Bloom & Wild CEO: See mistakes as an opportunity

Aron Gelbard is the co-founder and CEO at Bloom & Wild. The company has enjoyed huge success, attracting venture capital investment and expanding from the UK into seven markets including France, Germany and the Netherlands. But the advice Gelbard wanted to share is all about dealing with mistakes.

Gelbard knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur from an early age, having witnessed the trials and triumphs of his father, who created several businesses in the fields of plastics and recycling.

After a stint with a management consultancy after university, he decided that the world of flower delivery was ripe for a digital update. Neither he nor his co-founder Ben Stanway had a background in horticulture, but they both realised that the internet could revolutionise the customer experience.

They figured out early on the importance of a great experience on an app. The company also championed the idea of letterbox delivery, with flowers packaged in flat boxes ready to be assembled into bouquets at home.

Bloom & Wild has enjoyed steady growth over the past decade and last year had revenues of £110m. It has raised more than £100m from investors including Index Ventures and employs over 350 people now.

Gelbard says he is obsessed with data and customer feedback. He is especially interested in things that go wrong because he sees this as a chance to improve the business and create loyal customers.

"We send out millions of flower bouquets, plants and gifts every year," says Gelbard. "Unfortunately, occasionally we get things wrong, sometimes there are quality problems or problems with our delivery partners. When our customers complain, we go to extraordinary lengths to make things right for them."

There is nothing more sensitive than flowers and gifting when it comes to delivery. If a sofa is a day late, that's not the same thing as an anniversary gift or Valentine's Day flowers arriving late, Gelbard explains.

His team can often preempt when a delivery isn't going to make it, so they can start to rectify the situation for the customer, or compensate them somehow, before they are aware of it.

"We see that our strongest advocates aren't our customers for whom things have just always gone right," says Gelbard. "They are customers where things have gone wrong and we have gone the extra mile to do something about it."