
I just launched my bootstrapped startup. Pray for me. - erikpukinskis
I'm kind of freaking out.  Been working on this for a while (too long), but finally decided it was time to push the button, backlog be damned.<p>It works. It does something. It has bugs. But that's the point of the MVP, right?<p>Anyway, I could use some moral support.  This is very scary.<p>Link: http://sproutrobot.com/
======
aresant
Very cool concept - a few comments:

a) The "buy" page screams out for some pics - people eat (and buy!) with their
eyes :).

b) "We choose seeds that are perfect for your climate and the time of year"
then the next page asks me to select my own choices? A little confusing -
maybe you're building a list of options dynamically?

c) Consider for future "upsells" on the buy page or a more expensive $99.95
starter pack that includes soil, pots, etc. for people that have zero
knowledge but like the idea - not sure if that's your audience or people
already gardening?

Great concept and I think you're on the right track - a "starter pack" would
have got my money.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Thanks for checking it out!

a) I know, I've actually got the illustrator working on some illustrations for
that page. That page is 1st on my list for some design love.

b) Ah, interesting. So, you choose whether you want tomatoes or cucumbers, but
we pick the right variety of cucumbers for your climate. I'll think about
making that clearer.

c) Yea, that's a great idea! Definitely targetting first time gardeners. I
don't think I want to get into stocking bags of soil in my living room, I'll
keep the starter kit idea on my radar as I look into drop shipping and such.
For now I want to try to get traction with the seed mailing, but we'll see how
it goes.

Thanks for the feedback. This is exactly why I launched. :)

~~~
po
As for option c just raise the price until you're willing to do it. :-)

Or find a place nearby that stocks everything you need and pay a neighborhood
kid to run down and buy whatever you need whenever an order like that comes
in. The buyer is purchasing your expertise to pick the right stuff.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I pick one millllion dolllars.

Seriously though, the bottleneck right now is my attention, not funding.
Although I'll think about it some more when I'm doing my next planning
session. :)

~~~
po
OK then, put 1 million dollars as an option on the form. Maybe you'll get
lucky and can become someone's private gardener instead of being an
entrepreneur. :-D

------
harrybr
Thought you might find this interesting.

When you have a baby, various stores encourage you to sign up for monthly
emails. Because the store knows the date of birth, they can send accurate
developmental updates. e.g. "Your baby is X months old. You may notice she is
starting to pay more attention to the world and is able to hold up her own
head..." (etc).

This is fascinating for the parent due to the timeliness of the message. It is
also a great sales opportunity, as lower down the message it suggests things
the user might want to buy.

You could do the exact same thing. Don't just send a message saying "plant
your seeds now" but send (opt in) periodical follow up emails that explain how
the garden should be doing, common gotchas, and so on.

If you ever add any social aspects to the site, it might make sense to expose
the 'age' of the user's garden. People at a similar stage of growth have
something in common and may want to interact with each other.

Good luck with it!

~~~
failquicker
I am not the OP, but that is an amazing idea. I remember those baby emails,
and can just imagine screenshots of baby kale and turnips. Op, you really
should do this. It would be amazing.

~~~
harrybr
I guess one limitation is that gardens probably mature at slightly different
rates (e.g. if you have a mild cold spell, development goes on 'hold' for a
bit, which might put you out of sync). I guess Eric would have to interview
some expert gardeners to ascertain the scope of the issue.

~~~
hugothefrog
Presumably, to a first approximation, you could track the weather at your
customers' location, and know what is going on with their plants. This would
allow you to tailor your emails - and your product suggestions - over time.

------
anigbrowl
As an atheist, I have to wish you good luck instead :)

Great idea! Mrs Browl has a green thumb and will love this. It might be
helpful to take account of companion plants which can often improve the health
of a garden when planted
together(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants>). Agree with
some other users that it might be a good idea to expose more of the options
before soliciting a signup, but I understand it's early days. Smart market
targeting and business model, with _great_ long-term potential.

Once you get the website running smoothly and look to other directions, a
mobile app that lets people swap horticulture tips and pictures of their
garden's progress would bring you a very sticky community, as well as further
sales opportunities ('Oh noes, I haz aphid infestation - need help w/organic
pest sprays?').

------
mixmax
A lot of people from the US seem to forget that they're excluding the majority
of customers by asking you to enter a zipcode that will only work in the US.

It's incredibly annoying if you're part of that majority.

With that said - good luck :-)

~~~
nandemo
Being from outside US, I sympathize with that but:

1) It's a new service. It's reasonable to restrict your audience at first.
Making it more international requires more work (shipping, billing, etc) which
might end up being useless. It makes sense to test with domestic users first.

2) You should take a lot of care before shipping seeds internationally. Some
countries (well, all countries I have flown to) have strict regulations on
importing seeds and plants.

~~~
lena
Totally agree with you that it makes a lot of sense for this kind of startup
to focus on one country/region first. I do wish that startups would at least
mention somewhere that they are aware of this. Something like "Sorry, US only
for now" in the HN message, or a "I'm not in the US!" link on the frontpage
with a message for international users, even if that message is simply that
the company will focus on US customers only.

~~~
miri
If that "I'm not in the US" button can lead to a page with general planting
recommendations for people abroad, it'd be a very nice touch! Maybe a list of
tools that are useful, or a link to services that may help, if you're feeling
extra kind.

~~~
profgubler
The question you need to ask yourself as a startup is how much time I should
spend to not make money. I am sorry, if I already can't ship to you, why do I
want to add all these resources for you when I will never receive money from
you. Yes if you move to the US the owner might eventually make money, but that
amount of time spent on such a low conversion rate is hard for a startup to
justify. I think a message of US only would be sufficient for any startup.

------
dwwoelfel
I signed up for a free account, and now I can't figure out how to upgrade to a
paying account. You may want to add a big button that says "Upgrade Your
Account."

The price seems very high. Your small garden plan, for example, costs $40 and
includes six varieties that will fill an 8' bed.

For $50, I can get a "Garden in a can" with 16 varieties that will fill a bed
the size of two basketball courts:

[http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FG%20S200&name=Gard...](http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FG%20S200&name=Garden%20Seeds&bhcd2=1273552183)

Are your seeds an heirloom variety? That makes a big difference, because if
they are, I can harvest my own seeds and plant them the next year.

~~~
erikpukinskis
It's launch day, so there's room for changes in the pricing. I'm planning to
just run tests to figure out what is an effective price point.

But I haven't made any conversions yet, and I should be able to make at least
SOME at these price points, so I am planning to focus on that.

------
gmurphy
This is a cool idea. I know all of this is probably in your todo list, but
here are my gut reactions:

1\. I only read as far as the "tells you when to plant" before I entered my
zipcode, then spent pageload time wondering how you were going to make money.
I was pleasantly surprised by the options on the signup page.

2\. The payment page needs something visual to differentiate the choices -
either photos or illustrations showing the difference (if it's illustrations,
they can just be relative).

3\. I felt like the green blocks on the front page needed a very faint border
or something - the point where the green meets the blue of the background
clashes strangely.

4\. The frontpage green blocks (again) look like separate items, similar to
the ads at the bottom of the apple.com frontpage, so I read them right to left
and missed that they were a sequence. For the same reason, I felt they should
be clickable.

5\. Clicking on the logo should take you back to the front page.

6\. Site speed seems all over the place - sometimes pages load near instantly,
other times they take up to five seconds.

7\. The sign up and sign in pages do not feel like they're part of rest of the
site.

8\. I'm not clear whether something like this would be useful for someone like
us, who live in a garden-less (concreted outdoors) house in Palo Alto with
only a few pots that we grow tomatoes and peas in. I wonder if there's an
opportunity in starter kits for people who have absolutely no idea - you ship
pots, soil, seeds, we supply the water.

9\. I love it and I sent it to all my friends who do have gardens.

------
marcamillion
Firstly, congrats!

Secondly...I love the design. Who did it for you? Alexandria Neonakis?

Thirdly, I too looked for a pricing plan page - to figure out how you were
going to make money. When I entered a zip code, then I discovered the pricing
page. It looks too wordy. Try to find a more concise way to display that same
information. It kinda looks a BIT confusing, maybe it is psychological because
the columns for each of the plans are not the same height. I don't understand
how the height for each of the columns is decided because the $19.99 & $69.99
columns are the same, the free plan is shortest and the recommended plan is
the longest. So something about that display is a bit off-putting/confusing.

Also, have I told you I really love the artwork of the people planting. Love
it! As a result of that artwork being so nice, the pricing page feels so
bland. The copy is just black text on white columns with an awesome
background. Maybe you can try using a little whitespace, and then adding a few
other design elements to the columns.

Maybe I am just nit-picking, but the headings for the columns have the word
garden, except for the email one...consistency is lacking. I would add a small
graphic for each of the gardens, each one getting more 'lush' as the plan
increases in cost. Then change the name of the 'email only' to something more
inline with the theme. Perhaps 'pot of dirt' or something like that.

Good job on launching though!

Also, make the logo a hotlink to home on all pages.

~~~
daveambrose
One of my favorite rooters I've seen inn a while!

~~~
marcamillion
rooters? Not quite sure I follow.

Is that a pun on a hacker that usually gets root access to a box, but you are
now referring to agriculture?

I am not being a dick, but I seriously don't understand the comment.

~~~
ugh
Probably forgot a “b”. Ro-b-oters.

------
jhancock
FANTASTIC!!! I just planted half my garden last week. Going to do the other
half next week. I will use this and recommend to a few others on my garden
project...its my first time ;)

I think your pricing segments make sense.

Recommended quick fixes:

1 - first email I received has the "Plant xyz" list. Great, but maybe also
include a link in the email that takes me back to my
[http://sproutrobot.com/<username>](http://sproutrobot.com/<username>); page
so I get this same info and also the related instruction links

2 - from the email header it looks like your using gmail directly for SMTP. If
so, you'll hit a limit soon on daily sends at 500(?). I've been using sendgrid
and critsend for these type of email...both are easy to setup and both are
reasonably priced for a startup.

~~~
erikpukinskis
That's a good idea, the link back to the site. I am planning to switch to HTML
emails with the links actually in the email, but that would be a good
intermediate step.

And I didn't realize gmail had a limit. Thanks for the heads up. :)

~~~
wizard_2
Not only does gmail have a limit but you're violated the TOS. Look into
<http://sendgrid.com/> and check out your ip's to see if you're on any
blacklists. It looks like you're using ec2, so there's a good chance that
email coming from your webservers will be blocked.

------
bshep
I get: "Ooops. Something went wrong. The right people have been notified of
the details, and we'll do our best to fix the issue right away." after signing
up and if I try to sign in.

My username is the same as here so check it out if you have a chance.

NOTE: I'm just asking for help why am I being voted down?

~~~
erikpukinskis
I checked into it, and the problem is that SproutRobot doesn't have weather
data for Puerto Rico yet, so things are broken for you. I'm sorry about
that... the site should've handled that more gracefully.

Support for places outside of the continental U.S. is definitely on the todo
list but it will be a while. If you follow @sproutrobot on twitter, you'll be
sure to get the announcement when we get Puerto Rico in there.

Thanks for testing, and sorry it didn't work for you.

~~~
Pahalial
Since this seems so ideal for my parents and I'm sure others out there who
aren't terribly fond of twitter, let me recommend something like the
following:

"Oops! SproutRobot doesn't seem to know where that is just yet. It's learning
countries quite fast though, so if you tell us your email, we'll be sure to
let you know when you should come back!"

To elaborate a bit: starting with a single country is very much
understandable, but the assumption that one lives in the continental US is a
frustration we encounter daily on the english-speaking web. This way you get
them invested into wanting this service by getting their zip code (bonus:
instantly gauging most interested international locale) and the promise of
just tacking on one's email to eventually get to use it should be "just right"
for most users. This is as opposed to geoIP blocking at the homepage level,
which really makes me never want to visit those sites again.

Edit: Depending on how much you intend to anthropomorphize the robot, maybe
change the copy to "visiting countries" or some such.

------
fairlyodd
It is like FarmVille for real life! I think you should highlight that,
definitely would get some eyes on the site. Maybe even a targeted ad on
Facebook? Another suggestion (maybe you already do this) is to give detailed
info on how to take care of the plant. Spin a user community around it, and
they'll be exchanging tips, posting photos and celebrating their flowering
plants.

Other than that, I love the idea, and really nicely executed for a launch! I'd
signup if I were into farming, and did not live on the 10th floor of an
apartment complex.

~~~
herdrick
Agreed on the Farmville angle. I think there are a lot of people who would
love to get their kid or S.O. off Farmville and doing something productive.
The visual design is already perfect for this.

------
jaytee_clone
This is probably on your to-do list already.

Beginner gardeners usually start out with herb pots (i.e. basil, oregano,
parsley) because they offer longer-lasting rewards for less initial effort and
applied skills.

Having this option may give impatient beginners a sweet preview of what they
can do (which of course translates to more revenue for you), as suppose to
trying to grow difficult plants, get discouraged by failures and never use
your service again.

------
char
This is a really cool idea, and I would totally be a user if only I had a
yard. A few small things I'd change:

a) If I click the 'Get Started' button without entering a zip code, it says
'Oops! Something went wrong.' I understand what is actually going on here, but
if I weren't a developer I'd probably think the site was broken.

b) I want to view pretty pictures of what my seeds will grow into!

c) Re: asking people to pray for you -- I highly recommend scrapping that and
instead adopting the mentality of working your ass off to achieve success.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I agree to an extent, but knowing people are rooting for you can sometimes
help with the working your ass off bit.

Also, a few kind words do a lot to calm the "oh shit I just pushed the button"
jitters.

------
mattmaroon
What's so scary? The worst that can happen is nobody uses it. Even in that
case, you'll probably still learn something about programming, and might learn
a bit about product development.

If you put effort into it, it will be a good experience even if it doesn't
take off. And if it does, so much the better.

~~~
erikpukinskis
The worst case scenario I keep imagining is getting a lot of bad press with
key social media folks (blogs, twitterers, etc) and then having my chances for
good press be dried up even after I fix the bugs.

~~~
mattmaroon
You're psyching yourself out. Early adopters (especially people who write
about these sorts of things) are pretty understanding about that stuff. Trust
me, I've been there. If you have no bugs at all you waited too long.

Very few of the early adopters will dive deep enough to even find a bug before
writing up their thoughts, and unless you do something like reveal credit card
info to strangers getting a review that's actually damaging to your long-term
potential is extremely rare. (And even then it's the internet, just get a new
domain name and design and start over).

Much more likely is that you'll find some people who like it, maybe some who
love it, and some who have yet to be convinced. If you're really lucky,
they'll tell you how to convince them.

I meant the first comment to be encouraging btw, perhaps it didn't come off
that way since it got downvoted.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Thanks, that makes me feel better. :) I think you're right.

------
Mongoose
What a cool idea. I've been trying to think of how urban farming could benefit
from software, but it looks like you beat me to the punch. You might try
networking with the people at Window Farms (<http://www.windowfarms.org/>).
This service in conjunction with modern hydroponics would be a match made in
heaven.

------
mmaunder
Congratulations! This is so freakin awesome! What an utterly brilliant idea.
I'm signing up right now. Comments:

Why do I have to choose veggies. I'm looking for a select all button because I
want to grow everything. I actually have a garden and had a great harvest last
year so I'm not kidding about this. Even if I'm not going to grow it I want to
know when it should be planted just to learn.

Signed up and I like the calandar a lot. I'm so jealous I didn't think of
this. Already emailed your site to a few folks. Grats again!!!!

ps: Love the design. Feels like farmville in a good way.

------
Scott_MacGregor
This business seems like a money maker in a unique niche--if you work it. I
think you should try promoting it in forums dedicated to organic living by
manually linking it in "hot threads" in addition to buying skyscrapers.

If it were my site, to get some extra money in the door right now I would try
upselling a 3 year package for the price of 2 on a special page just before
the customer hits the shopping cart. Plus add a little extra something to the
deal (like a special info pdf) to increase the chance the customer will pay
double.

Also, what about letting the customer choose herbs and some favorite fruits.

Another thing that might help to "build" your business out of the bootstrap
phase would be an 800 phone number with regular business hours so customers
can call with questions about planting or ask why their tomatoes are dying on
the vine. It might help to build repeat orders and add some gravitas to the
business vs. just being a website with no track history.

NOTE: Watch your traffic, the site timed me out due to too much traffic
(5/10/2010 aprox. 9:15pm Austin Time). I'm sure traffic is light now, but if
you get a lot of hits at once you don't want to turn potential customers away
by timing them out. It is probably due to too many concurrent server
connections not bandwidth.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Thanks for the comments. Yeah, I haven't done any performance tuning yet
really, except writing it in such I way that I can easily scale to multiple
machines.

Who knew the seat of your pants could fly so well?

------
njl
I like the concept a lot!

The "how it works" boxes on the first page need to give me more. I kept
clicking on them.

I liked the plans list. I want the entire box to be a click target, and give
me a mouse-over subtle color change. I also want pictures there.

The checkout page is very weak. A little javascript to count down how many
vegetables I have left and gray things out when I don't have any options would
be nice. The current plan upgrade link was sloppy-feeling. I also don't like
"Oops! We need a little more info. Could you fix the following things?" ..it
made me feel like I screwed up, when I think I followed the obvious path
through the application. I'd be tempted to split out the joy of choosing what
plants I'm going to get from actually paying for things. Also consider making
the username the same as the email address, less to remember.

Come to think of it, after I choose a plan, a page where I romped through
(conceptually) a bunch of awesome-looking fruits and veggies, dreaming about
my awesome garden, with a form down at the bottom that says "where do you want
us to send your tasty, tasty carrots, beets, and celery?". Then the address
capture is about where my goodies are going, not paying...

This website is a great idea. I wish I had space to plant things, I'd give you
a shot.

------
jamesbressi
Nice! I just got to the homepage and thought "hmmm, that's original and pretty
cool!"--especially because I have become a closet gardening geek (although all
my neighbors know it and love it).

Page 2 after your zip code is also well done, but it is obviously not going to
easily convert first-time users, but let's see how this free sign-up goes and
then maybe conversion will be a bit more likely afterwards with convenience
being the big seller, obviously.

OOPS! Got a bug screen that something went wrong when I was signing up and
choosing which veggies I want to grow :/ That's ok, you just launched.

IDEA: It would be even more awesome if you went beyond veggies. I am not into
planting veggies yet, but love annuals and perennial flowers.

------
fjabre
Clickable: <http://sproutrobot.com/>

------
sourc3
This is a very cool idea! The graphics look extremely good. One little thing
you can fix: when I clicked on the "Sign Up" link, I received an SSL
certificate alert in the browser. This might prevent people from proceeding
further.

Good luck :)

~~~
jmtulloss
I saw this too, and in chrome it's a pretty scary sign. It definitely makes me
not want to put in my credit card info, which is that last thing a startup
needs!

A really cool idea though, best of luck to you!

~~~
zain
Here's a screenshot of the scary sign in chrome: <http://grab.by/4jd4>

As you can see, it is indeed pretty scary. Definitely fix that.

------
whatusername
Bring on the Internationalization (even if just of the planting calendar)

~~~
eb0la
In this case internationalization is not trivial: you may have to deal not
only witch different languages; but with different climate, plants, etc. (the
UK or German climate is much different from the Spanish or Italian one).

Focus now on making your business GREAT for the market near you, and later
expand to other countries.

~~~
whatusername
Different plants?

As to the climates - if you cover California, Arizona, Alaska, Nevada, Ohio,
Maine then I would assume you would have _most_ of the worlds climate types
covered.

If I was running it - I would do exactly what you suggest though.. Make this
awesome for the places you have data. (But if you have a tool that says my
climate is the same as zipcode XXXXX (just 6 months out) - then I'd love the
australian version)

~~~
nekopa
If someone knows of a place where I can get good worldwide weather data-sets,
this would be a very interesting project for me to try.. I don't think it
would be hard (given good quality sets) to match the US zip-code data to other
places. It sounds like a very fun logic problem.

~~~
yellowbkpk
From <http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-monthly/index.php>:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2

------
vessenes
I really like this! And, congrats on the startup! It looks like you're off to
a great start.

I live in a fairly unique climate in the US (maritime, like England), and as a
gardener, I'd say your planting picks are reasonable for my area.

A few general thoughts:

People have said it here already, but container gardening+++. It's how a lot
of people get started gardening, and therefore is a compelling product for
your market niche, inexperienced gardeners. Pick a great product and sell it,
I think the 'insta-garden' pitch is likely to be a big seller for you.

I would personally recommend you resell earthboxes, they're fabulous and have
good online marketing if people care to learn about them. Partner up with
local organic soil and fertiliser providers, and get them to do the shipping
for you if you're worried about logistics. Earthbox might cross promote you if
you got in touch, your site is cute and cool.

Second, I think you should find a better source for gardening advice than
google lucky searches. There are a lot of possibilities here, and eventually
crowdsourcing _local_ tips would be awesome -- as you know, gardening is
always a really local activity -- but you might just hire a well-'spoken'
vegetable gardener to write up instructions, or look for a gardening book
writer who wants to cross promote on your site.

That is all, and good luck!

Also, your site is overloaded and Heroku is complaining sometimes. Congrats.

------
cubicle67
If you could extend this to Australia, I'd sign up in a heartbeat

~~~
tjmc
Not feasible without Australian distribution centres unfortunately - all the
seeds would be seized by customs. Even inter-state transfers are quarantined
in some cases (you can't take fruit into WA for example).

Add to that multiple, totally different climates and plant species and it's
essentially a separate business in another country. Good opportunity for a
partner site though!

~~~
nekopa
Seems like a simple business problem: find someone or some company that has
the seeds you need in country, set up an account with them to ship to local
addresses. Or worse comes to worse, set up an affiliate program, find a
citizen of that country here on HN and have them go to a shop, buy the stuff
and mail it on time for cut of the action. These people could also become
great forum moderators as they want the site to be a success.

------
ebiester
I like the idea, and may sign up closer to my next planting season. (October)
-- However, I don't need seeds as much as I need handholding. I can get a ton
of seeds at the local store for a fraction of that price. What I _need_ is
expertise. I need somewhere to go past the home depot when the spinach is
stuck at a tiny plant and I have no clue why. :)

Besides, other than knowing my zone, what other variables are in place? the
alkalinity of the soil, for example...

~~~
ebiester
One more... I just got my first email telling me about this week in the
garden... October 4-10.

------
jaytee_clone
You should definitely assign people to their own message boards according to
their zip codes.

While it's nice to know when and what to grow seed, there are a lot more
nuances to gardening for each specific region. Having a community of local
gardeners is an invaluable resource for material and moral support. This is
coming from my observations of a few cities' community gardens.

Not to mention having a social network will make your service a lot more human
and resilient.

------
vaksel
bug:

Current plan: Family/$69.99 (up to 10 varieties). Upgrade to Small
Garden/$39.99 to get 3 more.

also make the logo take the person to the home page

also make the background image wider(at least 1400px wide)...anyone on a wide
screen monitor sees the bad blue color.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Ah, good catch. I hadn't seen that bug yet.

The background image is an interesting point. I don't know if I want to have
people download a 1400px wide image. I'll maybe make the gradients fade out to
blue so there's a smooth transition.

~~~
moultano
Give the art a transparent sky, then make the sky gradient a repeating
background image.

------
scottchin
Congratulations! Fantastic idea and really nice MVP site! Some minor feedback
that may be in the comments already (I only read through some of them):

\- zip lookup was very slow for me

\- When I went to checkout on the Patio option, the text at the bottom of the
page that says "You can easily change your choices later, or upgrade to a
different plan." renders strangely. More specifically, the word "You" is just
to the right of the "Radishes" check box, the word "can" is just to the right
of the "Spinach" check box, and the rest of the sentence is at the bottom of
the third column of checkboxes. (I am using Safari 4.0.5)

\- Need a way to get back to the home screen

I'm also wondering if there is a way to draw interest (and user signup) from
people who play Farmville. I have never played Farmville myself so I can't
offer any concrete suggestions. But maybe there is something you could
incorporate that is already familiar to Farmville users. Any readers here that
play Farmville have any ideas? :)

------
jacquesm
What a really really neat and extremely useful concept. I've put a link up on
the homepage of ww to send you some traffic.

It reads "SproutRobot, helps you plant your garden! Go check it out if you are
in the US.", hope that describes it well enough, if you want a different text
let me know.

I don't do prayers but I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for you all day
long ;)

------
adulau
Very nice concept and idea. The design is simple and efficient.

Small comments :

1\. Living in Europe, the US "zip code" is bit restrictive. In other words,
will you make a version for European users?

2\. It would a nice idea to extend a bit to the "heritage" and open-pollinated
varieties when choosing the vegetables/seeds.

3\. When planting in a garden, you have to rotate the culture at a specific
interval (depending of the species). Maybe a small info box where you can
enter the location in your garden (like area A,B,C,D) and when the reminder is
coming is informing the users where the vegetables where previously located.

4\. There is also some interesting benefit to use companion planting
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants>).

5\. Some people are gardening and planting following the "moon phases". I
don't follow the approach but that could be an option in your reminder email.

Good luck for your work and startup.

------
davidkpham
Hey Erik,

Congratulations on the launch! It is a very aesthetically pleasing web design.
Seeing the product kind of gives me an itch to start gardening :)

Here's some general feedback I had:

1\. Instead of "SproutRobot tells you when to plant & sends you seeds," how
about an even more general statement, like "We'll give you everything you need
(to grow your own groceries)!" I feel as if the current statement limits your
what your product does in people's perceptions. Personally, the main reason I
don't garden is because I'd have to do a lot of initial work. If you
positioned yourself as making the initial work a lot easier, I'm sure a lot
more people would be encouraged to sign up. Sure, gardening may mainly be
knowing when to garden and having the seeds, but I think most people perceive
that there's a lot more to it than that - of course your product will change
that :)

2\. Why not change the "Get Started" button to "Get Started, It's Free!" and
remove the small banner underneath it that says "It's free to sign up!" I like
the button, and I think it's one of the more prominent features on the page,
so why not use it to induce trial by incentivizing clicking on it?

3\. I also agree with one of the comments above me talking about how the
actual sign-up page is a bit wordy. While having illustrations like you
mentioned would certainly help, you should try to greatly shorten the
sentences. It made me think it would take too long to read the page.

4\. Sorry for jumping around, but on the homepage, you should also put in some
client-side validation to ensure that the zip code field is already filled in
before they click "Get Started!" Receiving that error page would be enough to
discourage me from continuing.

Other than that, I'm liking the website. I can't comment too much on the
actual product itself because I haven't tried it out yet, but I will certainly
give you my feedback when I do.

Thanks, David

~~~
pchickey
You should try having approximate location based on IP address already filled
in. Something like, "We can get you started in New York, New York. Or give us
your zip code:"

------
TomTrottier
\- why javascript? Better to eliminate if not needed, or note/detect if
necessary. I usu have it off.

\- why not divide veggies into categories, eg, root veggies,
flavour(herb/spice), etc.

\- Very dependent on local climate, eg, sun/shade, N/S/E/W exposure, ph of
ground, sand/soil, etc. - may need to ask about the planned space.

\- Seems very pricey.

\- You should at least send them a personalised guide about how to arrange
their garden, eg Corn to the North, and a suggested map.

\- Included some bonus marigolds, etc., for looks & pest control

\- Having a forum section for sharing tips might build support, categorised by
growing region

\- Great idea to include the weather, if possible, especially spring & harvest
times when it matters most. Much more dynamic, tho! Perhaps initially just
report the forecast for the zipcode for the next week, then tell gardeners
what to do if -snow -rain -hi temp -lo temp and let them make the adjustments.

Weekly updates, say on a Friday for weekend gardeners, would be ideal.

tOM

------
jmm
Good stuff. Really like the artwork and the idea.

I just dug out a bed in the back yard which is waiting to be planted, so I
would seem to be your target customer. However, I'd be inclined more to use
your free email reminder service and buy seeds and seedlings from another
source. I wouldn't describe myself as cheap; just that I want control over the
source/type of the seeds and would like to know whether I'm paying a
reasonable amount. One thing might be to make it clear what kind of seeds I'm
getting earlier in the purchasing process. Bulk? Heirlooms? Makes a
difference, I think. But maybe I'm just a snooty gardener.

And I know this an extreme suggestion, but I think a heftier garden planner
would also make me more likely to buy... work on summer/winter layout and buy
the calculated seed quantities. That gets away from the subscription model
though.

------
nekopa
Just one thing about the email you send out. It has a fairly boiler-plate
message about "how's the gardening going?" Then you sign off. After this is
the list of what I should be planting. If you put the list into the main body
of the email, it wouldn't seem so _form letter_ like. Also, maybe as a later
feature, put the planting list, or actions list into a downloadable
attachment, I may not want to take my laptop into the garden to read the list,
and Grandma's may not know that email can be printed, plus, they could get
confused by all the email-headers that may get printed.

Plus, if you give a separate text file to be printed, maybe you could format
it nicely so that they could save it in a gardening diary. Just like the old
cooking magazines that let you compile a recipe book.

Great idea and best of luck.

------
dhardy
First off... Congratulations on getting it out the door. For me that is by far
the hardest part.

Second, please forgive me if someone else mentioned this but I did find a bug.
I first entered a zip code for a place in Arizona. I then was telling a guest
how interesting the site was and what a great idea you have. I went back and
tried to enter their ZIP (Idaho). Unfortunately it was a pretty new one so it
wasn't in your DB. They told me to try another one that is near their location
and a bit older. It acts like it finds it by taking me to the sales page
instead of an error but when I click on "preview your calendar" link it takes
me to a calendar for the previously entered AZ ZIP.

This isn't a super big deal and again I apologize if someone else mentioned it
already.

Great Work

------
mwsherman
Very nice, Erik!

I put in an NYC zip code, so a "Small garden" won't work for me. Patio/rooftop
would. Maybe something that accounts for urban/suburban/rural?

In fact, urban gardening is a nice niche and people here like having things
packaged and served up for them. Might be an opportunity. :)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yes, I heart urban gardening. :) Definitely something we want to support,
going forward.

~~~
jmtulloss
Yeah, this is something I definitely want. I don't have a yard, but seeds for
a few things that I could grow in pots on the patio would be awesome!

------
foleyfoley
I could have actually used this instead of botching my garden by putting
everything out too early.

I signed up for the free one, when you get to the calendar view its for the
entire year. I would maybe limit that and keep it within three months or even
two, so it is immediate, more so then what I am supposed to do next February.
I would also, when you click instructions it links you an entirely different
page, it would be so much better if it just dropped down there were
illustrations in the same style as the home page in an easy 1,2,3 style.

But you should not be scared I think it will definitely catch on. It might be
nice to expand it to flowers

------
jpletka
All your "Instructions" pages go out to "Feeling lucky" google searches. That
makes the site seem very incomplete. I'd consider getting all those setup in a
Wiki or similar page on your own site so you can keep everyone here.

~~~
erikpukinskis
There are lots of places where I just did the simplest, easiest, stupidest
thing I could to get it to work. Definitely we're going to have on-site
instructions, but I wanted to get it out there as soon as possible.

Thanks for the feedback!

------
TomTrottier
Your market is the new gardener and your competition is the local seed store
where they can get advice, if they visit.

But you can hold their hand every week with customised advice. So that is what
you can sell. Make sure you differentiate the vanilla free plan from the pay
plans, and include more info in the pay plans.

Also, tell them what should be happening if they're with the program. Tell
them what should be appearing, what it looks like, how to handle pests or
other problems, how much to water, etc., etc.,

New gardeners will pay for handholding.

------
pkulak
Wow, what an awesome idea. I don't have a garden, but I sent a link to my
parents in law who do. And if I ever get off my ass and clean up my yard, this
will be how I get a garden going.

------
brmore
Totally like this idea ... very clever, and I've never seen anything like it
before.

Concur with some previous comments that price page needs attention. Sounds
cliche, but go back and look at some of the older 37signals.com/svn posts on
making purchase process easy/intuitive/good design.

Also, can confirm that page is dorked somewhat in IE8 ... pretty sure it's not
the look that you were after! Let me know if you need a screen cap / don't
have IE to take a look.

Nice job! You're hard work has paid off, but it AIN'T OVER. Keep the press.

~~~
erikpukinskis
If only Microsoft would provide a version of IE8 that would run on Ubuntu, I
could test it... :)

That's no excuse though. I'm definitely going to find an internet cafe and do
some more testing. Thanks for the reminder.

~~~
saturdayplace
Adobe Browser Lab is nice too: [https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-
us/index.html?sdid=EWRQK&...](https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-
us/index.html?sdid=EWRQK&#)

------
NEPatriot
You could always establish relationships with local mom and pop local growers
who can do all the shipping for you locally and deliver pots/soil as well - As
a potential iteration.

------
Unseelie
Facebook only displays a url in facebook's convenient box where images should
show up (the thing, where, if you add a URL to your status, it parses the page
for the first image, and includes). I'm assuming there aren't any images small
enough, or something...to which I'd suggest you cut out the "sprout Robot
Beta" in the top left, and let it be its own image...seamless enough on the
website, but adding an image to facebook...which could help a great deal.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Good idea... I had no idea that Facebook worked that way for status messages.
I'll add it to the list.

------
truebosko
Lovely design. Extend this to Canada and you have my usage.

~~~
jasonlotito
Was the first thing I did, and was disappointed with the result.

1\. You have no pricing information available. I have to give you information
before I get any pricing information.

2\. Screenshots. Basically, I just see you sending seeds and an email saying
"Plant this now!"

3\. Do you provide information on how best to plant the seeds. I know certain
plants are best planted in a certain manner, or things to consider.

4\. Options. I tell you want I want to grow? Cool. I want to grow herbs. What
herbs are you going to send me? Do I have to be specific? Do you have specific
packages? "Basic Herbs - Great for beginners!"

5\. People who know how to plant and garden probably don't need your service.
People who do won't have a clue, and might be in a situation where a big
garden isn't feasible. Any thoughts to 'apartment gardens' or growing herb
gardens out on the balcony?

------
seltzered
I like it! my parents are avid gardeners and I've always wanted to get an idea
of what/when to plant things.

Suggestion: add a select all / select none on the veggies page. Also, I think
there has to be a better way to convince people to pay.

I found myself selecting the email only mode, then wondering if I could
"upgrade" my account to a pay version, but I seem that there's no way to do
that unless I create another account.

~~~
seltzered
also, copyright info needs to sit on the bottom of the screen.

------
ube
Terrific concept!

The site is beautiful.

Feedback wise: I signed up for the email and initially it wasn't obvious that
all the checkboxes of vegetable varieties were applicable to the zipcode that
I entered (so have something that states "these varieties apply to zip code:
-----_. Also - it would be great to have a "check-all" option. I am a total
newbie when it comes to gardening and I just checked off everything.

Great job - keep at it!

------
m311ton
It might be buggy. There are things you could and should change soon. But the
fact that you know this and are ready to start the iteration process already
means you're really a million paces further than most bootstrapped startups
that are still vying for perfection. Congratulations on the launch and best of
luck in the most exciting, anxious, and valuable time in your startup!

------
bluishgreen
I always wanted to plant something, but I never get around to it. Even now I
am book marking your site. I guess my lazy ass is going to be the greatest
threat to your business. How are you going to effectively combat my/user
laziness. How are you going to get the user excited enough - feel this need
enough? These are the questions you have to ask yourself going forward.

------
chime
It's a great looking site but I can't do anything unless I signup. I entered
my zip expecting to see some results but all I get is a link to sign up form.
Is there a demo that visitors can check out? Or maybe allow Google/Twitter/FB
logins so I don't have to sign up?

I do like the idea of growing my own veggie garden. The site concept and
design is very promising. Good luck!

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yea, there's a link on the plans page to preview your calendar, but it's not
coming up because of a bug I overlooked! Fixing....

~~~
erikpukinskis
OK, it's fixed. So, once your calendar is ready you can click "preview your
calendar" and see the calendar.

I definitely want to streamline the site for non-signer-uppers. Basically I'm
planning on having a page for every city in the US (automatically generated)
with a planting calendar that people can check out right away without signing
up. I think that will be good for SEO, too.

But that's a few notches down on the todo list.

~~~
nekopa
I think you should move this _up_ a few notches in your todo list. If you can
generate the pages for every city, do it, publish them, I think you will gain
great google juice. Especially as a lot of people are looking at growing there
own veggies in the US right now (my opinion, judged by a recent spate of 'grow
your own' articles I am seeing nowadays)

Technically this shouldn't be too hard: You have the info from zip codes
already, just make a nice template to feed all the info into. Collate by
groups of zips that are in, say, the top 100 US cities(by population).

------
timinman
1\. The artwork is very inviting. 2\. My error that people will likely repeat:
typing <http://sproutbot.com> into the seach bar -- twice. Buy that domain and
redirect. 3\. I'm interested, but disappointed that I can't try it from the
UK. I'd make that the first feature to add - people love gardening over here.

------
barmstrong
Great job on the homepage.

Simple "How it works", a low barrier way to get started, and nothing else.
Exactly how it should be!

I'll tweet it to my friends for you. You may have thought of this already, but
you might try experimenting with a monthly plan to show some smaller numbers
(although I see some benefits to going only yearly with this model to). Great
job!

------
hajrice
Erik, the design is really good. The signup page could get improved, but many
people have suggested how so I wont get into that.

When I see how HN reacted on your idea and execution(which is simply ...
FANTASTIC in my opinion), I immediately got more motivated to work. I'm
confident that this will be a badass business!! :D

Congratulations, once more.

------
milkshakes
Hm... You'll know who is planting what, where? I'd love to build a local
produce exchange on top of this!

~~~
tom_ilsinszki
It's a great way of advertising too. For example, it could be integrated into
facebook too, this way, people know what their friends are planting, which
helps spread the news about your site and service.

------
sh1mmer
I like it the idea a lot.

But, you could really do with some performance optimization on that first
screen. I think you'll loose a lot of people waiting for their zipcode lookup.

If you can't find a way to make that quicker (e.g. caching popular zip codes)
you should at least put some good visual interstitials in.

~~~
olalonde
IP geolocation / HTML5's location API could be an option too.

~~~
erikpukinskis
ah, cool idea. Hadn't thought of that.

------
thinkbohemian
Thats actually pretty cool. I was wondering if something like this existed...i
just planted a garden, and cannot stop thinking about how its like building a
website (or vice versa).

Feedback: I would like to pick my own seeds though, rather than you telling me
what i should plant. I signed up.

------
profgubler
I don't know if this is a good thing, but my wife thought I was signing up for
a facebook game when she was looking over my shoulder. Probably the logo and
the planting mentions caused her to think that.

Other than that she and I both love the idea of the site. Good luck and
congrats.

~~~
yourentwesplit
Great idea and great website. I'm nearing the launch of my own MVP so I
appreciate the fear that accompanies a launch.

That being said I do agree with profgubler. If I didnt' stumble upon your site
via Hacker News I might just assume it's a Farmville competitor and click
away.

------
eande
Definitely a clean and nice looking entry website. I agree with many others,
don't overdo it. Feedback link at landing page is important & missing. Hear
good things about uservoice, but have not used it, just an example. Good luck
with your endeavor.

------
moultano
Great concept. I've just submitted it to the gardening subreddit that I
moderate.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/c2dz5/enter_your_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/c2dz5/enter_your_zip_sproutrobot_tells_you_when_to/)

------
sriram_sun
<http://www.deliciouslogic.com/>. Here is a startup my friend launched. He
automatically plans your meals and sends recipes on a weekly basis. This might
be a good complement to this site.

------
chewbranca
Cool idea, looks nice. I live in an apartment with no gardening area and the
cats attack any indoor plants so I can't make use of it right now, but I just
wanted to drop a quick post to say great job and keep it up! Best of luck.

------
Mistone
i think this has a lot of potential - many people here have mentioned the pain
points of the urban/apartment gardener and you guys seem like a goot fit.
Someone mentioned the anti-famville - which I love from a marketing angle.
Prepotted ready to go is a bit harder to do but I think that is a killer
service for urbanites. I live in the country (Petaluma, Ca) and there is an
abundance of amazing nurseries near by so tuning in to the urbanites seems
like were you want to go. could be cool to run a few very geo-targeted (one
city) adwords campaigns to see if you get some early pickup.

------
gxs
Awesome idea. I don't have a place to do it, but I just signed my sister up.
Good luck man!

Also: try marketing this in particular areas. I live in Berkeley, for example,
and know that people here would go Gaga over it in a second.

------
omd
I love the design! The first thing I thought of was that this would be a great
gift for my sister who just bought a house and loves gardening. Maybe you
could add a "Buy as a gift" option or sell gift cards?

------
rrhyne
Stellar! I just got into gardening, so you can't have my money because I've
already planted.

You can have my money though, if I can choose what I've planted and then get a
calendar of care instructions with email reminders!

------
mlLK
This might sound naive and OT but how hard was it to implement a payment
gateway for this project? Please consider I am a lowly PHP programmer and am
merely curious of how hard this is to implement in RoR.

------
alttab
Great job! Fantastic design! I'd love to peek at the back-end code. I know my
fiance would go crazy for this too. The only thing I hope for is that you
don't go out of business and I lose my seeds :(

------
sl_
Not having read all the other comments, so this has probably been mentioned:
the subscription page has too much text. Apart from the size difference I
don't immediately see what distinguishes products.

Good luck!

------
iamwil
This is one of the better concepts I've seen here on HN. Best of luck. I'd
defn echo the other people on here saying that I'd do it if you also sent pots
and dirt, since I don't have a yard.

------
percept
Congratulations on completing and launching--the site looks great and it's a
cool idea.

A totally non-snarky recommendation: require the zip code! I got your "Oops"
page with your phone number on it. ;)

------
uvince
Well done, great idea overall and I like how "fisher price" (in a good way)
the site looks.

I would like to see more fruits and a "select all" when I sign up for the
email, but overall very well done.

------
RevRal
Just a couple questions before I sign my sister up. She's been talking about
starting a garden.

Do you send out genetically modified seeds? Would she be able to use seeds
from her crop on a new crop?

------
studioprisoner
Good luck! As everyone is saying this is a great idea. And has great
potential, tapping into a new market.

Props to the illustrator. As I live in Australia, can't really see past the
main page, haha.

------
genepope
This is very cool! Great idea, good luck on this. (ditto on the US centric
approach but then a shoestring startup can't always go global from day 1. You
will get there though.

------
joubert
My zip is 10005 and you recommended a small garden, but i would almost expect
recommending a patio garden for my zip. How to you decide which of the 3
options to recommend?

~~~
erikpukinskis
The small garden is a balance between feasibility and ambition for the novice
gardener.

In other words, I'm just emphasizing the plan that makes me money. :)

~~~
chime
> In other words, I'm just emphasizing the plan that makes me money. :)

If you truly want to make money, emphasize the plan that makes me happy enough
to share your site with everyone I meet.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Good point, good point. I'm redesigning the plans page this week so I'll
definitely give this some thought. Thanks for the feedback.

------
pinko
Love the idea! Love the simple and appealing site design. Don't over-polish
it!

Wish you nothing but the best. If I can get a raised bed set up in time, I'll
be a customer in a few weeks.

------
minalecs
I just wanted to say good luck, and as soon as start supporting international
please let us know, because my wife's parents would love this , but located
over seas.

------
FabriceTalbot
This is just like Farmville, but in real life :)) No, seriously, great
concept. Maybe more people will find it easier to eat health thanks to this.

Best of luck! Fabrice Talbot

------
ajtaylor
FYI when I clicked the "Sign Up" button on the plans page, Chrome gave me the
"invalid secure certificate" warning.

I love the idea though. Any chance you'll include Ireland?

------
cwg
Awesome idea, and a great MVP at that, congrats!

I don't live in the US and I don't have any place for gardening right now, but
other than that, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

~~~
shill
What does the MVP acronym mean in this context?

~~~
daeken
Minimum viable product

------
smokey_the_bear
The site looks really cool, but it's telling me to plant a lot of stuff
today... but we got 6 inches of snow today. Does it take elevation into
account?

~~~
saturdayplace
I think it 'knows' when the right time is usually to begin planting, not what
the current weather is. Although, if he could get ahold of _that_ data, and
incorporate it intelligently, that would be pretty killer.

------
sharkbrainguy
Genius concept. Wish I could use it, outside of the US.

~~~
shib71
For those of us who aren't in the US or don't want to sign up, can you add an
example or a video of the other side of subscription jump?

~~~
erikpukinskis
There's not much on the other side yet. :) It looks like this:

<http://sproutrobot.com/gardens/426/calendar>

I am in the process of adding more instruction and more interaction, but right
now you just get a planting calendar and, if you pay, seeds.

------
endtime
Congrats!

BTW, thought you might like to know: Your buy page is using SSL certs from an
unrecognized CA, as far as Opera 10.53 is concerned. I got a nasty warning.

------
herdrick
This is great! Really good visual design, too. It looks quite featureful
already - perhaps you should have launched earlier?

I'm going to pass this on to people.

------
wherespaul
Do you have a facebook page? Would be nice if there was a like button on the
homepage. Really like your concept! I stumbleupon.com it too.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yea, there's a Facebook page but I haven't started promoting it yet:
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/SproutRobot/122403899553>

So much social media, so little time. :) The like button is a great idea too,
I'll add it to the list.

------
jbrun
Also maybe add a note that it is US only? Or have an option for us folks in
Canada? Otherwise, idea is great, I would sign-up for sure!

------
akira410
Congratulations on getting things going. I have forwarded your link to a
couple friends that I think would find your startup interesting/useful.

Cheers.

------
rms
I'm not much on prayer, but I will think for you.

------
faramarz
I love that upon error, you have your name and cell-phone number available for
support. (FYI I tried a Canadian postal code thats why)

Refreshing!

------
marilyn
Beautiful design, and neat concept. I think you are on to something good. Keep
it up! If only I had a yard, I'd be signing up!

~~~
erikpukinskis
Well the patio plan is only $19.99. ;-D

------
qeorge
Design looks amazing, great work. I really like the concept, and the pricing
seems very reasonable.

If I had a yard I would definitely sign-up.

------
larrywright
Sample size of one, but I just showed this to my wife and she thought it was
very cool. Neat idea, best of luck with it.

------
vishaldpatel
My first thought was, "Thats kinda cool!" =)

------
jetsnoc
Great idea. I don't have the love/attention/time to garden but I'm signing up
my mom as a belated mums day gift.

------
epi0Bauqu
Self-funded? Are you looking for funding?

------
mrtron
https cert shows up as not being trusted

------
tcdent
Really, a great idea. I'll be signing up for a paid account as soon as we get
settled into our next house.

------
staunch
I liked the Reddit alien in the logo :)

~~~
PebblesRox
It reminds me of EVE from WALL-E :D

------
modoc
Really love it! My wife and I have started a couple of raised beds, and this
is just a fantastic idea!

------
datsro
Where did you find the database?

------
artaak
Very nice idea! Do you plan to send out some special seeds (like okra, etc.)
as well?

------
petervandijck
Farmville for real life, nice :) I wonder if you could build in gaming
mechanics too?

------
vamsee
Cool. The logo needs some work.

~~~
klon
Agree. The illustrations are nice but the logo could use improvement!

------
neonak
Did you use any seed money to start this? ;)

Best of luck, it's a great idea with lots of potential.

------
dzlobin
I always love seeing not-entirely web startups. This seems awesome. Best of
luck!

------
cletus
The look and feel of the site is fantastic. Good job there. What's it built
in?

~~~
erikpukinskis
It's Ruby on Rails, deployed on Heroku.

------
MPiccinato
Cool concept. My wife and I are wanting to start planting our own vegetables.

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terpua
Would be great if you can share your sales figures 24 hours post release.

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comex
So it's the anti-Farmville?

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mistermann
Generally speaking, this is a great idea! I think there are many other sites
out there with the same theme, but totally different delivery. There's tons of
available info out there, but if your site could pull it all together, sell
seeds, offer tutorials to new people, etc, I could see it being a big
hit.....you definitely have the right product "idea" at the right time, but
you also have a lot of competitors in this area.

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freikwcs
Great concept - good luck!

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espadagroup
This is awesome, adding herbs/spices would be what makes me use it.

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comberh
I can only agree with everyone else - fantastic idea. Good luck.

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sgt
I like it.. just wish it was available outside of the States!

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phernandez
Good idea! I just tried to sign up and got the Oops page :(

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known
Brilliant. Hope you'll expand the service across the world.

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steni
What a cool idea! Congrats on launching. Yeah, way to go!

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NIL8
That's great! I can't believe what a good idea that is.

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stephendwolff
Ah - damn. It'd be great to have this in the UK.

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sown
Neat! How do you handle shipping right now?

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bg4
Truly wonderful - hoping the best for you.

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look_lookatme
Oh man, this is cool. Very neat. Congrats.

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timae
Great Idea!

\- Future Customer of the "small garden" package

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tamersalama
I love the 'something went wrong' page

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empire29
very nice site! this is something i never knew i would even be interested in
until i saw it - kudos.

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ozres1
The page comes up funny on IE 8

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utricularian
wow this is super clever. i wish i had dirt to garden in so i could use this.

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dotcoma
how would praying help?

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jogaun
Awesome idea!

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moe
Awesome.

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webzone
like the graphics

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mos1
A design thing that confused me a bit, 'plant more foo' was displayed very
differently (lighter and italic) than 'plant foo'. I initially thought that
there was nothing for those weeks.

I don't want to say "I'd buy this if you made this change" because I live on a
farm, but I would be a LOT less price sensitive if the seeds were described in
a manner that made them sound more special. (even if I didn't know the variety
off-hand.) Kentucky Blue Pole Beans, not 'Beans' and Organic Red Velvet Okra,
not 'Okra'.

I wasn't sure I understood how large of a garden each seed pack is supposed to
service. When you say '3 10 foot beds' does that mean 30 linear feet, or 300
square feet?

I'd also make sure you get real-world feedback about the plans and the
pricing. If I was you, I'd go talk to people at local garden centers, and I'd
bring my iPad and I'd ask them for help. If you're young, claim you're a
student and it's a school project. If you're older, claim you're writing an
article about this service and want to know what they honestly think.

I was surprised that the seeds weren't all organic / heritage (or that if they
were, that wasn't marked.) I could be wrong, but I'd expect the sort of person
who goes through this trouble would likely prefer those varieties, and would
be willing to pay accordingly. After all, somebody who is looking for the
cheapest seeds isn't your dream customer anyway.

\---

All in all, I really like the idea. It's a bit like joining a CSA, except that
it's located in your backyard, with the 'assortment of foods, for a fixed
price.'

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s3graham
+1 on the "fancier" sounding names/varieties being a good idea. Makes the
comparison to random packages-of-99c-seeds more in your favour.

Nifty idea overall! But add me to the list of I-don't-have-a-zip-code.

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kapauldo
Congratulations on pushing the button. You've done something incredibly rare
and you and your team should be proud. A few suggestions- get on the new
Facebook connect (facebook login) right away, and add a few social features
(like add a check box that says "also post this on my wall" when you guys
email people) so people can easily share what they're doing. That has a huge
potential effect. Also, for what it's worth, target women (that sounds awful
but most gardeners are women), I think that's your target demo. Anyway, best
of luck, I'll share your site with the 2 or 3 garden clubs I indirectly know
of, although I'm not sure if you're targeting beginner gardeners or advanced.
If you post your email on your profile or here, I can get you some direct
feedback from advanced gardeners, FWIW.

kevin (kapauldo)

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erikpukinskis
Sure, I'll take all the feedback I can get! They can reach me at
erik@sproutrobot.com.

And thanks for the tips! I agree Facebook integration would be great for
spreading the word. It's a good reminder for my todo list.

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megamark16
I hate getting all of those stupid Facebook updates about my friend's farms on
Farmville, I don't care if Bob had a good harvest this year, it's all fake!

Now you start talking about real plants, a real garden (even if it's just a
few pots) and you've got me much more interested. I might actually pay
attention when some of my friend's SproutRobot Gardens are doing well,
something is ready to harvest, etc. "Hey Bob, can I get a few of those peppers
you just harvested?"

Anyway, definitely go this route, I can see this being huge.

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mkramlich
Great concept, feels very original, great attractive web design, also a
positive for the environment and community to be promoting more gardening and
locally-grown plants -- all around full of win! Good luck!

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zackattack
This is cool man.

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developer123
You make some political sensitive comments on your personal blog linked
directly from your product site (affirmative action). I personally would not
buy from you having read those as I disagree with your position.

It seems like putting out stuff like that while your trying to build a brand
is risky, while some/many of your target may agree, I can see some not e.g.
Libertarian types who believe in self reliance i.e. your own garden, but not
affirmative action.

Up to you, personally I think why take the risk?

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anthonyb
Did you even read his blog post? Or just see "affirmative action" and kneejerk
it?

And what do his political leanings have to do with buying plant seeds?

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developer123
1st Point Yeah I read the blog post, he stated a position in support of it and
articulated his reasons.

2nd Point What does if a presidential candidate is bald or not have to do with
his/her capacity to run the country? What does Whole Food's CEO"s John Mackey
position on health care have to do with buying groceries?

Your question implies a lack of understanding of the motivations and impulses
that drive consumers to take actions such as voting and purchasing products.

My questioning of the value of putting and linking such rhetoric with a
product or company represents an understanding of impact of the overall
messaging around a product/brand that can very far removed from the core
value/solution a product/brand/person is delivering.

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jjames
It is possible that the rhetoric is part of the brand.

