We recently connected with Alexa Hughes and have shared our conversation below.

Alexa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

About five years ago I became a pretty avid plant collector. Friends started to come to me asking for help with their plants – Why are my leaves yellow? – Why does my plant look so sad? – What am I doing wrong? – and to the best of my ability from my experience taking care of my plants, I would help them. One day, a friend asked me to help her pick out some new plants for her place because she had killed all of her previous plants. She said she had even killed her cactus. I’m from Arizona and had never heard of someone killing their cactus so I asked her what she meant. She showed me a picture. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was about 3+ feet long and had completely deflated, flattened itself, and laid itself down outside and down the pot to the floor. It was dead, dead. That image stuck with me. So when I was workshopping names for what I wanted the business to be called, I told a group of friends on my patio the story and “The Flaccid Cactus” stuck.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always considered myself a half-scientist, half-artist. In undergrad, I majored in Biochemistry with a minor in Art History. I tried to double major in painting and biochemistry and was promptly shut down by my first academic advisor. My masters is in Biomedical Sciences. After my masters, I became really interested in Integrative Medicine, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, plus a myriad of modalities with the intent of trying to understand how to shift medicine from reactive medicine to preventative medicine. In that time, I received a certification in Integrative Medicine, received my nutritionist certification, and started my own health consulting company, Clotho Health. While I was really interested in helping people tackle their small problems now to prevent bigger health problems in the future, I quickly found out that people have a really hard time wanting to make changes until they have a large health scare. One part of my health consultations was educating people that NASA 30+ years ago came out with a study that looked into what toxins in the air certain plants can filter and remove from our environment, and then would encourage them to purchase these plants for their home. People really loved this information, and it was a much smaller change they could digest than a complete overhaul of their health and wellness. I’ve found that plants are both an art and a science both visually and practically, which I love.

The Flaccid Cactus started off as an in-house and in-business consulting company, where I would come in, see your space, your ceilings, your lighting, your experience with plants. I would then go with you to choose the best plants and pots for your space, stage the space, and finally teach you how to care for them. While I still do that for select clients, I recently opened an Amazon store where I sell 7″ hanging planters that are made from recycled plastic, recycled wood, and recycled stone composite in white and terra cotta colors. I didn’t want to create more trash in the world so I was very intentional with sourcing and creation of the product so it will last years and years and am proud it is made from recycled materials. When I was shopping on Amazon for myself and clients, all I could find were macrame hanging planters, and I really craved a simpler and more timeless style, so I made it myself! My products are for anyone who is environmentally conscious and likes a more contemporary style for their home. I am looking to expand to make The Flaccid Cactus your one-stop shop plant accessories company.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I exclusively sell through Amazon. My choice to sell through Amazon is that something like 40% of ALL online retail shopping is done through Amazon. That makes it a great opportunity for people to get exposed to your product but also a problem because you are just a small fish in a very large sea. A reason that retailers have such a problem crossing over to Amazon after selling themselves or on another retail website is that Amazon has very large fees associated with selling on their platform. People price their products without that margin in mind, and then come to Amazon and their take home suddenly is dramatically reduced. By selling on Amazon first, you price out your product with Amazon’s fees in mind, so you can still make a livable margin in the end. This way, if you ever choose to sell elsewhere, your returns will just go up from there, instead of going down the other way.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

High Output Management by Andrew Grove still sticks with me after reading it almost ten years ago. He is the former Chairman and CEO of Intel. This management book was so well thought out and his practices were really translatable to any area of business. It has been a while since I read it, but one tidbit that stuck with me is to have 1:1’s with your direct reports weekly, and have them set the agenda. That way, you have less work on your plate trying to predict agenda topics, and they feel empowered to drive the meeting with you weekly. Just writing this out makes me want to re-read it now.

Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Norman is a Zen Buddhist priest at the San Francisco Zen Center. This was actually recently recommended to a group on Reddit that I am a part of, when prompted “What were some books that changed your life?” I have to say, it was really well written and easy to implement thoughts, ideas, and practices into my everyday life. I mention this book because I think as a business owner, we need compassion in almost every interaction we have. We need compassion for ourselves because we will get overwhelmed, stressed, angry, and all the emotions in between trying to run a company. We need compassion for our employees, because we too were once employees for someone else and know what it is like. We need compassion for our production teams, shipment teams, etc because in the end, I really think 99.9% of the human population is really just trying their best, and coming from a place of compassion in problems will only strengthen ourselves and our businesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theflaccidcactus.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/the.flaccid.cactus
• Other: Link to Amazon store: https://a.co/d/cnFTF8L