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

David, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

The hardest part about taking an idea and making it grow – is taking that leap of faith that things will work out. For owners David & Aidan, growth took having full time jobs while working on our business in any “free time”. The Covid 19 pandemic gave us a little extra time at home to explore our hobbies. We started handmaking concrete items, like planters, that we eventually would sell at pop up markets on the weekends. After a year or two of attending markets, we opened our first physical store in the East Market. Opening in a Market style building has its benefits as a first location. For us, we couldn’t afford a large buildout and didn’t know how the business would do. David left his full time job to operate the East Market location when opening in 2022. However Aidan still is working his full time job and is planning on making the switch once we open the 2nd location. Leaving stable jobs is one of the hardest choices for us, but it is all about timing.
After being open for almost two years we are ready to grow our business. We are hoping to open a 2nd location in Columbus that will give us more space- since our current location is only about 200 square feet! The process of finding the right space, in the right location, with the right price is HARD! After searching for a 2nd location for over a year, we got lucky. Downtown Columbus is making an effort to help small businesses grow through the Downtown Ground Floor Growth Initiative program. This program is designed to support small minority- and/or woman-owned businesses. We are currently in the process of finalizing a lease agreement with them and cannot wait for this next chapter of the growth of our business!

David, 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?

Owners David & Aidan combined their two passions when forming the brand. David has a background in Landscape Architecture & Aidan in interior design. We provide plant care & design services to clients that range from repotting plants to staging and selecting plants for peoples homes or offices. We take pride in our houseplants and want our customers to leave our shop feeling like they have the knowledge to make their plants thrive in their spaces.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Initially starting our brand online we gained a large Instagram following. This helped us connect to the local Columbus community, who always shows up for us. When opening our first location we had a GoFundMe to help fund build out expenses. We were really stretched thin and the support we received from the community was overwhelming. We also got a small 0% interest loan from a local loan agency that helped us kickstart our business!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Starting a “business” wasn’t our initial intention. We started as a plant “blog” on Instagram, posting tips & tricks from what we learned about our personal houseplant collection. I think the more personal and educational approach resigned with followers. Our best advise would be, to be authentic and people will follow you for you!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.theplantgays.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.plant.gays/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.plant.gays/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-plant-gays-columbus