In the East Oakland backyard where she once gardened with her grandfather, Ariana Marbley learned how much care it takes to make something flourish.
“He taught me how to care for something, actually start something from a seed and watch it grow,” she said. Years later, those lessons would quietly shape Esscents of Flowers, the floral business she founded and now runs full time.
Ariana still calls that time with her grandfather one of the greatest gifts he gave her. As she grew older, she watched him become a pillar in his community, a presence that helped define how she saw her hometown and her role in making it a continued success.
“As I moved through this world and got to see my grandfather participate in being a strong community member within Oakland, it just made me so proud,” she said, noting that Esscents of Flowers is steeped in the character of the city where she grew up.
Oakland’s mix of grit and beauty is something Ariana consciously weaves into her work. “I wanted people to understand that beauty even in the midst of this grit or, being rough around the edges, beauty still exists here.”
Esscents of Flowers: A late-blooming dream
For years, owning a flower business lived in the back of Ariana’s mind. After college, she followed a more conventional path: she got married, started a family and built a career.
“It just seemed too big of a thing to do,” she said of launching a business. “I thought, you’d have to be crazy to launch a business with a young family.”
Ariana Marbley, owner of Esscents of Flowers.
While she had the stability she craved, she still felt a different pull inside of her everytime her mind wandered back to the days of gardening with her grandfather.
After attending an incubator for small business start-ups, Ariana decided to register her business, Esscents of Flowers, in 2015 but for several years she continued to juggle her corporate job and her growing side business. As orders increased and her belief in the concept deepened, she knew she could not keep straddling both worlds.
“I remember promising myself that if I ever was put in a position where I had to make a decision between staying at this company or betting on myself and starting this business, I’m going to choose the business,” she said. In 2019, she did exactly that, stepping away from her corporate role and into entrepreneurship full time.
The timing brought an unexpected test.
“Just a few months later, we experienced the pandemic and everything shut down.” The sense of risk and panic she had accepted as part of entrepreneurship suddenly intensified. When Ariana looks back at her time navigating her business during an epidemic, she often thinks about her favourite flower – a dahlia.
Some of Ariana's floral arranging work.
“The dahlia, to me, represents perfection. As we exist in the world, things are never perfect. They are somewhat chaotic,” she explained. “Every season has its challenges, and the dahlia represents being able to exist outside of that.”
“I feel like that is the perfect way to describe what being an entrepreneur is, is being able to exist and still push through,” she added.
Today, Esscents of Flowers is focused on exactly those moments of providing beauty and calm in excitable moments. Aside from offering delivery and subscriptions, the business has become known for its offering at private and corporate events. Some of the most memorable work happens in the final, quiet minutes before a celebration begins, she said.
“There’s nothing like being able to see a bride receive her bouquet,” she said. “I walk through the door and then her face lights up. And that is one of the most rewarding feelings.”
Leaning into digital payments
As Esscents of Flowers has expanded, Ariana has leaned on digital tools that match how her customers shop and pay. “Esscents of Flowers accepts PayPal and Venmo as a payment option,” she said. Her relationship with PayPal began long before she became a business owner. “I started using PayPal as a young adult,” said Ariana.
In-person, especially at pop-ups and markets, Venmo has become a crucial part of the checkout experience. “I’ve was approached numerous occasions for folks to be able to use Venmo as opposed to, another payment method. And it was something that was always asked, so of course I said yes.”
“It takes a little bit of craziness" to run a small businesses
More than a decade after she first registered Esscents of Flowers, Ariana is candid about the emotional side of running a small business. “Today, I still wake up with the just a tinge of fear. I also still get up excited about what I, what I get to do.”
If she could speak to her 2015 self, standing at the edge of that leap, her message would be one of reassurance.
“I would say, breathe. It’s going to be okay,” she said. “You’re going to get through this moment. And it’s going to be great.”
“Flowers are going to open up different doors that you would have never imagined, and you made the right decision,” she added. The work still takes courage. “It takes a little bit of craziness to get up and do this every day,” she laughed. “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
For her, becoming a successful entrepreneur is the real legacy of those early days in the garden – not just learning how to plant and tend, but how to keep going.
“Being able to understand that fear is a part of a human emotion,” she said, “but also, you can do things. You can do things in spite of that.”
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