How Open Bloom Floral Started: The Early Lessons I Didn't Expect
When I first started Open Bloom Floral, I thought I had prepared myself quite well.
I knew there would be flowers to source, bouquets to arrange and orders to fulfil. I knew I needed a website, proper accounts and a professional setup — not simply a hobby that happened to sell flowers.
With a background in business and accounting, I felt fairly confident about the practical side of starting a business. I even designed my own logo in Adobe Illustrator and made sure I had the groundwork in place before taking my first order.
What I didn't realise was that some of the biggest lessons wouldn't come from preparing for the business. They would come from actually running it.
From figuring out who I was really trying to reach, to learning how quickly fresh flowers can become excess stock, to discovering opportunities I hadn't planned for, the early days of OBF taught me things I could never have learned from a checklist.
This is how OBF began — and some of the lessons I picked up along the way.
I Thought I Was Prepared — Then I Learned About Marketing
I went into OBF feeling fairly prepared. I knew I needed to set up the business properly, keep track of my expenses and build a professional presence online. What I hadn't prepared myself for was marketing.
One of my first attempts was a Taylor Swift-themed giveaway. Taylor Swift was touring Singapore at the time, and her concert film was also showing in cinemas. I thought it would be a great opportunity to introduce OBF to a new audience.
Since concert tickets were far too expensive for a new business to give away, I bought a pair of movie tickets at Jewel IMAX and paired them with a bouquet from OBF. I ran the giveaway on Instagram, attracted plenty of interaction and gained new followers.
I thought I had found a clever way to get people interested in my new business.
Then the giveaway ended.
And some of those new followers disappeared almost as quickly as they had arrived.
That was when I learned one of my earliest marketing lessons: getting attention isn't the same as reaching the right people.
The people who were attracted to the giveaway were interested in winning a freebie, but that didn't necessarily mean they were interested in buying flowers. I had focused on growing my follower count without thinking enough about whether those followers were actually the people I wanted to serve.
It was a simple mistake, but an important one. I realised that a smaller audience of people who genuinely appreciate what OBF offers can be much more valuable than a large audience that isn't interested in becoming customers.
I also learned that not every marketing experiment will go exactly as planned. The giveaway even attracted some unexpected reactions and misunderstandings, which made the experience more stressful than I had anticipated.
Most importantly, though, it taught me to think beyond “How many people can I reach?” and start asking “Who am I actually trying to reach?”
My First $100 of Flowers Taught Me More Than I Expected
When I first started OBF, I knew I needed photographs for my website and a catalogue of arrangements for customers to browse. So I headed to Far East Flora with around $100 and bought a selection of flowers and foliage.
I came home and got to work. I created four bouquet designs and a mini Korean basket, photographed them and uploaded them to my website.
A little look back at OBF's beginnings — the four bouquets and mini Korean basket
I created for my very first catalogue.
At the time, I knew I probably wasn't going to get a flood of orders. OBF was brand new, and nobody knew who we were yet.
And I was right.
I didn't sell those first arrangements.
But I don't consider that $100 wasted. Those flowers gave me the photographs and catalogue I needed to launch the business, and when they weren't sold, I gave them to friends and family instead. I even brought a bouquet and a basket to my gynae's clinic as a little thank-you during my pregnancy.
More importantly, that first purchase taught me something I would come to understand very quickly: the clock starts ticking the moment you bring fresh flowers home.
Flowers need to be hydrated, conditioned and looked after, and once they're ready, you want them to find their way to a customer before their quality starts to decline.
In those early days, sales were slow enough that I sometimes found myself with more flowers than I could immediately use. Watching them change over time taught me which flowers held up well, which deteriorated more quickly and how much care could make a difference to their longevity.
It was one of those lessons that no amount of preparation could really replace. I had to experience it for myself.
My Customers Helped Shape the Business
I originally imagined OBF as a fairly straightforward catalogue-based business. I would create a selection of bouquet designs, photograph them, put them on the website and customers could choose what they liked.
But once people started seeing those first designs, they began asking if they could make changes.
Could they add a particular flower? Could they change the colours? Could they have something similar, but a little different?
I started taking on more custom orders, and I quickly realised that I enjoyed them much more than I had expected. Instead of recreating the same design, I could work with the flowers I had available and create something specifically for each customer.
There was also something special about knowing that no two bouquets would be exactly alike. The flowers, colours and textures could change depending on what was available and what the customer had in mind.
And then there was the best part: seeing how excited customers were when they collected or received their flowers, knowing that the arrangement had been created especially for someone they cared about.
That was when I started to realise that OBF didn't necessarily have to become the business I had originally pictured.
Sometimes, your customers show you what your business can become.
The Flowers I Thought Were Leftovers Became a New Product
As I started making more bouquets, I noticed something else. There were often smaller offshoots and shorter stems that didn't quite work for my bouquet designs, even though the blooms themselves were still perfectly good.
I didn't want to simply throw them away, so I started thinking about how I could use them differently.
That was how I experimented with a larger Korean basket.
I put one together using some of the flowers I had left over from other arrangements, without really knowing whether anyone would want it. To my surprise, it sold within a day.
And it wasn't just one person who was interested. Two other people asked if it was still available after it had already been sold. At that point, I didn't even have enough baskets to make more, so I had to tell them I would let them know when I had more in stock.
Looking back, that little experiment taught me that sometimes a new product can come from simply paying attention to what you already have — and being willing to try something you hadn't originally planned.
A Small Experiment Turned Into My First Mother's Day Orders
About a month before OBF's first Mother's Day, I created another Korean basket using a mix of flowers left over from bouquets I had made earlier. Once again, it sold within a day.
Then two people who had seen it asked if they could order one for Mother's Day.
That's when I thought, why not open it up for Mother's Day orders?
I did — and I definitely didn't expect the response. What started with two requests turned into six Mother's Day orders, which I personally delivered with my husband. I was around 36 weeks pregnant at the time.
I still remember seeing the mothers' faces light up when they realised the flowers were for them, especially when they found out they had been sent by their children. It was such a lovely feeling to see how much meaning flowers could carry.
And there was something especially meaningful about experiencing that moment while I was only weeks away from becoming a mother myself. I remember feeling fulfilled by the experience and looking forward to knowing that same joy in the years to come.
That Mother's Day taught me something I hadn't expected when I first started OBF: sometimes, the best opportunities aren't the ones you plan from the beginning. They can come from simply paying attention to what people are asking for.
Looking Back
When I look back at the early days of OBF, I realise that I didn't actually have everything figured out — even though I thought I did.
I had prepared the business side as best as I could, but the real learning came from doing: buying my first flowers, figuring out what customers wanted, experimenting with new products and learning to pay attention to opportunities I hadn't planned for.
OBF didn't become what it is today because I had the perfect plan from the beginning. It grew through a series of small decisions, experiments and lessons along the way.
And I think that's one of the most exciting things about starting a business — you don't always know exactly what you're building until you start building it.