Eliza Blank, The Sill: Cultivating a Modern Relationship with Plants – Well Made E53

The Sill is the first digitally native, direct-to-consumer plant brand. In 2012, CEO and founder Eliza Blank bootstrapped the company through a Kickstarter campaign and started the ecommerce business locally — hand-delivering indoor potted plants around New York City. Six years later, The Sill is shipping everything from ferns to succulents nationwide.

Early on, Eliza prioritized education around plants. When plants are your product, the information to keep them alive becomes part of the product offering. On The Sill’s Instagram stories, in-house experts answer nitty gritty plant questions and from their website, you can find recommendations and how-to guides, or attend in-store and virtual workshops. By taking the guesswork, and ultimately friction, out of buying and caring for plants, Eliza and her team are seeing the community (and sales) flourish. Their goal? To make the experience enjoyable, even for the sorest of green thumbs.

“What our customers needed from us wasn't just the inspiration, but the education.”

On this episode of the podcast, Eliza shares how The Sill is making the plant buying process approachable and directional through guidance and a growing supply chain (11:31). She goes through The Sill’s major business milestones and transitions (18:23), and how the brick-and-mortar business shaped how they marketed and sold their products online (20:54). She talks about outgrowing her bootstrapped business (22:31), acting on ambition (24:51), and investing in a solution-oriented online shopping experience (27:40). Finally, Eliza shares how they’re building beyond the zeitgeist of plant parenthood (41:50).

Shop The Sill and follow them on Instagram.

Also mentioned on the show:

Header image by Lauren Juratovac via Forbes.

You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.