Why No One Bought Her Superior Product — and the Pivot That Drove 300% Growth

Entrepreneur

27-05-2025

Jamie Mitri realized it doesn't matter how brilliant your product is if customers won't take the time to learn about it.
This story appears in the May 2025 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Jamie Mitri had an amazing product, almost zero sales, and no idea what was wrong.
This was 2021, and she'd just launched her brand, Moss Pure. It makes indoor moss walls — those trendy, earthy installations you see in corporate lobbies. But hers was distinct: Most moss walls are actually made from dead moss preserved with chemicals, making them stinky and in need of annual replacement. But drawing on her experience as a chemical and environmental engineer, Mitri was able to create a moss wall that's actually alive, requires no chemicals, smells nice, and functions as an air purifier.
She thought the product would sell itself, and hired a marketing agency to run online ads. But nothing happened. She began to see the problem: Her product is more expensive because it's the real thing. But competitors were advertising their moss walls as "live," so customers didn't appreciate the difference.
Related: Customers Want More Than Just a Product — Here's How to Meet Their Expectations
So Mitri set about a new way to pitch her company — and now, five years later, she's sold tens of thousands of moss walls, and grew 300% in the past year. Here's how she did it.
STEP 1: Tell the right story.
In 2023, The Boston Globe reached out to do a story on Moss Pure. Mitri appreciated the coverage, but didn't expect much. "Then, the day the story comes out, my entire inventory goes on back order," she says. "I realized it's because I explained the science."
This was key: Instead of just pitching her product's beauty, she needed to find spaces to explain why and how it works. Once people understood that, they valued her product more.
She started pitching media, and landed on one of Oprah's lists — which drove major sales.
STEP 2: Segment customers.
Once she'd pulled in some sales with media placements, Mitri began combing through orders to learn more about her customers. Some were individuals looking for luxury art pieces, but mostly, they were corporate offices with high earnings — and crucially, they had bought a "live" moss wall before.
That was the golden insight that transformed her company: To increase sales, she'd need to find existing owners of preserved moss walls. These people were already interested in moss walls, and were bound to be disillusioned with the one they bought — an opening for her.
"I just kept finding companies that had the fake moss walls and reaching out," she says. Sometimes the companies weren't ready to work with her, and that was fine — she'd keep following up until the company had to replace their existing moss wall and were happy to talk.
Related: This is What is Missing From Your Customer Experience Playbook
STEP 3: Tailor to your target customer.
Mitri searched for biotech companies in the Boston area that had moss walls. "I always went straight for the CEO," she says. "I got their attention by saying, 'Aren't you sick of replacing that fake, smelly moss wall?' And they'd be like, 'Yeah, we didn't realize it was gonna be this bad.'"
She'd send them a sample of her Moss Pure wall. The conversion rates were high.
Then she went a step further. Because she was building custom products for corporate clients, she realized she could easily build their company signs into the walls — cutting out the third party who did that job, and creating a better finished product.
She began offering this as an add-on service, which increased her average order value.
Moss Pure continues to use this strategy today, as it expands into larger and larger venues. Mitri just did a huge installation at the biggest biotech hub in New York City, and inked a partnership with a global hotel brand. It's all because she found the right story to tell, and the right customers to tell it to.
Related: 3 Steps to Finding the Right Product to Sell