Aron Gelbard

Published: 15/06/2021

Updated: 05/01/2024

For Aron Gelbard, co-founder of one of Europe’s largest flower and gifting platforms, Bloom & Wild, it wasn’t just about the flowers. Flowers were emblematic: “I recognised their positive emotional impact. When I started the business, I didn’t want to make widgets. I wanted something that helps people express their emotions and gives a really positive experience.”

How it started?

When he decided to take the entrepreneurial leap from his steady job at a management consultancy, he knew exactly the type of business he wanted to run, even if he didn’t yet know that it would involve flowers:

He had seen entrepreneurial life first hand. His father and 3 of his 4 grandparents had been entrepreneurs and he knew it could be difficult, hard work. “That was very formative. I knew I wanted to do it, but I also knew I needed to de-risk it a little.” For him that meant not just dropping out of the workplace but having something he could fall back on.

Management consultancy also taught him some useful skills that he carried through into his business life, learning to communicate concisely, for example, to prioritise work effectively. It also taught him how to motivate people and run an effective team.

The group started small in 2013 with Aron and Ben Stanway. They used some modest savings to rent space, buy some wholesale flowers and experiment with different packaging samples. They built letterbox-friendly packaging, found the right combination of flowers. This was, he says, one of the key things they got right: “We didn’t try to scale too quickly. We worked on getting the product as brilliant as possible. We reasoned that by making it good, people would recommend it to others. We would get a tailwind of word of mouth and referrals, rather than having to use paid marketing all the time.”

The group only used paid marketing later, when they were sure they had a really good product. He adds:

He knew there were already plenty of online flower companies and they needed to differentiate themselves in multiple ways. That meant reducing their environmental impact by buying directly from growers, building bespoke technology to ensure that operations were as scalable and efficient as possible, but also ensuring that the brand was synonymous with trust and care. Bloom & Wild needed to be known for going out of its way to give a great experience – or ‘caring wildly’ as it describes it.

How’s it going?

The emotional pull of flowers became particularly important through the pandemic, when, Aron says, flowers became a substitute for hugs. “There was a surge in demand during the pandemic. It was challenging to ramp up supply: we needed more people to pack but of course our priority was the health of our people, so it had to be done in a way that ensured social distance.”

However, the type of customers that came on board during the pandemic were ‘sticky’. They had gone in search of Bloom & Wild rather than being drawn to the company through marketing, which meant that many have stayed loyal, and the company has emerged from the pandemic at meaningfully larger scale than going into it. In addition, in 2021, Bloom & Wild acquired 2 European peers: bloomon in the Netherlands and Bergamotte in France. In doing so, it became Europe’s leading direct to consumer flower, plant and gifting platform, operating 3 brands across 8 countries.

Bloom & Wild have also always felt it is important to support the wider community, both during the pandemic but also beyond. During the pandemic, they raised £215k for the National Emergencies Trust, as well as offering frontline workers over £2m in discounts. In 2020 they established a partnership with Carers Trust, supporting the 7m unpaid carers in the UK. Bloom & Wild has raised over £650k for charity partners in total. And in early 2024, Bloom & Wild announced that it was a certified B Corp with a score of 106.5 points.

What does the future hold?

Aron’s goal from here is simple - to be the world’s most loved flower and gifting company. Bloom & Wild has already disrupted many incumbents to become the market leader in the UK and he believes there is the opportunity to replicate the success in the UK in their 7 other European markets.

They have also moved beyond flowers into plants and more recently into other gifting categories, such as confectionery, hampers, and homeware gifts: “We want to give people an experience beyond flowers and believe there is a large-scale opportunity to build beyond the flower category. We have developed geographically and across multiple product categories.”