Still Growing Strong: how Windowbox.com survived
Deep roots, a low profile, and sense of humor help plucky Urban Gardeners outlast a brutal dot com climate
When Ben Swett and few other dedicated urban gardeners started Windowbox.com in 1997, they didn't fit into the dot com game. "We were inept fund-raisers, " says Swett. "Venture capitalists mocked us, because we wanted to gradually grow a business that helped people have plants in their lives."
While today's economy is tough, and the past few years have been a boom and bust cycle for internet companies, Windowbox.com is still "growing strong." Their secret: sticking to a vision of using the web to facilitate people/plant relationships. "We started as 'The Balcony Gardener, Inc.,' but everyone said we'd have more success as a dot com, so in 1998 we became 'Windowbox.com.' Now, the 'dot.com' means loan sharks won't give us credit and our people get tailed by security at trade shows."
Here are some highlights of the Windowbox.com journey:
| Date |
Event |
Quote |
| 1997 |
Swett sells everything, and sinks his life
savings into Windowbox. |
"The stock market seemed silly at the time." |
| 1998 |
The Windowbox crew built an award-winning website
that features the plant-recommending Floracle™, a game in which
you grow a virtual plant in 23 days, and the plantcam (Streaming
Live Nude Plants 24/7). |
"We hoped that there was a vast audience looking
for a really helpful urban gardening reference that would find
our site, then buy lots of stuff. We continue to believe in
the power of plants and the innate goodness of all people." |
| 1998 |
1998 They watch in shock as well-funded competitors
like myseasons.com, Garden.com, PlanetGarden, and Eterra spend
millions marketing their websites. |
"We worked out of three apartments and our
customers would ask why we didn't advertise like Garden.com.
We had a team of 7 working all year for a fraction of what bigger
companies were spending on a single mailing. We felt stupid
and insignificant." |
| 1999 |
The Windowbox crew gets ambitious making "Gifts
that Grow™" - gift items built around live plants- and ProFlowers.com
becomes the first internet florist to carry their products.
|
"We had more ideas than customers, a mission,
and no cash. We were gardeners who decided to become florists,
and did it with fury. Dying in the middle of the dot com boom
would have been unseemly." |
| 2000 |
Windowbox is evicted and moves to a rooftop
in Skid Row, near the downtown Los Angeles wholesale flower
mart, where it continues to support urban gardeners and focuses
on developing plant-based gift products. |
"It was a glorious time of absolute terror." |
| 2001 |
Windowbox is wide-eyed as every single competitor
goes belly up. Eterra, Myseasons, Planet garden and Garden.com
fold. Burpee buys part of the remains of Garden.com, then declares
chapter eleven. |
"We were never on the dot com bubble-just in
its shadow. So when the bubble burst, we just got a little damp." |
| 2001 |
Something's working!-Mother's Day orders approach
10,000 - each with an individual gift message and its own Fedex
label. The pressure is almost too much for a couple of dedicated
gardeners turned online florists. |
"Fedex drivers refer to us as 'the pickup downtown
who laid down in front of our truck until we took everything…'
Each plant carries a priceless emotional payload - sympathy,
pride, love … you can't leave that kind of thing sitting on
the loading dock." |
| 2001 |
They hold their breath as a few dot com florists
collapse…some owing them money. |
Our tee shirt for last year: "My boss shipped
plants for a dot com Florist, and all I got was this lousy receivable."
|
| 2002 |
Fear and trepidation make way for awe and elation
as the company grows like a weed, doubling in size every few
months. |
"Banks have ads saying they 'get' growing businesses.
They 'don't'." |
| 2002 |
Windowbox.com marches onward, introducing more
people to the joys of caring for plants. |
"I'd like to give everyone in the world a plant,
but first we have to sell a few hundred million of them." |
So there, in a peapod, is the windowbox.com story. The little company with the big ideas about bringing people and plants together is going into its fifth spring season…still growing strong from its scenic rooftop in a seedy neighborhood.
About Windowbox.com
Windowbox.com is an online retailer dedicated to bringing the rewards of plant-growing into everyone’s life.
The Company offers easy-to-grow plant kits and proven garden supplies, along with the simple gardening tips
and online advice necessary to make plant growing easy and successful. With its user-friendly website and
personalized customer service, Windowbox.com has been helping satisfied customers since 1997. The Company
actively supports national community gardening organizations and the American Horticultural Therapy Association.
Windowbox.com is headquartered in Vernon, California
