We recently connected with Chen Li and have shared our conversation below.

Chen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. undefined

Back in 2020, when everyone was trying to figure out how to bide their time during COVID, I started to hike and take nature walks outside. After many instances trying to identify plants, I wanted to create a solution for others struggling just like me. This step led to breaking into the plant space and launching the first phase of what is now the Palmstreet App – we made it so easy for plant lovers to snap a picture and know the name and details of a plant, even under an unreliable network. From then on, there have been many phases of innovation. For example, when we saw more and more people using the app to identify plants, we chose to innovate our initial product and develop features to capture these users through a social posting format. As we started to see many of these users searching for a reliable place to buy plants, we innovated and expanded yet again to create a safe shopping marketplace where users could buy and sell their plants, crystals, handmade goods, and more, bringing Palmstreet to what it is today.

Chen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

After working with Apple and Instagram early on in my career and helping a social media startup, timing aligned to create my own. Palmstreet today is an open marketplace that allows business owners to sell a wide variety of items through live shopping. The Palmstreet team works daily to reimagine the capabilities of our platform for our sellers and buyers to seamlessly conduct business. Based on the community we built in the early stages of our platform, we have been able to cultivate a personal shopping experience of users supporting other users. We have bi-weekly live town halls and weekly seller Q&A training sessions. I’m very proud of the inclusive community we’ve built. We help every business to thrive on the platform, big or small, and 80% of our sellers and users are female. We built the most inclusive community around live shopping. Everyone, as long as they can serve the customers and community very well, is included.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think a combination of things helped us align with our sellers and user base. We started out in the plant space and by putting boots on the ground to meet sellers early on and hearing about their pain points of selling online, our agile team was able to create a product that benefited them from integrating their business. The live streaming format itself also helped – consumers are able to see the exact products before buying them, and they can even ask sellers questions directly and in real time.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Focus on business growth and keeping growth momentum has the biggest impact on morale. If you think about it, all these people gave up so much to join your startup based on a vision and dream. You need to keep growing and winning, to prove to them that this dream is a reality and that we’re making achievements daily and weekly. It is the founder’s duty to lead the team and achieve success again and again. Also, be transparent with your team. Clearly communicate your long-term vision, one-year plans, quarterly goals, and monthly priorities. Share what matters to you, openly discuss concerns, and highlight both successes and setbacks. While transparency requires consistent effort, it fosters trust within the team—an invaluable asset to the company’s success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://palmstreet.app/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/palmstreetapp/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/plantsnstories

Image Credits

Palmstreet