How Team Alignment and Founder-Led Marketing Fueled FiftyFlowers’ Explosive Growth With Liza Roeser

Liza Roeser is the Founder and CEO of FiftyFlowers, an innovative online floral retailer that delivers farm-fresh flowers directly to customers across the US. Her journey began in the early 1990s with the Peace Corps in Ecuador, where she developed a passion for the floral industry and later spent over a decade building relationships with sustainable farms worldwide. Under her leadership, FiftyFlowers has grown into a multimillion-dollar business with over a million orders delivered. A serial entrepreneur, Liza also founded Flower Fix, Farm Exports, Inc., and The Flower CEO, where she shares insights on entrepreneurship, ecommerce, and the floral industry.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:40] Liza Roeser shares the founding story of FiftyFlowers and its key business milestones
• [4:39] How team structure and the “right people, right seats” mindset fueled growth
• [6:20] The value of adopting the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) framework
• [10:14] How Liza evolved her marketing strategy and founder visibility
• [12:04] Customer communication tactics before, during, and after purchase
• [15:00] Leveraging user-generated content and storytelling to build community and brand loyalty

In this episode…

Hiring the right people is hard — keeping them in the right roles as your company scales is even harder. When a business evolves from startup to eight and nine figures, the team that got you there might not be the team to take you further. How do you reassess your structure without disrupting momentum or compromising your culture?

Liza Roeser, a leader in the floral ecommerce space, offers hard-won lessons on navigating team restructuring during rapid growth. Liza emphasizes the power of the “right people, right seats” philosophy from Jim Collins and how using tools like the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) framework and the GWC analysis can help leaders make data-backed decisions about personnel. She also highlights the importance of onboarding rigor, cultural alignment, and frequent evaluations to catch misalignments early. Through constant, value-driven contact across all stages of the customer journey, brands can improve customer engagement, especially when the product experience is deeply emotional or tied to milestone events.

In this episode of the Minds of Ecommerce, Raphael Paulin-Daigle interviews Liza Roeser, Founder and CEO of FiftyFlowers, about building high-performing teams while scaling. Liza shares how she uses EOS to evaluate team alignment, why founder-led marketing builds deeper trust, and how expectation management creates lifelong customer advocates.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Raphael Paulin-Daigle: LinkedIn | X

• SplitBase
• Liza Roeser:LinkedIn | Instagram | Website
• FiftyFlowers: Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
• Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS)
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins
• “From Paid Media Struggles to 70% YoY Growth: Veiled’s Dashboard-Driven Strategy With Kareem Elgendy” on Minds of Ecommerce

Quotable Moments:

• “‘Right people, right seats’ — and it is one of the most crucial pain points that we have.”
• “‘Clear is kind, unclear is unkind,’ so we do a lot of heavy lifting first off.”
• “People buy from a founder, not just a brand.”
• “You're going to see those wedding flowers and the joy and the love, you know, the smiles.”
• “We took the heart out and put the brain in, and we adopted EOS.”

Action Steps:

1. Adopt the “right people, right seats” approach: Placing team members in roles that align with their strengths helps maximize contribution and engagement.
2. Use the EOS framework and its GWC tool: Evaluating whether employees get, want, and can do their jobs enables more objective and effective team building.
3. Conduct weekly value-based employee evaluations: Frequent check-ins centered on company values can reinforce culture and catch misalignments before they grow.
4. Communicate clearly and consistently: Embracing a “clear is kind” mindset fosters transparency, trust, and accountability across the organization.
5. Stay in active contact throughout the customer journey: Regular communication helps build trust, manage expectations, and strengthen emotional ties with your brand.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by SplitBase.

At SplitBase, we design, test, and manage high-converting landing pages and on-site experiences for fashion, luxury, and lifestyle ecommerce brands. Our optimization program pinpoints exactly where your store is losing money most, and then we help you fix that.

The result? Increased conversions and profits for our clients.

With our team of conversion optimization specialists, performance marketers, and conversion-focused designers, we've got your back when it comes to testing and optimization.

Request a proposal on SplitBase.com today, and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend.

You can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Don’t miss out on our exclusive podcasts at Minds of Ecommerce.
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Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:06

Welcome to the Minds of Ecommerce podcast, where you'll learn one key strategy that made leading ecommerce companies grow exponentially. We cut the bullshit and keep the meat. In a 15-minute episode, founders and executives take us through a deep dive of a strategy so you get to learn and grow your online sales. In the last episode, you heard from Kareem Elgendy, CEO of eight-figure fashion brand Veiled, who shared how they've optimized their analytics for executive growth. Now today on episode number 48, get ready.

I'm very excited for this conversation. We've got Liza Roeser, who's the founder of FiftyFlowers, a multimillion-dollar and leading online floral retailer that delivers farm-fresh flowers across the USA. And today we'll be talking about a very interesting topic, which is how to have the right people in the right seats at the right time. As the brand is reaching nine figures, I'm your host, Raphael Paulin-Daigle, and I'm the founder of SplitBase. This is Minds of Ecommerce.

Now, this episode is brought to you by SplitBase. At SplitBase, we help leading eight and nine-figure brands such as Dr. Squatch, Hyperice, and Amika grow through customer-focused conversion optimization programs. Our programs pinpoints exactly where your store is losing money most. And then, well, we help you fix it. The result? You get increased conversions, higher AOV, and of course well, more money, which in return allows you to scale advertising profitably.

Now, we've been at it for over a decade and can help you manage CRO from A to Z. That means customer research, conversion design strategy, copywriting, and even development will focus on growing your ecommerce sales while you get to focus on what you do best. So go to splitbase.com today to request your free proposal and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend. All right. Liza, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for being here.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 02:10

Yeah, it's wonderful to be here and share.

Liza Roeser: 02:13

Yes. Well, you know, this podcast is all about going deep. It's about dissecting one key growth strategy so our listeners can get the most value right away. Now you've been I just want to give some context to people listening. I'm sure many of them have heard of FiftyFlowers.

You've been around for a while and you've reached some pretty significant milestones. Can you just share with us to give context for people who may not be familiar with the brand, how long you've been running it, and also, what are some of those milestones you've reached?

Liza Roeser: 02:40

Absolutely. You know, 22 years ago, FiftyFlowers pioneered the online wedding floral community, transforming the way couples shop today. And since then, we've delivered over a million Flowers to weddings across the United States. Empowering. Yeah.

It's pretty incredible to think that this little girl from Texas had this dream. And the spark has created such an impactful, transformative, amazing movement. And, you know, our mission at FiftyFlowers is to create beautiful floral experiences accessible to everyone from DIY brides to luxury floral event designers, while supporting sustainable, fresh flower farms worldwide.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:31

And correct me if I'm wrong, but right now you're on the cusp of reaching the nine-figure mark. That's correct. Right?

Liza Roeser: 03:36

Yeah.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:36

Amazing. So first, congrats.

Liza Roeser: 03:40

It's been a long journey. Longer than what I would have ever expected it to be.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:45

I am sure. And now let's dive into the meat. Right? Obviously. Right, people.

Right time and the right seats. Incredibly critical when it comes to growing a brand from 0 to 7 figures and obviously from 7 to 8 and nine and 8 to 9. Right. Let's maybe focus on the two later stages, because I know our audiences often already have million-dollar businesses plus. So let's talk about those key moments.

You're building a brand right from you're going from 8 to 9 figures. Are there phases? Are there key moments where you felt like you really had to revise, especially when it comes to like growth and marketing and and really the people that are powering the growth of the company. When were those moments or what would happen in the company? What would have to happen for you to say, I need to revise how the team is structured, if I have the right people in the right seats and so on.

Liza Roeser: 04:39

Yeah, it's one of my favorite sayings from Jim Collins in Good. Great is right people, right seats. And it is one of the most crucial pain points that we have been through our growth. You know, No, we just had our five-year. All of us did a year Covid shutdown, which was it really was a very interesting time, especially when we saw flowers for events.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 05:05

Yeah, definitely.

Liza Roeser: 05:06

And, you know, it was a good time to take a step back and do a lot of evaluations of our team. And do we have the right people in the right seats? We didn't have a choice. We had to furlough, and we had to. And then we could step back and say, is this the right person to bring back on?

And that's where we had to get really. We took the heart out and put the brain in, and we adopted to EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System. And it really has allowed us to hold people accountable and use their GWC, which is get at one and can do it to see if we did have the right people on, you know, in, in the certain seats and you know it it it it's quite transformative when you have the wrong person in your, in your organization and they're driving your growth and they're held back by fear. They're held back because they, they don't get it, but they want it and they can do it. It can paralyze not just you, but it can also be a cancer in your environment.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 06:20

So what's your process? I think one easy trap to fall into, right, is you have the right person, but the wrong seat. And I think the trap to fall into is that, you know, maybe the brand decides, oh, that person is not the right fit. And then, you know, let that person go when maybe they would have thrived in another role. Right?

So instead of doing that analysis that it was done maybe a little faster. So how do you detect do you have a process for understanding, hey, this person, maybe they're not doing great in this role, but you know, we want to keep them. How do you separate those two things? Because sometimes it seems obvious. But then, when you actually look at brands making hiring and firing decisions, and I don't think it's that obvious at the end of the day.

Liza Roeser: 07:06

No. And I think a lot of it is it goes down to your day to day. You know, we have we're we have a very set brand company culture and one of our, you know, something that's really important to me that I take dear and near is what Brene Brown says, clear is kind, unclear, as unkind. So we do a lot of heavy lifting. First off to get like I.

Everybody needs a job and I am very adamant is I want you to come to work every day. I don't want you because you need to show up and get your paycheck. It's that's not that's not the way it works. We also everyone works on a team. We do a lot of rigorous onboarding as well as evaluations every week.

You're going to be evaluated your first four weeks on our team, with our company. It's based on, you know, our company core values. And, you know, if you don't hit a four in all of them and you don't pass the test, we're going to nip it in the bud right then and there. Because, you know, once again, you just plant the wrong seed. It can go from there.

And you know, one of my favorite stories to talk about is, and this is I am going to go here okay. Customer. Customer care is very important to us. I want you to have one of the best experiences with flowers, not because I want you to buy from FiftyFlowers again, because hopefully you only get married once.

But what? What is important to me is that we are, you know, we're supporting you along the way. So my customer, my customer care team is really near and dear to my heart. And we had this one. We're based out of Quito with that team.

And her English was so bad. I mean, how she made it on this is before we were doing heavy lifting and, you know, we sat down, I sat, I flew down to Quito, and I was going to have a heart-to-heart with her. And, you know, she she started and she said, okay, I have to tell you, I need to focus more. And that's where now we're like, we all need to focus more. You know.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 09:18

That's where it is. When you focus, that's where your energy is going to grow as well.

Liza Roeser: 09:20

Yeah. And by the way, with this, with this one gal we moved her from, you know, our customer care into our procurement area. And she did.

She thrived. So there is a way that you can pivot because if they get it they want it and they can do it. They just can't do what you hired them for because you know, when when you interview somebody, it's like you're dating them and you really want. You just never know who you're going to get.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 09:53

Absolutely. I'm curious because I know there's a lot of marketers listening to this conversation and to this podcast. How has your marketing team evolved? Because we're talking about phases. We're talking about different stages of growth.

Now, you've grown a lot in the past couple of years. So how has it evolved even in the past couple years?

Liza Roeser: 10:14

Yeah. You know, what we have learned in marketing is people buy from a founder, not just a brand. And being the founder behind the brand and seeing that active, which I am, I mean, I'm extremely passionate. I was every time I talk with anybody, they're like, you've been doing this for 25 years and you're still that passionate. And it's because I, I truly believe and love flowers and the joy that it brings to people's lives.

And, you know, one thing that I've learned is you can't just siphon and look at just marketing. It's more than just marketing. Marketing should touch, and you should understand every single process in your business and speak to the client. Understand your client. So hyper-focused.

I mean, we're constantly surveying. We're constantly asking. Our customer contact is insane. The amount of, you know, we started text messaging 12 years ago, now everyone's texting, right? But I would love for and I challenge somebody who wants to do a study on how insane our customers.

Like we have three phases of a customer. It's a pre-buy. It's once you've bought and it's a post delivery. And actually there's a fourth like caveat in there. If we have a substitution because we're dealing with a perishable product and we are talking to our clients every single way of the way.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 11:44

So can you. This is so interesting. Can you tell us a bit more about that? What type of communication? Sounds like obviously, because I don't want people to hear this and think, oh, they're just sending a bunch of emails and messages all the time, right?

So it has to be very intentional touchpoints, and it has to bring value. So,how are you doing that?

Liza Roeser: 12:04

Well which phase I'm going to start with? The first phase. You know, first off, you know PPC we spend a lot of money on PPC and it's the same person, you know, that you're on your mobile phone, then you're commuting to work, then you're sitting at work and you're bored and you're on your work computer. Then you go to your mom's. Afterwards, you're at your friend's, you're you're constantly on. So we know, and we still have yet to find the right platform that can help us with that.

But we know that you're you're you're hitting our website and all these other different funnels that we're trying to help you call, chat, text, email, SMS. Outgoing SMS. We're using it all to be engaged with you, and we are highly engaged. The amount of, you know, through our review platform, the amount of questions that we get in about our products and we're tweaking, we're tweaking our product pages, you know, so once we convert you, then we're going to send you an email and we're going to say, hey, you know what? You ordered these flowers for the wrong days.

And let us update that. And you know, if something happens to where, say, a hailstorm hits our peony crop and we have to substitute your flower. We're reaching out to you. And, you know, we're texting you. We're calling you, we're emailing you.

We're really trying to get in front of you because it's that important. Your special day. And then if something all along happens that, you know, there's a tornado or an ice storm in Texas, which I don't know if all of y'all remember that day where all of a sudden we can't get your flowers to you? We're in touch with you then. Now, one of the most key learnings that we've learned this past year that we've implemented is that our flowers don't show up the way that a florist delivers them to you.

We've known that all. But now what we're doing is two days before your flowers come, we're text messaging. You going, hey, your roses are going to come bunched where you only see 12 on top. You're not going to see the 13 that are nestled.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 14:01

Expectation management.

Liza Roeser: 14:02

Expectation management. There you go, Rafael. There you go.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 14:06

I love.

Liza Roeser: 14:06

It.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 14:07

Yeah, I think this is great. I mean, what you're saying about understanding your customer and then using that as a foundation for marketing, that's what I've been talking about for the past decade. So I'm definitely aligned with what you're saying here. I think it's the only way to market, right? Marketing, just for the sake of marketing, ends up being trash.

And we live in a world full of noise. And I think the only way to market and even build websites and adapt your messaging is by, you know, addressing your customer, understanding them, and using that as the foundation. Now tell us more about what happens later. So the people your customer sees their flowers or you know, their weddings done now do you send questions? Do you send what type of touchpoints are you going to send in order to keep people engaged and to keep the communication valuable at the end of the day?

Liza Roeser: 15:00

Well, we've for 15 years we've run a winner, flowers. And we've switched that to share your flower because we're doing way more than just wedding flowers to where we engage and we're able to, you know, user-generated content and and be able to market through that. So we're in constant contact because we want to see what you did. There's nothing more joyful than our every Wednesday, we come together and we have a company meeting, and it's 65 people. We're on five different continents, different languages, different cultures, and we all come in and we celebrate those stories, you know.

So it's not just, you know, when I look at our team and I look at the brand and I look at how I going to really market and build this? It's not just an external, it's also an internal way of promoting it. I'd love to get it back to all of my vendors. We work with 350 farms worldwide, and I work for them to see what our clients are doing with their flowers, and that it will get from, let's just say, Minneapolis, Minnesota down to Vilcabamba, Ecuador to the packer who packed that baby so they can see the joy that they're, you know, that they're creating. That's that's how you market and you build and you can spend it where we can.

You know, sometimes we'll get a video back and we'll send it to the bride. So we, we like to stay in constant contact. And, you know, we ask for reviews.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 16:29

Yeah.

Liza Roeser: 16:30

We don't have the best review platform right now, and we're working on that. It's cantankerous. Reviews on Shopify are hard to get with for sure. So we're in constant.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 16:41

And I'm sure it's a key part of the experience. But because you're providing a visual experience, at the end of the day.

Liza Roeser: 16:46

We're we're helping you create memories. In fact, one of my favorite stories I love to tell is, you know, when you get married, it's the most joyous time. And, you know, that's celebrating your love. You have people there who are your witnesses. Ten years after your wedding, you're going to go to grab your keys, walking out the door, and there's your wedding portrait, and you're going to have one of those days to where, like the toilet seat was left up, you know, up or, you know, the toothpaste cap wasn't put on and you're frustrated, you're going to look down and you're going to see those wedding flowers and the joy and the love, you know, the smiles on your face.

You know, that's how important your wedding flowers are. That's carry out for the rest of your life.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 17:28

We've been talking to Liza Roeser, who's the founder of FiftyFlowers. Now, Liza, I know you've got a book coming up. You also have a lot of things to share. You frequently give talks, so if people want to learn more about you, where do they go? If they want to learn about FiftyFlowers as well, where do they?

Where should they go? What should they do?

Liza Roeser: 17:48

Definitely. Well, I can be found on LinkedIn, Liza Roeser and also Instagram. You can follow me around the world. In fact, I'll be in Quito next week. And then Costa Rica, walking farms, and doing interviews.

Final interviews for my one book and FiftyFlowers is spelled out f i f t y f l o w e r s.com and you can find us on all the platforms. We're really active on Instagram, Facebook, you name it. TikTok. Yeah, we started TikTok. It's kind of fun.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 18:18

I love it. Well, Liza, thank you so much for being on the show, and have an amazing day.

Liza Roeser: 18:25

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to share.

Outro: 18:32

All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. And thank you so much for tuning in. Now, if you like what you've heard, and you don't want to miss any of the new episodes that are about to come out, make sure you subscribe to the podcast and well, bonus points if you also leave a review in the iTunes store or wherever you're listening to this. Now, if you're working on an ecommerce store that does over $1 million in revenue and you need help with conversion optimization or landing pages, well, I've got some good news because there's a pretty good chance we can help with that.

Go to splitbase.com to learn more or even to request a proposal. If you have any guest requests, questions, or comments, tweet me at @Rpaulindaigle and I'll be super happy to hear from you. And again, thanks again for listening. This is Minds of Ecommerce.

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