“I don't think beauty is frivolous. I think beauty is one of the most important forces in the world.”

It all started in the White House

“I took my parents to the holiday tour of the White House, and every year the florists go all out. The decorations for Christmas are wild, and I saw these amazing floral designs. I thought ‘Wow, this is already a hobby of mine. These are so beautiful… I wonder who does that?’”

A quick Google search and an email later, Cameron Hardesty–former employee of the White House’s Drug Policy office and now the founder and CEO of Poppy–found herself volunteering in the on-site flower shop and learning directly from the Chief Floral Designer.

But this wasn’t all on a whim.

She had already been toying with the idea of pursuing floral design beyond just a creative outlet. She didn’t know if it was feasible though, and that kept her from jumping right in.

Her therapist suggested she work at a flower shop first without the commitment, just a few hours on the weekend. Give it a try, see how it goes, and decide from there.

But then? She began her plan for eventual entrepreneurship, allowing everything to fall into place through opportunities, knowledge, and personal experience.

"I was really focused on bringing beauty and creativity into my life, and then hoping that something would come out of it. I wanted to try and merge tech entrepreneurship and flowers, and it all just kind of came together.”

Cameron got a content marketing job for a floral startup. And not long after, her friend started a floral business and brought her on to help. While it was a big pay cut, it was also her way in.

She went into it with the mindset that she was going to make this worth it by learning as much as she could and then with that knowledge, start her own business.

After spending more than three years there, the dynamic at that job started changing and her voice wasn’t always being heard. She knew it was time to take the leap.

The problem with wedding flowers

“Going into it, I had no inkling that I would start my own flower business…
A lot of my friends and their friends (and eventually, myself) were getting married, and because I was the flower person in their life, they would come to me with questions about why flowers were so expensive.
I sensed a lot of frustration from people about that aspect of the wedding planning process.”

But Cameron had a unique perspective. She knew that florists were frustrated too, especially around trying to justify why their services were priced so high.

Because of her experience, she already knew how to address the issues both sides were facing.

“I know how to buy flowers directly from farms, and I know it's like half the price as a wholesaler. I know how to do communications and marketing.

So I realized, I think there's a way to bridge this gap.”

Her own wedding planning was the final piece to the puzzle.

She originally wanted to DIY flowers for her own wedding and even purchased 2 giant truck pallets of flowers. But the logistics of that process made her realize that just wasn’t feasible. Instead, she called a connection and asked for recommendations for local floral designers.

“I basically pulled together a motley crew of freelance floral designers, and we got it done.”

One of those designers really impressed her. Cameron asked why she didn’t have a website or any social media presence. And the woman simply replied that she didn’t want to do any of the business side of things. She just wanted to create.

“It kind of opened my eyes to the fact that there's this whole group of people who don't want to run a small business. They just want to do flowers.”

With that realization, Cameron found a way to connect her passion for flowers with her business insights. Poppy was born.

The personal struggles of entrepreneurship

“I'd never had anxiety before... I think it was the stress and the pressure of starting something from literally nothing without having a playbook. No one's telling you what to do. You're just making it up, and you're trying to convince people to help you.”

Starting Poppy presented Cameron with a new set of challenges, and she could never have imagined how they'd shape her.

Like with many founders, the stress of fundraising and hearing repeated "no's", disinterest, and dismissals was (and still can be) difficult.

Even after a while, when everything seemed to be going okay, frustration still hit hard.

Cameron dealt with moments of doubt, questioning if she really deserved the support of her early backers or if Poppy's seed investors were only there because they needed to meet a diversity quota. (To which one actually responded, “No, I invest in you because you're amazing. And this is a great business, and you're one of our top performing portfolio companies now.” 🙌)

On top of all this, she was raising her first child (and eventually, her second) and working on finding a sustainable rhythm between her roles as a mother and a business owner. Oh, and then there was the pandemic too, which dramatically impacted the wedding market and forced Poppy to pivot into DTC flower-arranging kits for a while.

Though it was difficult at times, Cameron reminded herself of passion for flowers, which kept her focused on steady, comfortable growth. This made it easier to keep going when things felt tough.

Letting her values lead the way

“Your inner life and your outer life should match to the greatest extent possible, and that has led me to flowers. It's led me to startups. It's led me to start my own company. It's led me to solve this pretty complex, hard problem.”

Growing this business from scratch has given Cameron the opportunity to create the job she always wanted. The best part? She gets to prioritize her personal values.

As a true creative, aesthetics and beauty will always be important to Cameron. But what motivates her to cultivate this nurturing space goes far beyond beautiful flowers.

Part of this journey was about showing herself–and those who told her to “stay in her lane"–that she could do anything she set her mind to.

“Not only am I going to do this, I'm actually going to do it smarter and better than what you did. I’m very motivated by being competitive and proving that I could do it.”

Arguably most important though, is her goal to always stay true to her feminist beliefs. For Cameron, part of being a feminist is about creating strength and economic empowerment for professions that are inherently feminine. Floral design is one of them.

And on the outside, it might not seem like it’s a really hard job, but it is. There’s a lot that goes into it. A lot of women balance this line of work around their families or do it on the side.

“I get a lot out of creating economic opportunities for women who are creative, who believe that beauty matters, and who need or want to work around their family or work from home. And it wouldn't be feasible for a lot of the floral designers we work with to be at a flower shop. Plus, they would make less."
"So this creates flexibility for women too. And that means a lot to me.”

Some key takeaways

One of the best parts about doing our own thing is that we get to learn as we go, and use that information to keep getting better. Here are two of the biggest lessons Cameron's learned from her experience:

“It's better to spend twice as much on one very experienced person than to have two inexperienced people on your team.”
“It's much worse to regret not having tried to do the hard thing. Because then, you can never go back and change that decision. But, if you fail at something you're really trying hard at, you'll just can always pivot to something else knowing you tried.”

When’s the last time you audited your own wellness?

Each month, we’ll share a gentle prompt or two to help you sort through the thoughts that may be showing up for you. The goal here isn't to give advice (we're sure you receive too much of that already). Rather, we hope this gives you permission to be the type of founder you want to be.

Shadow values are values you may never give a name to but which drive the work you do, maybe even subconsciously.

Feel free to pull out old fashioned pen and paper, or create a new doc just for journaling, and spend a few focused moments thinking about the following:

What’s something that made me quietly angry this week?
What value might have felt stepped on?
Where am I betraying my own priorities (within my business and in life generally) for the sake of optics, speed, or expectation?

Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer. You might even feel like you don’t have an answer at all. And that’s okay! Getting things down on “paper” can often help us come to new realizations or reconnect to ideas we’ve forgotten or pushed aside.

Take some time, give this some thought, and see what comes up for you.

If you're comfortable sharing your insights with us, we'd love to hear them! Let us know at foundingwell@vallelegal.com.

A startup born from wedding stress 🌼