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TECH<br />
SHINY | ONLINE ‘TREP | GEEK | THE FIX<br />
A greener thumb<br />
Smart Gardener brings ag-biz tech to the backyard<br />
N<br />
ot long after planting her<br />
first vegetable garden,<br />
Kristee Rosendahl realized<br />
she was spending most of<br />
her time indoors researching<br />
gardening topics, not actually<br />
digging in the dirt.<br />
“I had a stack of gardening<br />
books a mile high, but it<br />
wasn’t helping me figure out<br />
what was best for my garden,”<br />
she recalls. Her need for<br />
a hyperlocal resource led<br />
Rosendahl, a user-experience<br />
designer at Apple, to develop<br />
Smart Gardener, an online tool<br />
for planning and managing<br />
one’s vegetable patch.<br />
Users enter their ZIP<br />
code, garden size and household<br />
size, and the program<br />
aggregates historical weather<br />
statistics from a national<br />
database to make recommendations<br />
for the best vegetables<br />
for the climate and when to<br />
plant. It also provides a weekto-week<br />
guide for maintaining<br />
one’s garden through the<br />
growing season.<br />
For example, gardeners<br />
who want to plant tomatoes<br />
will receive recommendations<br />
about which varieties will produce<br />
the best results in their<br />
area; data can be narrowed<br />
further, limiting suggestions<br />
to, say, heirloom varieties or<br />
those that perform well in<br />
containers or partial shade.<br />
After testing the program in<br />
her garden in Sonoma County,<br />
Calif., Rosendahl<br />
recognized its<br />
potential as a<br />
business. “There<br />
was so much buzz<br />
about sustainability<br />
and local food<br />
systems, and technology<br />
was getting<br />
much more sophisticated,”<br />
she explains.<br />
She decided to release<br />
Smart Gardener as a free<br />
service. Her hope? To build<br />
a robust audience as proof of<br />
concept, then figure out how<br />
to monetize.<br />
Since she launched in<br />
2012, more than 250,000<br />
people have created accounts<br />
at smartgardener.com,<br />
making it the leading U.S.<br />
gardening website.<br />
Armed with that user<br />
base, Rosendahl has introduced<br />
small add-ons and<br />
apps, ranging in price from<br />
$0.99 to $4.99, that include<br />
a guide to growing berries<br />
and a harvest calculator.<br />
The site has also partnered<br />
with seed companies and<br />
retailers, including Southern<br />
Exposure Seed Exchange<br />
and Peaceful Valley Farm &<br />
Garden Supply, to generate<br />
revenue from affiliate e-<br />
commerce sales. Although she<br />
declined to disclose revenue,<br />
Rosendahl estimates that 25<br />
percent of users purchase addons<br />
or products from Smart<br />
Gardener’s partners.<br />
Last year Rosendahl<br />
created a B2B product, Smart<br />
Backyard, designed to help<br />
landscapers use the technology<br />
to help with garden<br />
planning and maintenance and<br />
improve customer communication.<br />
For example, after a<br />
landscaper has completed a<br />
list of recommended chores,<br />
an auto-generated newsletter<br />
is emailed to clients.<br />
With demand for Smart<br />
Gardener and Smart Backyard<br />
continuing to grow, Rosendahl<br />
believes she can expand<br />
her empire beyond the garden<br />
in the coming years. Among<br />
her plans are complementary<br />
services such as Smart<br />
Chickens, Smart Beekeeping<br />
and Smart Orchardist.<br />
“We want to be part<br />
of the whole smart-home<br />
movement,” she says. “Smart<br />
Gardener is the first step.”<br />
—Jodi Helmer<br />
PHOTO © GETTY IMAGES/CHRIS PRICE (GARDENING); PHOTO © SHUTTERSTOCK/JULES_KITANO (TOMATOES)<br />
54 ENTREPRENEUR MARCH 2015
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