See how much we’ve grown: it’s Plantclub’s birthday
In February 2020 – on the eve of a global pandemic – Plantclub was founded. We wanted to bring the benefits of a lush, green working environment to teams across Europe.
Now it’s Plantclub’s second birthday! Two years, three cities, and almost 100 members later, let’s take a look at how much we’ve grown.
The Oakfin office fitted with a lush green corner.
A cascading pothos wall feature at the Infodas office 💚
How it started…
Plantclub was founded with the mission to create healthier and happier workplaces. Tech giants set the benchmark for the ultimate working environment: quirky meeting rooms, space to play (some of Google’s offices are kitted out with indoor climbing walls or basketball courts), free meals, and an oasis of indoor plants. But many young companies don’t have the budget to install ball pits and slides, or offer lavish perks.
Workplace design impacts employee happiness, productivity, and retention. But despite the many benefits of plants, most of the startup offices we worked in didn’t have any greenery. In those that did, the arrangements had a formal and corporate aesthetic. We wanted companies of all sizes to feel the benefits of bringing nature indoors, with a high standard of design.
Initially, the idea was to offer office plant rentals in Berlin. But when we started out, we couldn’t have imagined that a global pandemic would close offices around the world – fundamentally reshaping our concept of the workplace.
As the workplace extended in our homes and living spaces, Plantclub did too. We began to offer each member a dedicated employee plant store – where companies could send gifts to their team and employees could conveniently order plants to fill their home offices.
Things may have changed a lot since the beginning of Plantclub, but we are still potting all of our member’s plants by hand!
A snippet from the early days of hand-delivering orders for the Employee Plant Store.
How it’s going…
Since starting out we’ve designed green concepts for over 100 offices, and we’re proud to count some of Berlin’s fastest-growing companies among our members. We’ve installed outdoor planters, indoor trees, green walls, and hanging gardens of trailing plants. As our members have grown, their greenery has grown with them – with many choosing to upgrade their membership plans over the past two years.
Taxfix became a Plantclub member early in our journey and we’ve enjoyed following their success. They recently moved to a new HQ near Heinrich-Heine Straße, after outgrowing their old space in Alexanderplatz. Another early joiner was Lendis – who’ve sent a lot of companies our way since we enlivened their workplace with beautiful greenery.
Plantclub now operates in three cities: Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna (and we’re soon expanding further). After transforming Forto’s Berlin office into an urban jungle, they asked us to bring greenery into their Hamburg space. And we’ve now installed plants at both the Berlin and Vienna offices of N26, where founders Max and Jack used to work. Supporting our members across multiple office locations allows their greenery to grow alongside them.
The plant store has proven to be a popular employee perk. We’ve shipped over 3,000 orders – helping people to create calm, productive, and beautiful home office setups. In the early days, this saw our team driving rental vans all over Berlin to hand deliver each order. Today, we drop-ship plants anywhere in Germany and Austria.
Our team has grown too – to 15 people. Every two weeks, our plant care experts visit each member’s office to keep their greenery looking its best. At Plantclub we value this personal connection and love having the chance to chat with members.
Planters are used as room dividers at the Hamburg office of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
What’s next?
We’ve come a long way in two years, but there’s always room for growth. Looking forward, our focus is on finding new ways to improve sustainability. Already, Plantclub contributes 0.5% of revenue to support the most innovative approaches to carbon removal – but we know there’s more we can do. We’re excited to see what we’ll have achieved by our next birthday!
Plantclub.io provides you and your colleagues with the benefits of plants, wherever you work. Rent office plants and transform your space into a green oasis, with flexible monthly membership options to suit your size. Diversify your employee perks with a dedicated company store, where you can give green gifts and your team can buy plants for their home office. Book a time to chat with us today.