San Luis Potosí
No. 196, Suite 206
Roma Norte
06700 CDMX
E. hello@thrust.com.mx
T. +52 8190 1290
M. +52155 40941527
How was it that a project went from being a local model to a global reference?
The Mexican countryside is one of the enormous pending issues of the nation’s development agenda. Low wages, lack of educational and work-related opportunities, insecurity and migration are some of the sector’s longstanding challenges. In 2009, with a vision of doing something to change this reality, three young university students founded Cosechando Natural, known today as Endémika. What began as a modestly scaled project to sell plants and agricultural products is today—thanks to Thrust consultancy—a complex and robust business model that activates rural value in the communities where it does business. Here’s the story.
Against the clock
Six weeks before the world’s largest plant fair took place in Mexico (OPF 2019), Endémika invited Thrust to take on the challenge of preparing a pitch for potential international clients. In record time, Thrust rapid-fire produced strategic messages that identified and understood what foreign markets needed in order to communicate—assertively and transversally—the company’s transformation proposal.
Strategic depuration
The fair was a success. In a question of three days, Endémika managed to place more than 50,000 plants and close important deals with clients in the United States, Holland and Japan. Nevertheless, despite the excellent results , the project’s value proposal had not completely connected every area. On one hand, there was knowledge of endemic plant production (the only such endeavor in Mexico), and on the other the group’s educational and immersion tasks in the communities where they did business. Endémika began a second transformative phase.
Compass missing
The first step was a brand architecture. Coming out of Thrust’s insights and research, Endémika discovered its true market niche: selling endemic plants and training agricultural producers about what they grow. The model translated to three important categories: process, product and service. It functioned like a defined-growth roadmap both to align initiatives and discard those that strayed from the reason behind the transformation: to activate rural value.
Activating rural value
Now Endémika is a platform that trains and connects rural producers with national and international customers. To put it one way, it became the Uber of plants. Thanks to its model, local producers have found an alternative to migration that lets them work and serve their communities. Their success is based on pillars such as transferal of scientific knowledge; endemic Mexican plants’ environmental revival and fomenting fair trade.
Green awareness wave
The Endémika model responds to the needs of a market that enjoys greater environmental and social consciousness. With backing from large-scale research efforts, we detected different audiences with a growing appetite for laying hands on ornamental plants, whether part of interior designs or for real-estate development project façades. To reach those audiences, we put together a portfolio of archetypes, each one with its respective storytelling sales manuals so that it would be easy to explain and adapt according to audiences.
Business with human feeling
Since its new conceptualization, Endémika has never stopped growing and is competing in the big leagues. There is currently an entire team dedicated to building communities and strengthening a virtuous circle of training and sales. They’ve managed to place 875,000 plants and raise more than $17 million USD in capital. Their case is a clear example of innovation and social mission that helps rural communities find work models that are both dignified and well-paid. The old phrase couldn’t be truer, “Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you’ll feed him for the rest of his life.”
San Luis Potosí
No. 196, Suite 206
Roma Norte
06700 CDMX
E. hello@thrust.com.mx
T. +52 8190 1290
M. +52155 40941527
