The story is a familiar pandemic-side-hustle arc, but the details that matter are less romantic: a platform launch window, an early invitation, a format that rewarded personality and a family willing to work nights.
Brandon Hurst did not set out to sell plants. According to a report in the Times of India, drawing on People, he was working as an administrative assistant at a Los Angeles real estate office and living paycheck to paycheck when he lost his job during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Reselling items on Facebook Marketplace led him to notice a woman selling inexpensive plants bought from a dollar store. He tried the same idea, posting a pink plant in a pink pot as his first listing in April or May 2020, and customers began messaging almost immediately.
Six years on, the report says the company has sold more than 100,000 plants in 2026 alone and generates millions of dollars in gross annual sales. It now employs 24 people, sells about 5,000 plants each week and processes around 1,000 orders a day. In February 2026 Hurst began renting space at a family-run nursery in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, including a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse and an attached house, moving the operation out of the roughly 600-square-foot apartment where it began.
The growth was not the product of a formal business plan. Hurst told People he had never owned a plant before his first sale. Within six months he, his husband Josh and his mother were working on the business full time, selling hundreds of plants a week from the balcony. At its peak the apartment handled more than 1,000 plants a week, sometimes 2,000, with shelving units filling the balcony, dining room and living room and his former bedroom turned into a livestreaming space. Hurst described the family as "shoving plants in places" they never expected.
Social media proved the decisive lever. In 2021 a customer who worked as a social media manager suggested he claim the name "Brandon The Plant Guy" across platforms. Short TikTok videos with plant care advice drew some videos past one million views and built an audience of 100,000 followers before TikTok Shop launched in 2023; the following has since grown beyond 268,000. Invited early to sell through the platform, Hurst hosted his first livestream on 18 April 2023 expecting to sell about 30 plants. He sold 250 in roughly three hours, and the business repeatedly hit the 300-order cap imposed on new sellers during a probationary period, with neighbours and customers eventually coming to the apartment to help pack orders.
By the start of 2026 Hurst had changed the sales model, replacing fixed prices of about $16 or $35 with auctions during livestreams. According to the report, profits have tripled since the switch. He hosts live sales several nights a week, sometimes for six to eight hours, and frames them as community gatherings rather than hard selling. The report cites one longtime customer who bid $200 for a basic pothos in a six-inch pot, and says the golden pothos has sold more than 10,000 units over three and a half years.
The story is a familiar pandemic-side-hustle arc, but the details that matter are less romantic: a platform launch window, an early invitation, a format that rewarded personality and a family willing to work nights. Hurst told People he hopes to double the business in the coming year and add livestream hosts. The report does not disclose revenue figures beyond "millions", profit margins, the terms of the nursery lease or how dependent the business remains on a single platform, and those gaps matter for judging whether the next stage is as durable as the last.
