Richard Christiansen traded in luxury living (commodities) for his farm life, but that happened in an unexpected way.
The vegetable farmer he had contacted during Covid told him that all the restaurants they had closed and sold would “lose the farm.” “We brought vegetables and said we’d sell them,” Christiansen recalled in an interview on CNBC’s “Small Business Playbook.”
“I spent my whole life advertising, two farms, then 10 and 150 farms,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boursten at the virtual event.
He came up with campaigns for businesses like Hermes for decades, but agriculture was part of Christiansen’s DNA, with farmers of rural Australia where he grew up.
“It’s a broken job and the toughest job in the world,” he said. “I know the groans and crushing of farming.”
And after running an advertising agency for 20 years, he founded Flamingo Estate and looked into agriculture, saying it in a “new eye” which saw agriculture as a brand that could benefit from “luxury brand queues.”
Christiansen says it turned out to be a wise decision to trade in the Hermes world for the farm. “Mother Nature is the last gorgeous home,” he said.
Flamingo Estate expanded olive oil and olive oil from these original vegetable boxes as ingredients in soap and candles. Christiansen was part of a major change in the expansion of Flamingo Estate as the company realized that by incorporating food-grade ingredients into areas such as household goods, beauty and kitchen pantry, it could help farmers create higher margin products.
Many celebrities either approve or work directly with Flamingo Estate, starting with Chrissy Teigen and John Legend. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and Oprah both list their products.
“A lot of people are customers, really happy customers, and we said we like what you’re doing, can we get involved?” Christiansen said. It led to Flamingo Real Estate harvesting honey for charity to transport bee hives to celebrities’ homes.
Julianne Moore also produces honey, while Laura Dern makes olive oil.
Christiansen said that if we want people to think differently about the environment, we have to show it differently. “To reach for the soil with an unexpected face” is one way to achieve that, he said.
One thing he learned from his work in Hermes branding was what the brand needs to hold on to the “test of time.” He said that Flamingo Estates have led them to meticulous control over messaging, or that his partner Aaron Harvey is overseeing the design and Christiansen all, just as Christiansen said “the brand is very closely cueed.”
“There are a lot of people who make things but don’t build brands,” he said. In the way all products are made, bottled and packaged, Christiansen says he sees the “real magic” and the question that many large product companies never consider: “Is there a story to tell?”
Christiansen summarises the approach of building a wide range of consumer product companies to “make what you use every day at home. Make one great coffee, a great product for your skin, one great product to run all day.”
“It’s broad, but we’re really focused on utilities,” he said.
Christiansen also said he is a huge fan of “fundamentally inconsistent.” This is an idea that can be recognised in the various products the company currently offers.
“We expect to see things different seasons from wine and blessings, but things like hand washing should be different from seasons as plants change and ingredients change,” he said. “A little bit of calculated madness.”
That approach peaked with a $75 compost bag produced as a mother’s daily gift, and may have received a much greater response than the company had expected. The idea had a utility that farm goats produce so many fertilizers, but Christiansen said it came from the belief that “the power of play and the test of things.”
“Work seasonally, pivot and have fun and have fun. There’s a joy that many brands don’t have,” he said.
Flamingo Estate dreams of becoming a billion-dollar company. Christiansen said sales will double to $30 million this year, with $50 million expected by early next year. The company has already expanded to Australia and is about to launch it in Japan, and will enter the European market next year, he said.
One of the biggest hurdles was finding investors. Christiansen says it took several years to find the right partner and properly fund it. This is a process that involves over 60 pitch meetings.
He says the fact that Flamingo Estate is not a “single SKU” product company. The venture capital community loves one producer, but Flamingo Estate operates food, beauty and household goods, effectively running a variety of businesses.
He said many initial investment meetings will always return to “exit targets.”
“We started running, why are we talking to the exit?” he recalled.
Many investors also wanted the company to focus on beauty, as it had the highest margin and “kills everything else.”
“I don’t think I’m doing that because I don’t follow other people’s playbooks,” he says now. “The brand has many entry points,” he added.
Christiansen says that one of the advice he has to all business owners is finding the right partner, and in his experience it means people who have already built their own business, “people who know what it’s like to be on the thick of things.” “They made the best partner,” he added.
