I Turned My Plant Passion Into A $1.2M/Year Online Plant Store

Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

Hi, my name is Monika Kalinowska and I’m the founder of Plant Circle, an online plant store for rare and tropical plants with headquarters in Berlin. I have started Plant Circle in 2017 after going through a burnout caused by my previous job in journalism.

Plant Circle is more than just a plant store. We are a sustainability and animal welfare-focused business. Our mission is to help protect the planet and animals by choosing plastic-free packaging, supporting animal rescue organizations, and planting trees around the world.

Just one year into our existence we took the first steps towards producing our stock via plant tissue culture. This is our contribution to cutting the supply chain down to the absolute minimum and having full control over how our plants are grown. Thanks to modern ways of propagation, we can produce high numbers of hard to come by plants, and eventually, offer them to our customers at much more affordable prices. This way we can avoid constantly importing plants from tropical countries and risking them being poached from their natural habitats. The last thing we want is to have a negative impact on the environment.