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

Hi Joey and Casey, thanks for joining us 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?

When we chose the name Thrifty Gents our business was far from a floral shop. We originally thought we were going to open an online gently used clothing boutique. We designed our website, bought mannequins, secured a good camera, and started sourcing unusual clothing items. Once all of those fun tasks were done, we quickly realized we were not passionate about that business. We loved the name that we had created though and when we were asked to plan and be the florist for a family friends wedding Thrifty Gents stayed with us. We are always so excited when someone in the community recognizes us as “a gent”. Thrifty Gents has truly taken on a persona of it’s own.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Thrifty Gents is a bespoke floral and event planning business. Our shop offers everyday floral and gifts. The soul of our business has been weddings and events and we love helping people make their big day special with over the top florals. We utilize non traditional floral techniques and flower choices. One of the things that sets us apart from other florists in town is that we love and utilize a wide variety of greenery as the base of all of our floral designs. Since we started the business in the spring of 2019 we have won Pueblo’s best florist for four years in a row. While that is prestigious, the fact that our community continues to honor us in this way fuels our commitment to the highest quality. We are so honored that our community loves us. Our business has grown and pivoted from its early conception. It wasn’t always easy. But, with each mistake we have learned numerous lessons. Some of those lessons include time management, product sourcing, and when working with a perishable product you have to know how each flower or green stem is going to respond to temperature and storage. We would love for the world to know that we love to offer something that is different and unique. We believe that there is enough love in our town to go around. We strive to be eco friendly and conscious of price point for our customers. When offering the idea of bespoke floral you have a different experience when you walk into our shop or go to our website. We have a few arrangements ready to be purchased for the day. But, we like to focus on pre orders so that we can customize the arrangement to the customer or recipient. We love what we get to do.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

It took us several years to get to the point we are now and we probably have more growth to achieve. When we started Thrifty Gents we were searching for something that we could do together outside of our careers. Casey is a full time Administrator and Director of Nursing for MGA Homecare. Joey was a full time Drama teacher at a local high school. The first year we had three or four events. 2020 changed a lot of things for our business. We started offering everyday floral because we were both working from home and people wanted to send love since they couldn’t see one another. We also decided we needed a space to meet with potential clients that wasn’t at a coffee shop or through Zoom. We signed a three year lease on a small store front that summer. We bought a display cooler, furniture, and ordered in unique gift items. Casey’s Job has remained. Joey has transitioned from full time teaching, to part time teaching, to full time floral shop operation. We never imagined this business becoming a full time opportunity. The idea of Thrifty Gents came from a place of passion and we are so grateful that the evolution of our side hustle to full time business has come to fruition.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social Media has created the business we have today. Building our social media presence has been a labor of love. A lot of time and patience as well as consistency have slowly, but surely, have paid off. We approach social media from a collaborative perspective. For us, it was about building a community that wanted to interact and guide the direction of the business. Social media was also a way to interact with other businesses in our community. The consistency of our social media is not only posting our content but also showing support to other businesses in ways of a simple like, share, comment, or follow. We know how valuable all of those small things are in the overall effectiveness of Social Media. The biggest piece of advice we could offer is be patient with growth. It is ok to go weeks without new followers. Focus on engagement with the followers you have. Commit 10 to 15 minutes a day to your social media. It sounds like a short amount of time. But, you can do a lot in that time if it is uninterrupted and scheduled.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thriftygents.com
• Instagram: thrifty.gents
• Facebook: thriftygents1
• Linkedin: Joey Andenucio
• Twitter: thrifty.gents
• Other: TikTok: Thriftygentsfloral