Reader Stories – Arena Flowers

Some of my readers have been kind enough to share their stories with me. I have decided to publish them in the hope you will gain some insight and inspiration from hearing about their achievements. This is the first story, courtesy of Will Wynne at ArenaFlowers:

We launched ArenaFlowers.com in September 2006. Our offering is simple:

• Great products
• Great prices
• A slick user experience
• Wrapped up with attention to detail  

We think that offering will create delighted, repeat customers.  

Examples:

• We cut out all middlemen, to ensure longer lasting and better value flowers;
• Many of our products are ethically sourced and we are the only UK florist to be accredited by the Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Companies guide;
• We are the only flower website in the world where you can send a photograph or a video message with your flowers;
• Corporate customers have a bespoke system, Arena For Business, tailored to their needs (e.g. it halves checkout time, speeding up the placing of multiple orders);
• Last year we won an entrepreneurship award, so maybe we’re doing something right.   

Before we gave up our old jobs, we spent a lot of time researching. Steve, our FD, and I went toSan Francisco to meet with SEO experts to turbocharge our web marketing knowledge; we went to Holland to meet key partners; we launched a test site to prove the SEO traffic generation model’s feasibility. Pre-testing the viability of the model was key and the insight generated helped secure angel funding.   

Our core team has varied and complementary experience: I previously worked in venture capital and learned a lot about the web working at eBay.co.uk for 3 years. Steve has highly relevant experience from working in online floristry at a competitor prior to co-founding Arena. Ronald, our Dutch co-founder, has a wealth of experience from the flower and plant markets in Holland . Sam and Zach are experts in building websites and web design, having previously built sites for Toshiba and L’Oreal.

Post launch there have been numerous disasters and problems. Most things that could go wrong did go wrong at some point. There were also some great successes (breaking even was nice, as was taking our 100,000^th order recently).

Top 3 thoughts:  

• Measurement: Be it site analytics, marketing or accounting, up to date, accurate figures are absolutely key. We must know where we’re doing well and, more importantly, where we’re doing badly. Then we can fix things. With no numbers, we’re running blind which is very dangerous.
• Team: No single person can build a successful business all on their own. We have very much had a team effort, with different people taking care of different areas. This is key, in order to share the load, avoid overlap and maximise use of available human resources.
• It’s tough: No one ever said it was going to be easy but boy has it been tough sometimes. I’ve had two very stressful jobs before but nothing could have prepared me for the unrelenting pressure of the first 18 months with Arena. But then again, that’s part of the fun and part of the sense of achievement that is felt when hard work pays off.

The future? We have some ideas (e.g. we built and operate Prestat’s chocolate website and we may launch ArenaBloemen.nl) but our main aim is to consolidate our flower business and build it to last. We love what we’re doing too much to stop! 

11 Responses to “ Reader Stories – Arena Flowers ”

1. Sarah
   
   Said on April 3rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm

   What a wonderful success stories; I believe stories like this are essentials for people whoa are starting up to read, to motivate them. They also help people who have been in the business for years to make them remember why they started on the SMB journey in the first place. Well done Will and all the team at ArenaFlowers!

2. Hazel
   
   Said on April 5th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

   And Will is assiduous in writing comments on other people’s blogs whenever it’s relevant to do so!

3. Stacy @ Local Florists
   
   Said on February 3rd, 2009 at 5:53 am

   Great article. It such a motivation when you read these stories. having my own floral business I know how it is to start things off and continue successfully. You always want to perform equally well when you read these types of stories. And this is important to develop yourself and all around you. Nice work. Keep up the great work Stefan. Cheers

4. Stefan Töpfer
   
   Said on February 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 am

   Hi Stacy, thank you for your comment.

   I think you find it so inspiring, because it makes you think about your business and not about inside your business. It is always important to look at your business from a distance.

   Sounds to me you’ll just be doing fine, as you are ‘… developing all around you’.

   But most of all have fun.

   BR, Stefan

5. Tina @ Low Book Sales
   
   Said on February 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm

   Great story. These kind of success stories motivates us to achieve more and to give that extra bit when you are working.
   Inspiration + Aspiration + Perspiration will always take you closer to success.

6. Leaflet Distribution
   
   Said on February 3rd, 2009 at 6:19 pm

   I have to say that I aggree so strongly that a strong team is vital, without it you are certainly at a major disadvantage. We were this weekend sat with other business owners discussing how best to reward staff for their efforts, and very many different opinions were raised.

   A happy motivated staff member is worth 5 people just doing the 9-5.

7. Flowers Moscow
   
   Said on March 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am

   I too agree that a strong team is really vital for any task. Also success stories like this really does get you motivated and pumped up. Thanks a lot for them. Appreciate it. Cheers

8. Beth
   
   Said on May 21st, 2009 at 8:59 am

   I must say articles was really interesting and motivates other.

9. p
   
   Said on June 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm

   Interesting post.It’s very essential to use ethical seo services for promotion of your website.As it’s only thing which will help you to achieve high rankings.

10. Flori
    
    Said on October 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am

    That’s the way! Good luck in future with your business and thank you for such wonderful article.

11. Hugo
    
    Said on December 11th, 2009 at 3:39 am

    That is a really great success story. It is always good to hear such stories. Such a source of inspiration. Thanks for the article. Cheers.

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