Carly Cylinder

Flour LA, Inc

In 2009 at 26 years old, celebrity florist Carly Cylinder founded floral design studio Flour LA, Inc. bootstrapping her business entirely on her own. What started out as a delivery service based out of her small apartment grew into bicoastal, full-service studios in NY and Nashville.. She used clever marketing strategies and free PR to create and leverage opportunities. Flour LA Inc specializes in large-scale events and installations for the beauty, fashion, and tech industries.

Carly’s first book THE FLOWER CHEF: A MODERN GUIDE TO DO-IT-YOURSELF FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS was published in March 2016 by Hachette Book Group and named Best Books of 2016 by Amazon Books. She has worked in nearly every major city doing luxury events. In 2023 she launched her own website focused on business coaching for entrepreneurs, project management, and SEO. She is the host of The Flower Kitchen on Craftsy (NBC Universal). Vogue named Carly and Flour LA as one of the best design classes in the country. In addition, she loves screenwriting and improv.

Show Notes

  • I liked how Carly would pick people out of her classes and hire them as freelancers. Definitely, a perfect way to learn from each other and very cost effective.

  • Mimicking businesses you like is very inspiring and helps you work things through as you develop your own style.

  • Carly isn’t finding her customers on Instagram. She spoke of utilizing Google, key words, and links back to your website.

  • You have to be business minded if you are a creative and want to have your own business.  Don’t be afraid of bootstrapping your business until you can get it off the ground.

  • Change your way of thinking, you shouldn’t look at everyone else and what they are doing because that can create tunnel vision.

  • Ask yourself,  What do you need to do that gets you where you want to go and not just what you think you should be doing.

  • Ultimate freedom is to pick and choose what work you want to do.