Cameron Hardesty

CEO + Founder of @PoppyFlowers, the future of fresh, full service flowers nationwide. Barbara, Charlie & Trip’s mom, cc: @babyak

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@helloitsolly Complexity, having a supply chain, and a transaction that demands a human is the moat.

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@babyak @clairevo @bot This was the best part of this morning!! Good job @babyak 😘

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@Mattman34 Hard, hard relate hahahah @babyak

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@VCBrags tell me you've never given birth without telling me

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@CharlotteAlter Strongly disagree, playing competitive sports led to most of my college tuition being paid for, I didn’t even know what student loans were. Soccer made me extremely competitive and resilient which led to entrepreneurship and a deeply fulfilling career.

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@scottfelsenthal Nice to meet you! It’s consultative e-commerce + farm-direct procurement + scaled, hyperlocal network of last-mile fulfillers. Our customer is getting quoted 2-3X what she wants to pay for wedding flowers, then finds us and gets what she wants, on budget. https://t.co/PKjtTZOVbm

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

Wedding flowers aren't expensive because flowers are expensive.

Most designers buy from a wholesaler, who has to make a margin on top of the importer, who has to make a margin on top of the farm.

You're paying for three businesses before anyone even starts arranging.

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@katrosenfield What was normal for us is somehow a structural problem for these kids. I was an English major and - gasp - took an admin assistant job out of college because it’s what I could get. My rent was half my income because I chose to live in an expensive city. I survived.

[Michelle Maxwell ™ @MichelleMaxwell]

With everything we are hearing right now about ticks this seems like good information to share.

“Here’s what I’ve learned after more ticks than I care to count.
First, whatever your uncle told you, forget it. No matches. No nail polish. No Vaseline. No soap on a cotton ball. All of those do the same terrible thing, they stress the tick out, and a stressed tick empties its gut back into the bite before letting go. Which, if you think about what that actually means for a second, is literally how Lyme and the rest get transmitted so you’re not speeding up its exit. You’re making it throw up into you.
Fine-tipped tweezers. Grip right where the mouthparts enter the skin, not the body, the head. Pull straight up, steady, no twisting, no jerking. It’ll feel like it’s resisting because it is, the mouthparts are barbed. Just keep the pressure on and it lets go in a few seconds. If a piece breaks off in the skin, leave it alone. Your body pushes splinters out. Digging around with a needle does more damage then the fragment ever would.
Clean it with alcohol or soap. Wash your hands.
Now here’s the part most people skip: don’t flush the tick.
Tape it to an index card. Clear packing tape right over the body, write the date and where on your body it was, and stick the card in a drawer. If you come down with anything weird in the next 30 days, rash, fever, joint pain, that flu-that-isn’t-flu feeling, that tick goes with you to the doctor. Some labs will test the tick itself, which is faster and often more reliable than waiting for antibodies to show up in your own blood. A dated tick taped to a card is one of the most useful things you can hand a doctor who’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.
The other thing worth saying out loud: if the tick was engorged when you pulled it, and you can’t swear it was off your body within 24 hours, call your doctor that same day. Don’t wait for a rash. Fewer than three out of four Lyme cases even produce the classic bullseye. A single preventive dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a deer tick bite cuts the Lyme odds way down, and most docs in tick country will write that prescription without giving you a hard time, especially if you walk in with the tick taped to a card and a clear timeline.”

[Danny Deraney @DannyDeraney]

Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.

They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.

France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@artlevy @HillValleyForum @dkrajendra 👀

[Hubert Thieblot @hthieblot]

The early founder years are one of the most stressful phases of life.

Most are really not talking about it.

- Some friends are climbing the corporate ladder and taking crazy vacations.
- Someone just bought their first home
- Someone already feels “settled”

And you’re still trying to turn an idea into a company.

At the same time:

- Your bank account keeps shrinking
- Investors keep saying “too early”
- users never seem to care and retain on your product
- People around you don’t fully get what you’re building
- your mom ask when you will get a real job
- Nights are full of overthinking
- The runway clock keeps ticking
- Time feels like it’s moving too fast yet progress is slow

And the hardest part?

- You smile to your friends and family
- You say “things are going well.”
- At 2 AM you wonder if this will ever work.

But remember:

- You’re not behind, you are on a different path
- You’re doing something incredibly hard

If you’re in this phase, be impatient for actions, patient with results and don’t give up.

Building something from zero takes time.

Anyone else feeling this lately? ✋

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

I sell flowers and these are the kinds of texts I now send to my COO

Flowers

a SaaS nerd could never

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@beffjezos @babyak it you

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@0xleegenz The next great generation, baby!

[Dhruva Rajendra @dkrajendra]

🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

We’ve been doing this in the wedding floral industry for a few years, but only recently have truly accelerated with AI tools. The biggest opportunity in our industry is to own the entire transaction with the end consumer. It’s a much more complex business than a SaaS but TAM is much bigger and in a time where engineering costs are headed to zero, the complexity of a perishable supply chain and scaled local fulfillment is a real moat.

[Dhruva Rajendra @dkrajendra]

As I was saying...

[Cameron Hardesty @cameronhardesty]

@dagecky @garrytan Uh, who cares?