Smelling the Roses with Sunny Chadha, Co-Founder and CEO of Venus ET Fleur

Founded in 2015 by Sunny Chadha and his wife, Seema, Venus ET Fleur takes a modern approach to floral design. Inspired by beautiful Parisian hat boxes and featuring Eternity Roses, which are real roses that last a year, the brand hit 20 million dollars in revenue in its first three years and has grown to over half a million followers on Instagram. In this episode, Sunny shares with us his entrepreneurial journey from growing up in New Jersey and working for his father's electronic company, to a disappointing Valentine's Day that sparked the idea for his company. Sunny talks with us about how Instagram posts from the Kardashians affected the business, why he believes in vision boards, and what it's like to run a business with your spouse.

###In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

• How growing up in New Jersey/New York with an entrepreneurial father laid the groundwork for both he and his brother to become entrepreneurs as well
• How he learned to be adaptive and find the good in change after his mom became an entrepreneur following a major shift in his home life
• Why he left college to work with his dad to learn what real life business experience would teach him
• How he and his brother learned even more about business through a popular brunch spot and nightclub they started in Manhattan in 2013 and then through a commercial lending business they started with their friend and roommate
• Why a disappointing Valentine’s Day turned into a pretty awesome business idea that Sunny and Seema quickly started to develop, even in the midst of their very new relationship with each other
• How they used social media to grow their business, which included some posts from the Kardashians that brought in more traffic than they expected and the brilliant idea Sunny had to navigate that in the moment
• What led to the development of the Eternity Rose and why that has become the next big thing in florals
• Ways they continue to innovate, add product offerings, educate their customers and offer new and beautiful ways to have florals in homes, offices, and really anywhere
• What advice Sunny has for keeping the morale strong within the team culture, hiring people you trust, and creating vision boards to keep your eyes fixed on the future of your brand

###To Find Out More:
VenusETFleur.com

###Quotes:

“Through life you go through things like that, and as long as you look at it to sort of bring out the positive, it's always going to teach you something good. There's always going to be something that you take out of it to develop yourself.”

“We were able to do something very, very foreign to us, but it kind of taught us that as long as we work hard at it, we have the right team, the right support, the right hard workers, we can do it.”

“I love getting opinions from people that are close to me, but also the more opinions, the more complicated your decision becomes.”

“I think not getting too much sort of cloudiness in your thoughts and just like still staying true to what you're thinking and what your gut tells you.”

“That's one of the beautiful things about a business is like if it feels right, do it. You're the one that's going to be doing all the work. So make sure you just sign off on it yourself and just hit the ground running as fast as you can.”

“It was like this feeling of like this is going to be different. This is going to be new. And this is going to be something that is going to be big.”

“Once we were able to inject the perfect version, being our Eternity Rose, into the florals...that lifted that restriction on geography for me. And I was able to continue to try and grow as fast as we could. So that was a big thing.”

“I think development everywhere is what keeps me going. It keeps me really sort of on my toes. Like, what can we keep doing? How can we continue to grow?”

“We started to introduce these new product categories to where we educated customers on where else you can utilize florals within your space.”

“You can plan for demand and you can buy inventory, but you also have to make sure that you have enough people that can package and design and so on. And then also customer service. As we grow, all the sides of the business grow and it's important for people to remember all those other parts of the business as well.”

“I think it's very important for couples out there that are looking to get into business together to make sure from the beginning that you have that alignment and understanding.”

“You want to move quickly. So a lot of people might just be like, "Hey, we'll figure it out as we go," but then as you go and those things become pain problems, it can also negatively impact the business, but more so even the personal relationship.”

“We need to have that work/personal life balance, which is very, very important for sure. And I always recommend that.”

“I think team building and really understanding who those people are is super important.”

“It's something that I'd say is not just to hope to get to the goal and then look back at the journey. Also embrace it as you go through the journey.”