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

Annie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

I have always been known as the “ideas gal” in my family…but an idea only comes to fruition if you have someone with enough guts to action. That’s Jess. One day, I pitched her the idea of owning a flower truck. Several months later, she was making us an appointment at a vintage auto dealership and we drove away with a 1967 International Harvester pickup truck. That was our starting point.

Once we had the truck, there was a lot of trial and error. We didn’t really have any other existing concepts to look to. The city ran us around in circles with permits and licenses because our business didn’t fit in any of their boxes. On our opening day, it was pouring rain, we had an abundance of flowers to unload, and all the hopes in the world that people would like us and “get” what we were trying to do.

After that day, we had an understanding of all the things we needed to learn, starting with: how do we drive and care for a 1967 truck? (A choke? What’s that?) We started figuring out how to control our costs, which flowers were hearty enough to stand up to a hot truck day, how to create a “mixed bouquet” and wrap said bouquet, where we could set up without needing an expensive permit, what businesses were best to partner up with, etc. We were also very aware of the materials we were using and where our flowers were coming from. From day one, it was important for us to buy locally grown stems whenever possible, grow our own flowers, and produce as little waste as possible.

As our first truck season came to a close, we knew we needed something to get us through the off season. So we started delivering subscription-based bouquets. The first year, we delivered to a handful of people, once a month. Going in to our 4th year, our subscriptions are a huge part of our success and what carries us through the cold weather months. However, running the flower truck and running a delivery business are two separate sets of skills, and we’ve had to learn to navigate routing systems, delivery drivers, bad weather (frozen flowers), e-commerce…the works!

At the beginning of last year, we decided it was time to expand our business. We purchased a 1963 Lincraft camper and renovated into to our new walk-up/drive-up mobile flower shop. Bloom Bar Flower Truck has now become Bloom Bar Flower Fleet, and we are excited to fully launch this new idea this fall. I’m sure we’ll have more to learn as we dive into this new endeavor, but we are excited to take on the challenge.

Annie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My partner & best friend Jess and I (Annie) started Bloom Bar Flower Truck in 2017. We both loved flowers, had entrepreneur spirits (she already ran her own successful business: Sit, Stay, Fetch), and wanted to do something together that made people happy. We wanted to change the flower-buying experience by making it more interactive and fun while also finding ways to support local flower growers and promote other local small businesses. Bloom Bar offers build-your-own-bouquet experiences from both the Watson the flower truck (a 1967 International Harvester) as well as indoor pop-up shop options, subscription bouquet deliveries, and coming soon, a drive up/walk up mobile flower shop (in the form of a renovated 1963 Lincraft camper!).

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

As every small business owner knows, customer and brand loyalty means everything to the success of your company. We have done very little paid advertising, and yet our business has continued to grow thanks to word-of-mouth and referrals. The biggest lesson we’ve learned when growing our clientele is staying true to who we are, following our mission statement, and being as transparent as possible. I believe people want to see the humans behind the brands, and transparency is the best way to show who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. When we make a mistake, we own it. When we come up against a challenge, we look for fair solutions. And we genuinely care about the product we put out because it’s the best way for us to show how much we appreciate our customers’ business!

The more you grow, the more people you’re exposed to, which in turn has its challenges. You can’t be everything to everyone, and not everyone is going to like what you do. We welcome feedback from our customers and try and provide ample opportunities for people to share their thoughts (email CTA, social messaging, etc). By opening this line of communication, we have learned what our audience likes/doesn’t like, what they care about, and what drives them to reorder or refer us to friends. This, in turn, has helped us create an amazing following full of people who “get us”.

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

We are doing a lot of pivoting this year, because not only did we decide to expand our business last year by purchasing a camper to turn into a mobile drive-up/walk-up flower shop, but Jess and I got pregnant two months apart. This has meant delaying projects, amping up, slowing down, rearranging, and being honest with ourselves about how much we can take on.

Is it ideal to grow your business while both partners are growing their families…maybe not. But women do it all the time. The key for us has been making smart business moves, growing our business without getting in over our heads financially, building a team of people we trust, knowing our strengths and weaknesses, and leaning on each other. The great thing about offering multiple services is that it’s easy to pivot and focus on one area while keeping the business going. Example: when COVID hit, we lost all our events, so we focused heavily on bouquet deliveries. When we are unable to grow one area of our business, we can pivot and focus on another.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bloombarcolorado.com
• Instagram: @bloombarco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bloombarco

Image Credits
Amana Ackerman of Seasoned Studio Lauralyn Sullivan