A summer of trial and error

April 22. I start trying to sell folks on the idea of an at-home community garden. I market the offering by giving away free plants around the city with a rickety, rolling kart

May 9. I begin growing plants on my roof (rather than buying plants to give away)

May 11, 2024. I realize that walking around the city is way less effective than standing right outside a farmers market. I get my first customer trial, but it takes four hours and most people walk right past. Stumped. (Rickety rolling cart pictured)

May 17. I ship my first gardening kit. Most of it was on the money, but I didn’t think through packaging the dirt. The customer opened it upside down and dirt spilled everywhere. They did not subscribe 😅

June 8. Still trying to sell gardening club; posted up at corner of McCarren Park, but having trouble actually getting anyone on board. I still believe in the idea, but am starting to lose steam.

June 13. Time to pivot. I notice that there are a number of tree pits (both with trees and empty) that are not maintained. I sell six people on the idea of adopting a pit for $4 / month for me to take care of pits/trees (water, weed, etc.)!! After thinking about it, though, I realize that this doesn’t really accomplish my goal of getting people to connect with our land in a real way. I refund all the six customers and start again from scratch.

June 23. Not sure what I’m doing, but still just giving away free plants. Building more conviction that a wide swath of people love plants and that there’s room to build lightweight community.

July 13. I try pivoting to a “100 farms on 100 NYC roofs” framing to see if that gets any bites (it doesn’t). I add a planter that I found on Amazon to my display to see if more people stop to talk. (they don’t)

July 13 (same day). Haven’t accomplished anything but decide to just do something after hours of failing to sell anything. My friend likes gardening but doesn’t have space to garden — I buy a couple bags of dirt, find an abandoned pit near them, and leave them with some seeds. I wonder…

July 22. I order the materials for a second planter. This time, I add a QR code at the front with a pitch to see if anyone would claim it (for free).

July 28. Multiple people scan to claim the planter and volunteer to take care of it! I give them native New York wildflower seeds. Giving away free planters is not a business — but definitely was my first bit of traction and I decide to follow the thread

Aug 12. Leveling up the experiment; drive to home depot to get more soil and mulch…

Aug 12. And assemble more planters. I put out a dozen or so more planters in empty pits around the city.

Aug 17. People are scanning the free planters and coming to claim them. I send them boxes of wildflower seeds to plant within them.

August 24. Created a Tiny Garden Club group chat and start seeing engagement. Grateful for the folks who gave this idea a chance — kept me motivated.

Aug 27. I notice buildings all around the city that look bare. The Tiny Garden Club is completely free, and — while it’s fun to have traction — I know at some point this has to go from fun passion project to a business. I start wondering about a “Balcony Gardening Club” for these sorts of buildings — would management pay for it?

August 30. Wildflowers starting to bloom!

Sep 24. We were initially using Google’s deprecated “My Maps” to track all the gardens in the community, but I notice that most of the folks in the free Tiny Garden Club community are having trouble accessing / updating it. Wouldn’t it be cool if we all had an enhanced shared map?

I haven’t given up on my at-home community garden idea — and even though the Tiny Garden Club is free, I spend September developing a site for this “at-home community garden” and gear up to launch an actual business

Oct 2. I finish the website and start flyering around the city. I feel weird charging the members already in the Tiny Garden Club after promising a free service — I focus on doing a Tiny Garden Club, but for buildings (and hopefully getting the property managers to pay).

Oct 9. Cold calling is going horribly — no one seems interested in the idea and no one is scanning my flyers. I send a shot-in-the-dark message on LinkedIn in an attempt to learn how to do sales in this area and — by sheer luck — am pointed to a conference in the city with the managers of multi-family real estate buildings. I get five good leads.

Oct 12. Side quest complete. Somewhere in the summer of putting planters in empty tree pits, I realize I have no idea why there are this many pits ready to be planted without any trees. To learn more, the Tiny Garden Club speed runs a tree planting (20 days between request, permitting, and a tree in the ground) despite being quoted 1-3 years. A huge win and learned a lot (future post on this), but — after this — decide to focus and go all in on the Tiny Garden Club.

Oct 22. Got my first deal with a building 🥹 — but unable to get building to pay 🙁 on behalf of residents. Debate but ultimately decide to go ahead and run a program at a loss in the hopes this will unlock other buildings.

Oct 29. Get my first paying customer! Have been testing out other flyers direct to consumer (Hope Street Social Gardens, Balcony Garden Club) as well as my building flyer (Tiny Garden Club). Deliver my first two planter kits as I now focuses on operationalizing the service (how to get the materials, package them beautifully, and deliver consistently). A long road ahead, but focused on improving each and every kit and — as the production quality improves — making the experience delightful

Nov 4. Revamped website. After a summer of trial and error not really sure of what I wanted to build, now I feel clear.