Delighting People with Flowers Differently

How the founders of 50Gram crafted a whole new gifting experience.


BEAMSTART

15 Feb, 2018

Delighting People with Flowers Differently | BEAMSTART News

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Buying flowers can be a pretty arduous process.

Traditionally, a person would have to go to a florist, pick a bouquet (usually from a limited range of selections), hand-write a message card, and deliver it to the receiver.

However 50Gram aims to change all of that - by creating a simple and truly delightful experience to buy and send flowers to your loved ones. 

50gram official website at 50gram.com.my

How it all began.

The founders, Spring Wong and Titus Wong, got the idea to start 50Gram after a trip to South Korea upon learning how technology was used to bring a uniquely different flower gifting experience there.

In the beginning, 50Gram started out as an online florist shop to bring a quicker and more convenient alternative for people to buy flowers online.

However in 2016, the duo introduced a brand new concept of sending messages through recorded videos that are presented by scanning a QR code after bouquets are passed to the recipients. 

The idea was to create a fresh experience of receiving messages from the sender, instead of just a plain card with a handwritten message. 

Scanning a QR code plays a video upon receiving a bouquet of flowers from 50gram.

Not only did this new concept bring forth a whole different feel to the gifting experience, it delighted receivers with heartwarming video messages sent from their loved ones. 

This simple act of adding a little extra touch brought forth a truly sensational and magical experience. They called it, "Malaysia's first video bouquet", and it was a hit.


Bootstrapping to Profitability.

Spring and Titus bootstrapped 50Gram from the ground up purely using their own finances.

2 years since it's inception, 50Gram is now a profitable company garnering over a hundred thousand fans online. 

The team today has grown to over 20 staff, sometimes handling thousands of orders during peak periods. The company has also expanded their premises, occupying 4 office lots today. 

50Gram has garnered over 110k fans organically.

Although there are newer players entering the market, Spring and Titus have always differentiated 50Gram by having a broader range of choices to bundle along with their bouquet deliveries. Some of these include plush toys and many other interesting gift ideas from well recognized major brands in the market.


Lessons Learnt.

Throughout the two years of running the business, Spring described their journey of bootstrapping as "enjoyably fun".  His best piece of advice for young entrepreneurs is to focus on profitability rather than raising funds.

“Investors are smart. If your business is incapable of generating a profit with limited resources, what are the odds that you could efficiently use the funds given to you by the investors? You must have a great adaptability in your mind to sustain as there are many challenges that would occur within short period of time. 

He also went on to add:

The skills, ideas, and experiences are the major resources needed to grow a business. It is difficult to gain trust from investors if you attempt to raise funds without a clear business model. Not every investor would put their bet on you if you can’t show them any results. You need to find proof that you are capable to earn certain amount of profit before actually getting invested in. A simple example would be: If a person is capable of earning RM10, then he would get RM100 from the investors. However, if the he is unable to even generate RM10, this would not only put off the investor, it could potentially lead to failure.”

Spring at a recent interview on a local radio station

Future Plans.

As for upcoming plans, Spring and Titus aim to expand their product range and scale 50Gram in terms of profitability and to more parts of the region this year.

Aside from expansion, the team aims to focus on deeper technological advancement to improve the user experience of their customers. 

Spring mentioned that although many investors have expressed interest in investing in 50Gram, they have declined most of them as they're seeking to partner with investors who could bring strategic value in pushing their business further.

If a strategic fit could be found, the duo plan to raise additional capital to scale the business more aggressively to more parts of the world.


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