From Windowsills to a Warehouse: How Jocelyn Ho Turned a Pandemic Hobby into an Exotic Plant Powerhouse

Jocelyn Ho (EO Detroit) at Rare Plant Fairy's sprawling office and nursery. 

In early 2020, Jocelyn Ho (EO Detroit) had no job, no clear career direction in her new home country — and no shortage of houseplants. The pandemic had just begun, and she had recently immigrated to the U.S. from Canada, settling in Detroit with her husband. So, as she searched for a new path and purpose, she passed the time cultivating rare tropical plants — so many, in fact, that sunlight barely breached some of their windowsills.

“My husband said, ‘I can't even see out the window! We have to get rid of some of these plants,’” Jocelyn recalls with a laugh. “I told him it was an investment.”

She proved it the following weekend: Jocelyn sold a sliver of her collection on Facebook marketplace for $1,000. From that transaction bloomed something far greater. Today, she is the founder and CEO of Rare Plant Fairy, perhaps the most prominent retailer of rare tropical plants in the U.S. She built the business from that first US$1,000 sale, unrelenting curiosity, and, she says, “a lot of grit and audacity.”

Armed with a background in botany and biology and a previous career as a speech-language pathologist working with nonverbal children, Jocelyn has long felt compelled to give voice to those without one. “I like taking care and telling the stories of living things that can’t speak for themselves,” she says. “That is a theme throughout my life.”

A New Business Sprouts

By the end of that first year, Jocelyn had single-handedly generated more than US$600,000 in sales. By 2022, just two years after her first sale, Rare Plant Fairy eclipsed US$1 million in annual revenues and Jocelyn’s mother stopped asking her to drop her niche hobby and get a “real” job. “That was an inflection point,” Jocelyn says. “‘Whoa, I did it, Mom.’”

Today, Rare Plant Fairy employs 26 people — including Jocelyn’s husband — and operates out of a warehouse that is home to a tissue culture lab, where plants are cloned and propagated on site. The company also hybridizes new varieties and partners with global breeders, serving a global customer base.

“Yes, I love plants, but I love this part even more ... I love building a business. I love creating impact. I love seeing growth.” 

- Jocelyn Ho (EO Detroit)

Rare Plant Fairy’s growth has mirrored Jocelyn’s own personal evolution, from lone hobbyist to multifaceted business owner. While she still adores working with plants, she says helping the business blossom, and mastering the array of intricacies required to do so, has been even more rewarding. “Yes, I love plants, but I love this part even more,” she says. “I love building a business. I love creating impact. I love seeing growth.”

As fulfilling as the experience has been, Jocelyn acknowledges it has been equally challenging, especially as her responsibilities evolved. “It was very difficult for me to learn how to be a manager and lead,” she admits. “Coming from a background where I was a therapist and I had to be there for people and understand where they came from, that definitely helped, but it also hurt me in some ways, too … Sometimes you just have to say the hard truths.”

To help with that transition, she joined EO Detroit in 2024 and will serve on the chapter’s board this year. More important than any networking opportunities, the group has offered a vital support system that helped her navigate the unique demands of running a rapidly growing business. “I was frustrated, and it can be a very lonely position,” she says. “I just want to meet people who understand what I'm going through.”

Jocelyn was recently named a 2025 EY Regional Entrepreneur of the Year. 

Planting Diverse Seeds 

Jocelyn hasn’t simply used Rare Plant Fairy as a personal launchpad: She has taken others along for the ride. Through her wholesale program, a growing number of clients — particularly from minority communities — have built their own small businesses in the industry. Plus, at last year’s annual Tropical Plant Expo in Miami, where Rare Plant Fairy was the headline sponsor, enthusiasts and aspiring entrepreneurs repeatedly thanked her for breaking glass ceilings in the traditionally white, male-dominated industry.

“So many people came up to me and said, ‘Thank you for showing me what we can do,’” she says. “That was really special.”

That experience helped Jocelyn realize she is not merely scaling a business — she is redefining what a successful company in her industry, and its founder, can be. And while she has moved far beyond her days of trading tips and finding deals on Facebook, she has not lost sight of how far she has come from a far-fetched dream that sprouted from a windowsill.

“With enough grit and audacity, you can truly do anything,” she says. “It can always be a stupid idea — until it's not.”