According to Fortune, Farmgirl Flowers founder Christina Stembel built what looked like a massive success story—her ecommerce flower business hit $34 million revenue in 2019 but only $36,000 profit, paying herself just $60,000 that year. During the 2020 pandemic boom, sales skyrocketed to $60 million with 300 employees, but then crashed hard in 2021 with a $5.5 million loss that forced her to take out a $3.5 million personal loan to survive. Today she’s completely overhauled the business model four times, now running with just 30 employees and outsourcing bouquet assembly while keeping design in-house. The company is back to around $35 million in sales but expecting 15% net profit this year, and Stembel has abandoned her original exit ambitions after realizing they were driven by ego rather than vision.
The brutal reality behind the glamour
Here’s the thing about startup media darlings—the numbers often tell a very different story. Farmgirl Flowers was everywhere in the 2010s, this bootstrapped success story that seemed to defy the need for venture capital. But behind the beautiful bouquets was a business barely breaking even despite millions in revenue. Stembel was basically working for peanuts while building what looked like a thriving company.
And then the pandemic rollercoaster happened. Everyone was sending flowers and brightening their homes, so revenue nearly doubled to $60 million. But that growth came with massive operational complexity—300 employees across the U.S. and South America. When things reopened, the bottom fell out completely. A $5.5 million loss? That’s the kind of number that kills most businesses. The fact that she had to take a personal $3.5 million loan shows how dire things got.
Pivot or perish mentality
What’s fascinating is how many times she’s changed the model. Four major overhauls? Most founders would have thrown in the towel after one or two. The biggest shift was outsourcing bouquet assembly—the very thing that originally differentiated Farmgirl from competitors. But that differentiation came at a huge cost, and sometimes you have to sacrifice what made you special to survive.
I think there’s a lesson here about the freedom that comes from not having investors. Stembel admits if she’d taken venture money, she wouldn’t have been able to pivot so dramatically. Investors want growth at all costs, not survival through multiple business model changes. When you’re playing with other people’s money, you don’t get to make those messy, iterative adjustments that sometimes save a business.
Redefining success entirely
Now she’s running a completely different company—smaller, leaner, and actually profitable. Fifteen percent net profit on $35 million is serious money compared to the $36,000 profit on similar revenue back in 2019. But more importantly, she’s redefined what success means.
“I realized it was just my ego.” That’s a powerful admission from any founder. The startup world is obsessed with exits and unicorn status, but Stembel’s realizing that building a sustainable business that provides good jobs might be the real win. She owns 96.89% of the company and plans to eventually step back while implementing profit-sharing with employees rather than passing it down as family wealth.
And let’s be honest—her experience as a woman founder probably shaped this perspective. She talks about getting the “worst offer” her banker had ever seen and realizing the traditional exit path wasn’t going to happen for her. So she’s creating her own definition of success, one that doesn’t depend on validation from the venture capital boys’ club.
Broader lessons for founders
This story hits different in 2025, doesn’t it? We’re coming out of years where growth was everything, and now profitability and sustainability are back in style. Stembel’s journey shows that sometimes the most visionary thing you can do is survive—to keep adapting until you find a model that actually works.
Her plan to eventually step back and let the business run without her while sharing profits with employees? That’s a legacy worth building. It’s not the flashy IPO or acquisition story we’re conditioned to celebrate, but it might be more meaningful. In a world where companies like Revlon are resetting and even the med spa industry is evolving, maybe we need more stories about building businesses that last rather than those that exit quickly.
Farmgirl Flowers survived near-death and came out smarter on the other side. That’s a success story worth telling, even if it doesn’t end with a billion-dollar valuation.
