Heather runs Porch Pumpkins, a seasonal business that decorates porches with pumpkins. She explains how she started it, why she chose the name, and how the business has grown since launch.
I think it's like five or six zip codes where I do 40% of my business.
You literally invented an industry.
Season one, I thought I was only going to do like 35 houses and I ended up doing nearly 250. I literally was putting pumpkins in my Yukon and delivering and designing them myself. This year, 1034. Last year was 850. The year before was 750. Heather, who's going to buy $1,000 worth of pumpkins?
What does your average customer look like? That's a $10,000 day. The number one question is, what are your margin? Okay, so first of all, I love the name Porch Pumpkins. It sounds like something I would name a business because it's just the domain's available. On the one hand it's like, how is that domain available? On the other hand, it's like, because no one's doing this. Right?
It's like, right?
It's a great name. What inspired the name?
So what inspired the name is I have been decorating with pumpkins for a long time. So in 2013, when I stayed at home with my oldest son, he was a little seven month old and I went crazy with pumpkins. And actually that design, if I showed it to you, you would be quite appalled. It's a bunch of orange pumpkins in different sizes. And I used to put them within my landscaping. And what I learned is that if you put pumpkins in landscaping, they will rot faster than if you put them on a porch. So I knew this because I've had years and years of decorating in my own home experience. So I knew that I wanted it to be very clear that we would be putting pumpkins on your porch so they will last longer. And so I just knew that Porch Pumpkins was concise and it got straight to the point. And it would allow for also a great logo because I wanted to incorporate my personal door into my logo of porch pumpkins.
Oh, I like that. Yeah.
Yes.
Obviously I didn't realize that I've never seen your door, but you also have the alliteration two P's. It's three syllables, easy to spell, nothing weird. Perfect name. I respect a good name.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. So this all started with one Instagram post. Just kind of offhand, you did your own. Someone loved it, you did it for them. Then you're like, eh, maybe there's something here. Let's see what the universe gives me. Right?
Yes and no. So it. I had people in my. When I was in Dallas, when I would do my own home. They always wanted me to do pumpkins for them. But I was, I still had young children at that time, and I was not looking to take on anything more than decorating for my family. The yes part is I knew that once when we moved to Rockwell Heath, I was my youngest, was going off to school two or three days a week, and I was really wanting to start doing something for myself again. And I've always been like an entrepreneur at heart. My husband and I both are. And so I realized people have always asked me to do this. And I started getting Christmas light quotes for Rockwell Heath and I realized, wait, my friends are paying this much for Christmas light installations, okay. Because in Dallas we had a more narrow house and my Christmas lights were $400. I was getting quotes out here for 1500, $2000 for that first year of installation. And so it all just like the XYZ lined up and I realized, like, you know, that's a great price point for someone else Christmas lights. I mean, I'm not going to pay that, but yeah, it just made my, it made my wheel spin that if someone's paying this for one holiday, I've always loved decorating my own home with pumpkins. And that actually takes care of two holidays, both Halloween and Thanksgiving. And that's when I worked on creating the packages. And so with my one post, which you hinted at there, my one post I did posted on Instagram and I started sharing it with my friends saying, like, this is the business I'm going to do. If this is something you're interested in, please let me know. When I started, I didn't have any photos except for the photos of my own home. So I offered my friends 50% off so I could get some photos of porches for my Instagram and then later website, of course. And then I asked them if they thought it was a great idea or something that they thought a friend would enjoy if they would just share it with them. And so I literally started in like old school ways, social sharing, because I was.
