Kenny Nguyen, the President and founder of PlantCon International, spoke about his latest ventures with the non-profit organization.
He also discussed being an entrepreneur in the digital age.
PlantCon will be headed to New York City on August 30th and 31st at South Street Seaport, Pier 17 (Level 4).
Background on PlantCon
PlantCon International was created to fortify and bolster local plant communities across the nation by providing horticultural education and exposure, promoting horticultural appreciation, and providing a hub for connection, intellectual exchange, and otherwise impossible connections to be formed between local businesses, community members, and industry leaders.
These connections, formed in a microcosm that is uniquely PlantCon, drive the world of plants forward and create enduring partnerships and friendships whose effects grow to benefit the plant world as a whole.
How did PlantCon come about?
That’s a really really long story. I promise it’s interesting though. I’ll do my best to leave out the nittiest and grittiest details, but it’s still going to be a long one!
The simplest way to put it was that I saw a desperate need in a community that I really cared about, and knew that I wanted to make a change for others like me.
That need started out relatively simple: during the pandemic, I wanted to help the people in my local online plant community connect in a safe way to exchange plants and make friends.
We’d never met in person before, and were all locked down in isolation, so I started organizing meetups.
That grew into creating a local pop-up plant market to help the people in our plant community who had been laid off because of COVID, and had to turn to side hustles to get by and support their families.
Plant communities like this were popping up everywhere, and as we exited the pandemic, I realized that there was nothing connecting the greater community. The big national plant events that existed were almost exclusively decades old.
They were either organized by old societies and associations catered to an equally older membership, and they were dedicated to only one kind of plant like bonsai, orchids, or cacti.
Or, they were trade shows and industry-oriented, B2B events not intended for hobbyists to enjoy.
Still, hordes of plant people were now flying out to these events out of desperation to connect and feel like a part of the larger community.
In response, these organizations changed nothing to cater to this new, booming demographic that was now relying on them for connection, community, and representation.
I fully understood the great responsibility that they had in their hands, and was frustrated seeing them use zero of their accumulated resources to address it.
Around this time too, while our plant markets were still booming, they were ultimately capped in potential.
This meant that our community of vendors that relied on the markets to grow their businesses were capped in potential too. Enter PlantCon!
Now the biggest plant show in the country, it started out as what will probably forever be the single biggest risk of my life.
I was 25 when all of this started, and I’d served tables since I turned 16 to put myself through school. During these 9 years, I’d meticulously set aside a little over $30,000 in life savings.
Conventions aren’t cheap. I quickly learned that the cost to get a venue alone was upwards of $30,000.I don’t think I need to finish the entire story, but in short, I wiped out my $30,000 in savings, plus an additional $30,000 in loans and credit card debt, all to bet on this dream.
The very first PlantCon in April 2023 was a hit with over 2,500 attendees. And, maybe more importantly, I broke even. I knew I now needed to expand PlantCon, but I came out with zero profit to roll into an expansion.
Cue me putting down that $30,000 again and this time catapulting $90,000 into credit card and loan debt. That second PlantCon in May of 2024 was even crazier, with over 4,800 attendees.
And for the first time, profit. I used this to register as a nonprofit which cost about $6,000 in legal fees and a LOT of headache.
I found a team of six, all of us working other jobs on the side because this didn’t pay us more than $500 a month.
We took PlantCon on the road for the first time with Dallas in August 2024 which had over 5,200 attendees, then to Orlando as our first out-of-state show in February of this year which fell short at only 2,300 attendees, but when we returned to Houston just this past May… over 9,000 attendees. Crazy.
And now, heading to the Big Apple! All of this within the span of 2.5 years.
What motivates you each day as founder of PlantCon?
100% my team. Particularly how much they’ve sacrificed to make PlantCon possible. I have such an incredible group of people beside me working on building this thing. For probably all of us, doing PlantCon full time is our dream.
Every day that we show up over the past two years, we’re investing in this dream.
I’ve had to ask everybody to sacrifice so much to get to where we are now, and I want to honor all of those personal, financial, and emotional sacrifices in a big way.
It’s the reason why I’m expanding PlantCon as quickly as I can, so we can create more work, more revenue, and soon, full time positions.The exhibitors at every PlantCon are a close second.
They’ve come to rely so much on PlantCon for the revenue injection that they need to keep building out their businesses and supporting their families. We want to come to different cities to help these local businesses thrive and grow, too.
How does it feel to be an entrepreneur in the digital age? (Now with streaming, technology and social media being so prevalent)
I love it. The digital age has enabled us to share ourselves and connect with the world. In a time before social media, there’s no way I would have had the connections to get PlantCon the marketing that it needed to get off the ground.
Social media is the reason why I was able to get practically free marketing for PlantCon. Otherwise, getting our name out there would have either been all about connections, or excessive amounts of money– neither of which I had when I started.
The online Facebook groups are the whole reason why I was able to build a community the way that I did.
Our team is very Gen Z. I think at some point our average age was 23 years old. The ability to work fully remotely in this digital era has been life saving for many of us.
No 9-5 or otherwise set work hours, no 30 minute one way commutes through traffic, etc. Not needing an office space and not being limited geographically by who can be a member of the team is everything.
How do you use technology in your daily routine?
Being fully remote, our tech is our lifeline. I spend a ridiculous amount of time researching and testing any software that we plan to implement.
The most important software we use is definitely Discord, which we almost exclusively use for our internal communications.
The ability to hop into meetings that are happening in voice channels allow for anybody to join into any conversation that they’re interested in.
Especially as we grow, it’s important to let everyone stay looped in on any conversations they’d like to be tapped into. It helps with self-training and cross-training in a really organic way.
The custom emojis we’re able to use and the soundboards during meetings have actually been so critical to allowing our team to express themselves authentically.
Discord really allows us to step fully into the culture that represents our team when it comes to communication, and communication has been the thing that connects our team the most and makes us feel like a community.
The second most important has been Facebook Groups. That’s where our entire community started from, and is primarily still where we connect with our community (outside of Instagram and TikTok posting.)
I wouldn’t have been in touch with the people who supported me through the PlantCon journey without Facebook groups.
What do your plans for the future include for PlantCon?
I want to continue carving out this space within the horticultural industry for young people like myself.
We’ve been historically excluded from the opportunity to join the old boy’s club, and the greater horticultural industry isn’t doing enough to shepherd in the new generation of enthusiasts that will ultimately keep this industry alive.
PlantCon has very much claimed its seat at the table, and will continue to champion for inclusion and diversity for as long as we exist so that everybody has a chance to sit at the table with us regardless of age, gender, race, or background.
In 2026, we hope to expand to six PlantCons, including LA in February, Houston in April, Chicago in June, NYC in August, Atlanta in October, and Dallas in December. This hasn’t been shared anywhere before, so you heard it here first!
From there, we continue to grow our team sustainably, and do our best to bring this thing to as many communities as we can. One day, internationally. If someone out there wants to help PlantCon come to Japan, please let me know!
What did Plantcon teach you about yourself?
So, so much. More than I think I can comprehend. I’m constantly learning new things about myself every day on this journey. I’m a first generation American, college grad, entrepreneur… everything. Nobody helped me along the way or taught me how to do any of this.
My single mom who couldn’t speak English was left by our dad to raise myself and my two sisters, so we grew up dirt poor and relied so much on welfare to survive.
I think the important lesson is that everybody loves to think that they can do something, but very few actually do it.
I’ve had a lot of people come around talking about PlantCon as if it’s something that they could have done, but they have no idea the required level of fearless and steadfast leadership, unshakable faith in yourself, and years of building a community to support you through such a huge and risky experience.
I could have lost my entire life savings and been stuck with another $30,000 in credit card debt at a 25% APY with no way to pay it off.
I can’t name a single person I know who would have had the courage to take that same risk. No shade to everyone in my life, y’all are wonderful.
What does the word success mean to you? (My favorite question)
True success is the kind of success that also brings up everybody around you. Success really means nothing if you’re succeeding alone. That’s really it.
Do your best to make sure that your success impacts the success of others as much as possible and you’ll have the strongest community you could ask for. Even if it slows you down a little, or sets you back a bit.
As long as you’re still moving forward, and that allows you to bring a few more people with you, it’s worth it.
What do you want to tell our readers about PlantCon? (What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it)
PlantCon started as a small, local community plant meetup, but has now become the biggest plant show in the country. And, it’s led by a Gen Z team.
To learn more about PlantCon, visit its official website, and follow its Instagram page.
