a 10 by 10 tent. Let me paint the picture a little better. And we had pods, storage pods in the parking lot, and every morning they would haul everything out and set up the tent. But how long?
Speaker 1:Three months, yeah it was well, it was from no, it was from February 15th, because because they let us, um, they let us stay there until the day after Valentine's Day and then we opened. I think it was like April 17th or 20th. It felt like forever but that we were missing our big spring season because, you know, we were supposed to be moving and having this kind of like what happened to us this past October, but anyway, that's a whole different story, but anyway. So we stuck with that and it was good to work out of a tent. I can't believe the city, I can't believe any of that worked out, but anyway, uh, when we got back to the building being done it was the day before I was like, okay, we were going to be able to open in the building tomorrow. And I was telling Steven cause I would tell him everything. I was like I only have $200. No, it was $42 was it $42?
Speaker 2:it was $42 and I was still broke yeah, at that time I mean I wasn't as broke as you were broke, but I was still not Wealthy by any means right and I said I was like, girl, here is you a check Giving you? I gave you a thousand dollars, which was a lot of money for me, just to give away.
Speaker 1:And at that time that thousand dollars, my it should, it was the same as a hundred thousand dollars right at the time.
Speaker 2:And I said and you don't, don't pay me back, I'll just get it in product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bought a thousand dollar gift card, basically, and I was like, oh my gosh, the store has to open tomorrow and it has to be busy from day one, and thankfully it was it was Customer supported us. It was so. That's just the point. You got to stick with it and nothing as easy as you think it's gonna be. But anyway, so you got the farm going, we're back kind of up to 2019.
Speaker 3:we move, oh wait should we have started this with like a disclaimer that both of y'all are 80d and Unmedicated Well?
Speaker 2:well, if they know us by this point, they should.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay for new people that are coming across your podcast, the. We're gonna jump around a little bit on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're just telling you, it's who's driving.
Speaker 2:Who's driving? Hot mess express whatever you want to call it right.
Speaker 1:So you got the flower farm going and it's doing well yes. And then we got caught up to 2019, when you became a official owner yes, and so that's where we Were leaving off. And then 2020.
Speaker 2:That's a whole 20 20 happen.
Speaker 1:That's where 2020 and the shutdown was the birth of the nested pig of the online store. So when we moved in 2019, at that point I did have a decent I don't remember, but a decent amount of followers on Instagram and they were asking for me to ship things that I was decorating with. Well, I would only really use things that I'm to decorate the house with, that we sold in our retail store. So when we moved, I was like we need to start selling online, and that was the summer of 2019 and we were shipping from a literal closet About a 8 by 10 closet and I'll never forget.
Speaker 3:And Wesley actually packed the boxes then too.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah and I'll never forget when 2020 happened and we were thinking way outside the box and he said let's rent a warehouse, I was like, said you think? He said it'd be easy. He said it's just, anyone can pack a box, it'd be easy. And I said yeah, it will be.
Speaker 1:It is not easy, nothing but it's good is easy.
Speaker 2:It has been good.
Speaker 1:Yes, but it hasn't been easy. So in 2020, we got our first warehouse and we took the online business to the next level and in 2021 we got our second warehouse. Yes, and and let's see. We're in 2023. We're looking for our next one.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So I think that catches everyone up to date. I think that's everything.
Speaker 2:Is that a?
Speaker 3:good base. That's a very extensive base. Okay, but that's a long time and I'm excited to listen to the idea. Everyone caught up from time to time and I think you know, going back to Steven's story and With McDonald's, and like there's just a lot of life lessons that I feel like we've learned and from all three of us Starting our own businesses and being entrepreneurs, and it's different but it's all the same.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and you can apply the same principles. Yes so I think this is gonna wrap up Episode one of who's driving. We're pulling up and guess who's getting out. See, daniel's gotta go.
Speaker 3:Farman in anything else to do, that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for joining in that, joining us and catching everybody up. Yes, thank you for joining us on our very regular guest.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. Probably will be well, since I live along the way the same place as the podcast studio.
Speaker 3:I'll just Exactly probably pop in from time to time.
Speaker 2:It's convenient if you'll take a break from farming. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:It was great having you all and that was what a perfect way to kick it off, to tell our story, to kind of catch everyone up on who we are, how we got here a little bit, and of course, we're gonna dive into more of that along the way. And, like you said, there's a lot of lessons between all three of us and things that we can talk about.
Speaker 3:And, if you want to, on a daily basis, keep up with us. You can follow me, daniel, at pedal pickers on Instagram, and you can follow Steven.
Speaker 2:My handle is keeping up with Steven and there's no G on the keeping and I spell my name with a V.
Speaker 1:Well, add it to the show notes as well, below, and you can follow me on Instagram at farm shenanigans. That's gonna wrap up our trip this time and we'll see you next week.