We were lucky to catch up with Planty Queens recently and have shared our conversation below.

Planty, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Maya has always had a love for plants and Lillie caught the bug from Maya when we were living with each other. When the pandemic hit, our love for plants turned into an obsession and we went to an outdoor sale that our grower was doing. Maya was teaching from home and Lillie was recently laid off so we had more time on our hands and we met our grower David and it quickly spiraled into a business from there. We felt immediate support from the local community and watched our business from Lillies backyard, to a 400 square foot warehouse space, to our first studio space, to our now beautiful storefront. We are still in complete shock how quickly this business has blossomed and we have really been able to sustain a business that truly started as a pandemic hobby.

Planty, 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?

PlantyQueens at the heart of it all is Maya and Lillie. Our personalities and viewpoints on the world around us make up how we navigate the direction of our business. We make political statements loud and proud and fight for what we think is right. As two Jewish women who grew up in strong feminist families, it was important for us and our brand to showcase that and lead the way for what our business allies with and promotes.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Our goal from the start was to never have a storefront. We thought that it would be a waste of money and sink our business into failure. Once we realized that online shopping was decreasing in the end of 2021, we realized that ACTUALLY the only way for our business to keep pushing forward was to do just that. In February of 2022, we found our dream space in Northeast Minneapolis and in April of 2022, we opened the doors to our store. We are so proud of the space but could not have done it without the local community rooting us on and supporting us throughout the entire process.

How’d you meet your business partner?

We have been friends for over 10 years. We were both dating people who were friends and we got to know each other through them. We then decided to live together with our other best friend and that is really where our friendship blossomed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.plantyqueens.com
• Instagram: @plantyqueens
• Facebook: @plantyqueens
• Other: TikTok: @plantyqueens

Image Credits
photography by Jessie Clewell