In this month’s edition of First Fridays, we introduce you to Celestine Maddy, the founder of Wilder Quarterly, a modern gardening journal for the rapidly growing new generation of urban green thumbs. A naturalist herself, Maddy left a successful career as a digital strategy director to launch the magazine last year. Below, she expounds on the challenges of entrepreneurship, her favorite startups, and her technological desires. Pay attention: she was recently named one of Fast Company’s ‘100 Most Creative People in Business in 2012’.

If you had to choose one word or phrase to describe Wilder Quarterly, what would it be?

A publication and community for contemporary cultivators.

How do you define success for your enterprise?

There is a clear cut, business definition - how many people subscribe, purchase and engage with our publication and products.

And then there is a soft definition - how many people start growing or get involved in some way with cultivation because of us.

What is the one thing you wish you knew before you founded Wilder Quarterly?

Growth is a full time business. Going from a tiny business to a small business takes energy, dedication and a willingness for experimentation that is time-consuming.

What is the one thing you never want to hear (or, most want to hear) from a customer/user/client?

"I'm disappointed." Any small business owner will tell you that it's heart, sweat and tears that go into the production of a product. You really are using all of your resources and creativity to make something amazing. To hear someone was bummed out by what they received is heart breaking.

What compan[y]ies (other than your own) are you inspired by, and why?

I love companies that are reinventing old ideas, so that includes all the new classics like Warby Parker and Airbnb, etc. They're bringing new methods and approaches to classic categories, which is tough to do.

I'm also a fan of Fig +Yarrow. They create completely organic beauty products, which isn't new, but it’s their approach to growth that I find so inspiring. While they have the chance to get big fast, they are taking it slow, growing naturally and at a sustainable pace. In this world of fast, fast, go, grow, it's nice to see someone taking a more organic approach to building a business.

What is the next big thing?

The sci-fi geek in me would love for it to be motion detection - the creation of tools, which allow you to use your body to affect the technology/space around you for everyday tasks. If that fails, I'll take piezoelectricity, which has seen some real advancement.

I don't think I'm right though. It's probably going to be something more mundane - like the use of the mobile phone as your wallet in the U.S.

What is the worst business idea you’ve heard?

I'm less about good and bad and more about how you get it done. A lot comes down to execution, planning and targeting your audience. Although, someone told me recently about an amusement park that incorporated food in the rides in the weirdest of ways. Sounds too sticky and smelly to work, but…stranger things have happened.