Events of an Entrepreneurial
Lifetime How Events Shaped Two Local Businesses
by Seraine Page
Every business starts somewhere . With 2.5 million businesses in Florida , there has been a whole lot of getting started for new entrepreneurs . For Stoked Poké and Details Flowers Software , that somewhere started with events . Both , however , couldn ’ t be more different .
Below , is the story of two local entrepreneurs who began small with events and grew their businesses beyond their wildest entrepreneurial dreams .
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Ormond Beach ’ s Flower Girl
If you asked Ormond Beach ’ s Corrine Heck if she would have gotten into the software business 20 years ago , she would have laughed . After all , she went to the University of Florida for marketing and preferred socialization over studying . She fell in love with event planning during her time as a sorority social chairperson , which included buying and arranging lots of flowers . Events were a staple in Heck ’ s life . So were flowers . After dropping out of college , Heck ended up working as a flower import specialist . She learned about collecting orders , finding unique flowers and working with customers .
Once she met her husband , the couple moved to Ormond Beach . After settling , they opened Details Flowers , working together in the wedding industry where Heck made a name as an event florist . For a long time , weddings were their bread and butter . She arranged flowers ; her photographer husband captured the day .
“ It was a nice combination of sales ,” she says of working with her husband in what was then known simply as Details Flowers . During that time period , Heck realized the administration side of the floral business could use some help . That ’ s how the seed for Details Flowers Software got planted . As she grew Details Flowers , she had an epiphany while planning a client ’ s wedding . Working as a florist , Heck struggled with how to charge for floral-centered events . What if she could create a platform that made ordering , invoicing and organizing so much easier for florists ? That seed , it turned out , blossomed into a whole new business idea . Today , she runs Details Flowers Software , a membership-based platform designed to help florists stay organized , streamline proposals , ensure profitability and simplify the payment process .
When she took her idea to software developers , they told her the cost of creating such a platform would be around $ 1 million . Without that funding , she held onto her idea for a while before diving into the venture capitalist waters .
“ I received an initial $ 80,000 from local angel investors early on in the development of Details in January of 2015 ,” she said . “ I won $ 25,000 in 2016 as winner of the Rollins Venture Pitch competition and accepted a note from local VC firm venVelo as part of the pitch win .”
That funding birthed Details Flowers Software .
FEBRUARY 2022 | 5 |