I left my Fortune 100 HR career to launch a pumpkin display business. Here's how my cofounder and I scaled it.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rebecca Paxton, the 35-year-old cofounder and managing partner of My Front Porch, a Dallas pumpkin-display business.

It’s been edited for length and clarity.

I was working in corporate America at a Fortune 100 company with my cofounder, Jen Carmichael, when we got the idea for My Front Porch.

We’d worked together in HR for 10 years, but life changes made us realize we needed more flexibility.

One day in 2022, Jen saw her neighbor with a pumpkin display and asked who’d set it up.

Her neighbor’s daughter had ordered it for her from a local business.

Jen was interested in ordering a display for her home, but when she went to the website, they were already sold out for the year.

She came to the office and told me about it, and the idea of starting our own business became kind of a joke between us.

We’d be working late nights in the office, talking about how we’d rather be outside decorating.

It sounded so much more fun than going through spreadsheets and complex business problems.

In late 2024, we both left our jobs.

I had just had my second baby, and Jen’s father had recently died, so she needed to step away to help her family.

In January 2025, we decided to launch the business.

I also wanted to be a career woman.

It’s hard to do that in the corporate world.

We set up our LLC, operating agreement, and bank account.

We also got our website up and running, started our social media accounts, and began figuring out our supply chain logistics.

We took our time to think about every little aspect — from where we’d get our pumpkins to how to deliver them and how best to communicate with customers.

By July 2025, we were taking orders.

Pumpkins arrived at our warehouse on September 18, and the next day we began installations.

We have really high standards and expectations, strong problem-solving skills, and a recruiting background, so we knew how to get the right help to staff the business as needed.

We also weren’t afraid to reach out to our contacts when we didn’t know something to get their advice.

One example is the first day we were going to get a big shipment in, we weren’t sure how to actually get the pumpkins off the truck and into the storage facility.

We didn’t really know how to work a pallet jack, so we called a friend who showed us the ropes, and we learned from there.

We brought in semi-truckloads of pumpkins we purchased wholesale, ran multiple trailers with products going out, and rented a climate-controlled storage space.

We originally planned to sell a certain number of displays, but as calls kept coming in during the fall season, we decided to over-order rather than turn customers away.

We took that risk, and it was well worth it.

When we set out to do this, we didn’t want to do it as a hobby; we wanted to do it at an exceptional level, and at scale, because both of us left high-income jobs and wanted this business to help take care of our families financially.

In our first year, we had over $70,000 in sales, and this year we already have over $120,000.

From the outside looking in, people are often surprised by how much complexity goes into the business.

We’re coordinating installations, putting together routes, and finding suppliers.

Even with the logistics required to operate at scale, we wanted packages for every budget.

We have five packages at different price points, including a smaller package than many local competitors offer.

Many people don’t realize pumpkin-display installation is a service until they see one at a neighbor’s house — just as Jen did.

We didn’t really have a social media background — we learned along the way.

Our main focus was sharing our mission to bring joy across Dallas.

We told our story on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest.

We put a lot of effort into defining our brand’s aesthetic and what we wanted to represent.

We also have a demographic that’s not on Instagram at all, so we did a lot of word-of-mouth outreach.

We reached out to friends, asking them to spread the word and put out fliers.

It was crazy — we were getting up and out the door by 6:30 a.m. and coming home between 9:30 and 10 p.m.

It’s much more physical than what we were used to in the corporate world.

During install weeks, we work 60-80 hours.

When needed, we’ve used friends, family, neighbors, and landscaping crews to help.

However, we get a balance because we do most of our work in the three or four months around fall, with all our installations taking place within four weeks.

It’s been such a blessing — it’s provided the flexibility in our lives that we really needed and given us a way to earn income for our families.

Last year, we chose a few nonprofits to donate displays to and also held a giveaway for a family with pumpkins that had been used at a wedding.

This year, we’re partnering with the Ronald McDonald House.

It’s a great opportunity to spread joy in a really intentional and thoughtful way.

We’ve already thought about expanding — to add additional holidays or operate in other states — but there are over seven million people here in the Dallas market, so we know there’s much more market share for us to go after and capture.

The nice thing is we’re always willing to pivot.

Right now, what we’re doing feels right, but we’re always open to something more.

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