How they grew their floristry channel to 165K subscribers & $800/mo

John and Janos are the creators behind Flower Joos, a YouTube channel that makes floristry tutorials. Their channel is unique in that they mainly grew through organic word-of-mouth in the floristry community.

Key Takeaways

• Have one unique thing in every video that makes people go “Ooh, I learned something”. Your video should make people feel it was worth their attention. 

• Naturally, people subscribe, watch a few of your videos and then they want something different. They may come back so it’s important to create an easy viewing experience so people find it easy to come and go as they please. 

• Keep doing the same thing consistently. John and Janos kept doing flower tutorials for 400+ videos and weren’t distracted by other topic ideas. They knew what their audience wanted.

• The channel took 7 months to reach 100 subscribers, 12 months to reach 1K, 35 months to reach 10K, and 60 months to reach 100K

• One comment doesn’t mean much but ten mean a lot. If you notice a trend/a lot of comments giving you similar feedback, it’s useful to take it on board. But if it’s just one strong opinion, take it with a pinch of salt.

Why did you start this YouTube channel?

We didn't really plan to start a YouTube channel. At the time, I worked in a large, five-star hotel as a florist and one of my colleagues had a photography hobby.

One day, he’d got himself a new camera and he asked me “Do you mind standing there [as my subject] while I test my camera” and I agreed. 

At that point I was doing flower demonstrations for flower clubs in Scotland anyway so when I was doing this order I just looked at the camera and did what I would do if I was doing a demonstration. 

After I finished, he basically went “That was great! We should put that on YouTube”, and that's basically what we did. It was a case of, well we've got an hour at the end of every working day, we've got the flowers and a reason to be doing flowers without any cost to us. 

Janos ([my colleague]) probably had this hope that you’d have this magic video that makes you thousands of dollars. For me, it was the fact that you could reach a whole different audience with YouTube than I was reaching with flower clubs.

How did you get started?

We're kind of like a duo; I'm the flower guy and Janos is the tech guy. So he was doing the filming with a Canon DSLR and the editing with Final Cut Pro.

We had a great big table in the kind of workshop studio we had so I could create something at one end. We don't script videos; I just talk off the top of my head and do the skills that I have in front of a camera. 

It's similar to a cooking show where you're describing the process as you go. I used to go to Toastmasters and that really helped.

The great thing about floristry is there are so many possibilities for video ideas. Inspiration can come from an order from the workbook, the flowers we had in that week at work or a whole range of floristry items; from a wreath to a spray, a corsage, a bottom hole or a wedding bookie.

What we've always tried to do with each video is just have one little unique thing that makes it stand out or a little bit quirky. It doesn't have to be anything big but it has to make people go “Ooh I learned something”. 

How & when did you get to 10, 100, 1000 subscribers (etc) and to where you are currently?  

First 10,000 subscribers (35 months)

That initial period was just dead. Our focus at that point was really just being consistent and getting into the habit of uploading videos every week.

We were looking at some of the other floristry channels (generally in America) and seeing how they were doing. We were thinking about how we could do something better than all of these channels; no one will appeal to everyone so there’s no way you’re ever going to achieve that.

I think sometimes people get a bit bored so they’ll subscribe and watch a few of your videos and then they just want something different. But then they might come back to you as well so I think you need to have an easy viewing experience. If it’s all too snappy and business, it can put people off. So we’ve gone with a more personal, chatty, friendly sort of style.

We’re not trying to say we’re the expert and the audience is not; it’s rather like “We know this and we can show you and there’s no reason why you can’t do it”.

As we grew, we looked at how we could improve our videos based on feedback and comments on our videos. People were saying “Oh I can’t really see what you’re doing”, “Could you change the angle?” or “You really need to get a microphone”. We took that on board and got a microphone, and lights and changed the angle.

After a while, you could see from the comments that new, different groups were starting to watch our videos. We started to get floristry students, church-goers and all sorts of other sub-groups.

One breakthrough video was one on making a large spring double-ended spray. That had so many views and got us a lot of subscribers.

First 100,000 subscribers (60 months)

We noticed that a lot of people started to share our videos. So our growth wasn’t necessarily from what we did but from our network. 

Flower people are connected in lots of ways; there’s a full network of floristry groups in Europe, the UK, Australia etc. And they’re all looking for ideas, inspiration and just entertainment as well. So what you’d find is someone in one flower club would share a video with their club and then someone in another club would go “Oh, that was a good video” and share it with their club.

When we first started, I was still doing flower demonstrations across Scotland. I also wrote articles for a magazine (so they get content in exchange for a free advert). Keeping to that same theory, I’d do interviews with someone in the flower industry or go to a flower show.

I think sometimes you see channels starting off doing one thing and then they grow into a different thing and then it all gets a bit muddled. We've just kept with the same thing the whole time. We've been very consistent and, to be honest, we've been very realistic as well. 

YouTube has to fit in with our lives so we've never actually kind of thought that this was going to become something that would be so big that it would be a career in itself.

How much money are you making?

We make about £8K a year (~$10K USD) and that's mostly YouTube AdSense with a small amount of affiliate commission from Hasekura.

At one point, we did have someone send us some products to promote them but it didn't sit right with us having to recommend software, earphones, or handbags; it just doesn’t come across as being genuine

If there is something out there that is floristry-related, then we would be interested (like Hasekura’s pin holders).

But I think in some ways, we've probably got to the point where we're playing it too safe.  It would be nice if we were making more money because we’ve put in a lot of work over a long time. So we’re opening up to other possibilities of making money.

What are the key lessons you’ve learned from your journey?

Be flexible. Your videos will change; initially, we learnt that we needed to change our video angles, adjust our lighting and get a better microphone. During COVID, we also had to run the channel from two separate countries which meant changing our workflow.

People notice the details. Don’t just churn out videos for the sake of churning them out. When I started making videos from my house (instead of my workshop), people noticed that and missed the workshop. You’ll notice that stuff by paying attention to the comments (but take comments with a pinch of salt as well).

One comment doesn’t mean much but ten mean a lot. If you notice a trend/a lot of comments giving you similar feedback, it’s useful to take it on board. But if it’s just one strong opinion, take it with a pinch of salt.

Where can we find out more about you? And is there anything else you’d like to add?

Aside from our YouTube channel, we also have a Facebook page.

We're enjoying spreading the world of floristry and just doing our thing. It's nice that we've been able to do it for so long because we really did think it might not last forever.