We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Samantha Maranca. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Samantha below.

Alright, Samantha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How has Covid changed your business model?

Pre-Covid our business was on a continuous growth projection, and in the months before Covid hit we were scaling up to handle the influx in business, even in our typically slower season. This all came to a complete halt as we were shut down and unable to do any business for 2 full months and then adjust to a world where the economy, our clientele and the world in general was a very different place. The biggest challenge that I think we faced in the 3 years since covid hit is to always be malleable and able to recalculate our expectation on what business will look like and where we should be putting our focus. For instance, pre covid the “bread and butter” of our business was with steady repeat accounts, like real estate, retail, and corporate accounts that ordered consistently and regularly. On the plus side, this got us back to work much quicker than many more “event” based companies who were out of work for almost 2 years before weddings and in person events were rescheduled. However, In this past year we are seeing more of a pull back from our ongoing clients who have been hit harder by ongoing inflation, challenges in staffing, and raise in overall day to day expenses. Therefore, we have turned some of our focus more towards private events, both personal and corporate in the past few years.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Samantha started working in visual merchandising and display in 2001 while pursuing her bachelor’s degree in interior design. After transitioning into floral design and event management work in 2007 she discovered her passion lay in the medium of flowers and plants. She started working full time as a high end floral designer and shop manager, working for several boutique floral companies before founding The Mini Rose Co. in 2013.

The Mini Rose Co is a family run small business that prides itself on the hands on interactions with each of its clients. We have built deep ongoing relationships with our clients, staff and vendors to create products and services that are uniquely cultivated and cared for, growing with the ever changing needs and vision of our incredible clientele.

Samantha has a passion for transforming and elevating the look of a space. “I love combining traditional garden textures with unique color combinations and unexpected elements. By creating organic, timeless designs and unique statement pieces with quirky and fun style, you can brighten up every space and occasion.” To bring a space or occasion to its fullest potential by adding that unforgettable element of life and warmth is to add the icing onto a cake.

I am most proud of how I have been able to bridge the gap of the different design worlds that I have worked within throughout my adult life, pulling from my love and passion of each and created a full service company that truly specializes in, and loves what we do.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid hit and our business was shut down, it was a truly terrifying moment. As a family run business, my husband and I have no other source of income, and our business was the sole income provider for 3 of our employees which we took incredibly seriously. We decided very quickly that we needed to find a way to be relevant in the lockdown world that we were witnessing, and came up with a plan to bring our typically in person floral workshops and be able to bring them to an individual, stuck in their homes. With the help of our incredible vendors, and shipping companies, we found a way to overnight ship individual boxes of “Mini Rose Bloom Boxes” directly to each person’s home so we could hold our workshops virtually and in real time, from the safety of our homes. The initial send outs of these boxes came directly to our clients from Holland, which was an incredible feat of coordination. We basically started a whole new business model, within our business and threw all of our resources into getting it online, up and running and highly tailored for a corporate world that was desperate to find innovative ways to engage clientele and bring their teams together in ways that was not just another zoom call. Over the course of the past few years we have hosted well over a hundred virtual workshops of all kinds, and it will forever be a service that we provide for our clientele, even as our in person events are back up and running.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I started my business about 4 months before I met my husband. So it was very much in the inception phase of business, and he was working doing business coordination for a large company. We had a whirlwind romance, were engaged 49 days after our first date, and married before our 6 month anniversary. (and yes…I did do the flowers for my own wedding!) Despite all of the focus on these life changing events in my life, my business was steadily growing, and although I was greatly capable in the ways of design, vision and sales, important things like keeping up with the books, back of house stuff like growing needs for insurance, website management, billing did not come as naturally. Exactly 1 year after our first date, while we were on our honeymoon, Myles’ contract had just ended with his previous position, so we discussed him coming on to help me get some of these infrastructure elements of the business side up to snuff. We figured 4-6 months max would do the trick. However, by the end of 6 months, we needed to hire our first full time employee (still with us to this day) and as much as we tried to justify him finding another job, we realized that the breadth of work that he handled for our business was something that we could not replace with another employee and was essential to the functional running of the business. And although it is sometimes challenging (sometimes extremely challenging!) to work with your spouse, it is also incredibly rewarding and you know that your partner always has your best interest in mind. It is also a testament to having a great family therapist!!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theminirose.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theminiroseco/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY-wthAqkJE7Jz0TPJxyCgQ
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-mini-rose-new-york-2