Sydney dad’s flower delivery business Mr Roses takes off, makes $5m in a year

The Sydney dad relied on people being “sticky beaks” and having a fear of missing out. Now he’s making millions every year.

A Sydney dad has managed to rake in millions of dollars selling roses and his business generated a whopping $811,000 during its best month.

James Stevens, 56, only started Mr Roses three years ago but it hit $5.4 million in revenue for the past financial year.

He has been exposed to flowers from a young age when his parents ran a florist shop at Town Hall station in 1964.

The long-time florist told news.com.au “I wanted a brand that was never going to be at the mercy of a landlord”.

Witnessing his parents expand their flower store other busy thoroughfares to attract the most amount of customers, Mr Stevens realised it would be a more stable business model to deliver flowers rather than depend on foot traffic.

“I started in the flower game as a kid,” he explained. “I was born and bred in the flower industry, mum and dad’s business model was a pretty simple business model.”

As a result, Mr Stevens started a flower business that had no brick and mortar stores and instead offered delivery and relied on advertising and word of mouth to reach customers.

The business has grown massively, with the number of sales in February, during Valentine’s Day, a good indicator. In Mr Roses first February in 2020, the business made $203,000 but fast forward to 2022, and they made an eye-watering $811,000 that month.

He used a strategy he referred to as the “sticky beak factor” and credits it as one of the biggest reasons that his business has taken off.

James Stevens launched Mr Roses three years ago.

The business has taken off.

Mr Stevens recognised that “Google isn’t going to advertise for you” and decided to try everything to get the name out there, not just online advertising.

“The packaging and the way we present our roses is huge,” Mr Stevens explained.

“I fundamentally wanted the delivery of our flowers in the corridors of a building to be noticed because of their presentation.

“I wanted them (our flowers) to be noticed when it got to the desk of the recipient. Then the sticky beak factor, when you get four or five more sets of eyeballs on that gift, that is what (I knew) was going to grow our business.”

He also used traditional methods, including television and radio ads and even billboards.

And it obviously paid off; in the past 1o months, 25,000 customers have bought a long-stemmed rose from the company.

“We sell a lot of chocolate too, and candles and champagne with roses, they’re the three core additional gift lines,” he added.

In a touching moment earlier this week, Mr Stevens said one of his customers spent $1600 on 200 stems of roses to send to his fiance, excited about their wedding day in the near future.

Mr Stevens realised the importance of word of mouth.

The roses are delivered per customer requests.

He doesn’t have any physical stores.

Although Valentine’s Day is obviously the biggest day of the year for florists, Mr Stevens said people come to him for all kinds of occasions.

“We’re an anniversary business, we’re a birthday business, we’re an ‘I’m sorry’ business, it’s an all year round business,” he said.

The company has scaled up rapidly and can now offer same-day delivery services in most capitals and one smaller city — in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Newcastle

Earlier this week, Mr Roses launched in Canberra, the Central Coast and Wollongong and there are also plans in place for Adelaide.

There are 30 employers across several states, working as florists and couriers. Each city he delivers flowers to only needs one central location to prepare the flowers.

Mr Stevens has kicked off an equity crowd-funding campaign for his business which will allow anyone to own shares in Mr Roses.