Mickey Popat worked in finance, and his wife, Vicky Popat, was a teacher when their weekend gardening hobby led to more than 80 fruit trees planted in their Orlando, Florida, backyard — and the idea to turn the passion into a business.
Image Credit: Courtesy of PlantOGram. Vicky Popat, left, and Mickey Popat, right.
“ I grew up with all kinds of amazing tropical foods, guavas and mangoes and lychee,” Mickey, who immigrated to the U.S. from South Africa in the early 1990s, says, “and I was surprised [because] a lot of family and friends would come over [and ask], ‘Oh my God, what is a guava? I’ve never tried one.’ And then they’d say it was the best-tasting thing they’d ever had.”
Soon, those same family and friends asked the Popats if they could help them plant their own fruit trees. Mickey and Vicky both “came from a long line of entrepreneurs,” and the business concept began to take root. In 2007, the couple decided to go all-in on PlantOGram, a luxury fruit tree gifting company.
“To start this business, we had to give back all the luxury items we had.”
The Popats quit their day jobs to dedicate themselves fully to the business. They planned to bootstrap the venture using their savings, so it was time to get lean — and make some strategic moves.
“To start this business, we had to give back all the luxury items we had,” Vicky says. “We turned in all of the cars, the Lexus, the Jags, the fancy clothing. Everything had to go. We sold everything and bootstrapped our idea.”
Mickey and Vicky put the money made toward a practical business purchase: a $1,500 Ford Econoline work van.
On early weekend mornings, the couple scoured farmers markets for plants, buying a variety to test the market. The Popats loaded those plants into their van and drove door-to-door to find customers. Sometimes they’d set up as many as 50 plants on someone’s driveway to display all of their options. Eventually, Vicky created a book of their offerings to streamline the selection process.
The “self-taught” co-founders undertook their door-to-door strategy without marketing skills, but they learned some along the way, turning to “YouTube University” for guidance when necessary, they say.
The couple had success with printing business cards and leaving them on people’s doors. Whenever the Popats received an inquiry about the business in those days, they recorded it in a book by hand — tracking the client’s name, what kind of tree they wanted and how they’d heard about the business.
”We realized early on that [for] a lot of the consumers, this was more of an experiential gift.”
The one-on-one engagement with PlantOGram’s customer base proved invaluable, allowing the Popats to learn more about what people wanted.
”We realized early on that [for] a lot of the consumers, this was more of an experiential gift,” Mickey says. “They were growing with their kid, with their children, their grandchildren. They [were] generational gifts because these plants are here for decades.”
About a year into their business’s launch, the Popats established a web presence. That, too, was executed with a lean mentality. The Popats didn’t hire a developer; they built the website themselves. Initially, the website was just a source of information. People could learn more about the business, but they couldn’t input a credit card or place an order.
One particularly determined customer would change that. A woman in Georgia wanted a specific tree she couldn’t find elsewhere, and she was “adamant” that the Popats send it to her. She sent them a check, and the couple tried to figure out the best way to ship the tree, ultimately landing on bare rooting, where the plant’s roots are dug up, cleaned of soil and transported without any soil.
“It got there [and] lived for maybe a week and a half,” Vicky recalls. “And then she called me and said, ‘I’m sending another check. I’m sending checks until you figure it out.'”
The couple consulted their fathers, who had a bit more mechanical experience, about how to proceed. Those brainstorms led to the standardized shipping approach that PlantOGram still uses today, nearly two decades later. The company ships plants in their containers with no bare roots and has a 99.9% success rate, Mickey says.
“ I always say when our plants arrive and they take that box off of it, [it’s] like how you have someone [hiding] in a box [as a] surprise. That’s how our plants arrive because the leaves come out flushed and they’re just like, ‘We’re here,'” Vicky says.
“We loved being in the driver’s seat and having that full control.”
PlantOGram enjoyed steady growth up to its website launch, but the new ability to ship gave the business the additional boost of gaining customers nationwide. These days, the company is online exclusively, and in the last year and a half, PlantOGram entered the international market, shipping to Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with plans to continue expansion.
PlantOGram saw $4.2 million annual revenue in 2024, per the company.
Even as they successfully grew the business, the Popats intentionally avoided taking outside investment. The founders wanted full control over “all of the decisions, all of the wins and all of the failures.”
“ I know it’s not for all entrepreneurs,” Mickey says, “but for us, we loved being in the driver’s seat and having that full control. With some businesses, when you bring in outside capital, sometimes that comes with a lot of strings and a [loss of] power.”
Vicky agrees, adding that bootstrapping has also allowed them to sharpen their problem-solving skills — the importance of which she first learned from her entrepreneurial parents.
“ I watched my mom and dad become real problem-solvers in [the] moment,” Vicky explains. “You’re able to think a lot more clearly [and say], Okay, well, we’ve got to do this. We have to get from here to here. How do we do it? We have X amount of dollars. How do we use this? And we stretch.”
PlantOGram saw another uptick in sales in 2020 amid the pandemic. People across the country wanted to learn more about growing and bringing plants into their indoor and outdoor spaces.
”We had plants going out like crazy, especially in New York,” Vicky recalls. “And those people from the pandemic times are still gardening today. They didn’t stop. They’re still more aware of their surroundings. They’re more aware of their carbon footprint. They’re more aware of everything now.”
These days, mango trees — which boast more than 2,000 varieties to choose from — are surging in popularity, and avocado and olive trees are also having a moment, Vicky notes. Olive trees, with their symbolic representations of peace and prosperity, are especially hot within the corporate gifting space right now, she says.
”If you’re really serious about it, go and get a license.”
The Popats have learned a lot about what it takes to make a business flourish over the years, and to aspiring entrepreneurs who might want to transform their hobbies or passions into ventures of their own, they offer two key pieces of advice.
First, don’t just talk about your business idea ad nauseam: Take action.
During a recent conversation with their daughter, who asked how exactly PlantOGram came to be, Vicky explained that once inspiration struck, she made sure they went down to acquire the business license — no hesitation.
”If you’re really serious about it, go and get a license,” Vicky says. “Get an LLC, go get an S corp. Go do something. And then you can start talking about your ideas [and] really put it down. Don’t overthink it.”
Related: The Definitive Guide to Licensing: When You Get a Great Idea, What Do You Do Next?
Finally, don’t underestimate the value of staying lean whenever possible — after all, it’s the approach that laid the foundation for where PlantOGram is today.
“We watched every penny, [and] being lean allowed us to be profitable,” Mickey says.
