Bosque Founder Deborah Choi Leaves No Opportunity Untaken

“Wait a second… I can’t be the only one with this issue.”

Deborah Choi, the founder of Bosque, brought plants into her home with the purpose of brightening the space. 

“I lived in these big cities: Chicago, New York, now Berlin. I didn’t have access to nature. So, I wanted to bring it inside.

“What could go wrong?”

The Definition of Insanity

The feeling of bringing a happy philodendron into your house only to watch it slowly die is discouraging. You ask yourself what you did wrong. Did I water it too little? Too much? Did it need sunlight? Am I supposed to feed it? 

So, you bring in another philodendron. This time you know you’re going to do better. You bought different soil, another kind of pot, you did some Googling. You got this. Right? 

Nope. It’s dead. You killed it. Again. 

It can feel like a curse, no? 

“I went through these cycles of buying plants, buying soil, buying pots, and doing it all wrong. With the results that my plants would die and I would repeat that process over and over. Which is the definition of insanity, right?

“That started this rabbit hole. What’s going on in this industry? What are the customer problems? 

I saw the opportunity and built Horticure around that.” 

Choi founded Horticure, and on-demand plant-care company at the end of 2018. The plant of your choice, and everything you need to take proper care of it, is provided via mail. If you have any kind of question or concern, there is flexible virtual access to vetted horticulturists. 

“Even pre-COVID we were doing these video chat consultations.”

Horticure is now merging with Bosque, a direct-to-consumer plant-care company. 

“The conversation about joining forces and seeing what that would be like came together very organically. There were a lot of conversations, testing, figuring out. We decided that the future was brighter, stronger, and greener together.” 

Deborah Choi is a natural entrepreneur with a great sense of trends. But it didn’t start that way. 

The Safe, Traditional Path

Born in Nigeria, her family moved to Ohio for greater access to education and opportunities. Like any child who wants to make their family proud and secure, Choi sought a traditional path. A good university, a good graduate program, stable income, “the American dream,” it was all part of the plan.

After graduating from the University of Chicago, Choi relocated to New York City. She quickly found friends. 

“We were going to thrift stores and flea markets for fun, finding cool things. This was the early 2000s, everyone was kind of talking about the internet. We thought, ‘let’s build a website and see what happens if we put stuff online.”

And that’s where it all began. 

Choi describes her career as taking an opportunity presented and running with it. This has led her on a series of ventures including a media company. If she was interested, curious, and excited about it, Choi pursued it. 

This characteristic drive has led Choi from selling cool New York thrift store items to a growing Berlin-based plant-care company called Bosque. If you’re struggling to connect the dots, you’re not alone. This entrepreneurial journey Choi embarked on in the early 2000s has twisted and turned in ways that have ultimately shaped Choi into the success she is today. 

She now chooses to take that success and pay it forward. Enter Founderland. 

A Community for Women Founders of Color

“What we’re doing is accelerating the business success of women of color founders here in Europe and the UK.”

By fostering a community of women founders of color and connecting them with the right people, Choi and company hope to create a fresher, more diverse generation of entrepreneurs. We know the obstacles women of color face in just about every industry. Taking the effort to provide a community the tools it needs to thrive is one of the more innovative efforts in the last few decades. 

“When we think of entrepreneurship, we see the highlights, the showreels, the major funding rounds. And it can seem intimidating. 

“One of the reasons why I and my co-founders built this community is because there was a lack of one. 

“Building a community is truly a lot of work, but let’s take the first step.”

You can learn more about Deborah Choi, her journey, her ventures, and her mission on Spotify’s The Black Founders Podcast. Founderland is fundraising and actively seeking women of color founders to aid in their journey. She currently lives in Berlin where she is expanding Bosque from Berlin to all of Germany. 

Her houseplants are much happier now.