Where do great business ideas come from? For the entrepreneur Jakub Pechenik, the concept of his company grew from seeds of frustration. Long story short, he wanted to find an inexpensive source of organic food for his family and after looking around for options, he discovered that what he wanted didn’t exist. And from this void his business idea was born. Literally.
Pechenik is the co-founder and CEO of the company Lettuce is growing, whose Farmstand hydroponic gardening system allows people with little or no experience to grow and harvest fresh organic produce in their homes or backyards. Compact agricultural stand (18.6 inches wide, 55 inches high) has the capability to grow 36 vegetables, herbs and greens at the same time. There is an indoor grow model with grow lights and an outdoor version, each of which are self-watering and self-fertile.
“Most people believe he has a brown thumb,” laughs Jacob. “But our system makes it incredibly easy to nurture your own food by sending live seedlings. And once people start doing it, once they taste the fresh produce they have picked with their own hands, they don’t want to stop.”
Lettuce Grow sent me an indoor grow A rural corner with a choice of seedlings to test yourself. Previously, I could not keep a houseplant alive for greater than a week, so I used to be definitely in the “brown thumb” camp. But the stand’s automatic watering system and routinely controlled lighting not only kept my vertical farm alive, but it grew well. Honestly, I used to be shocked and before I knew it I used to be covered in leafy greens.
Source: Lettuce is growing
Maintenance of the installation was easy, and I’d describe the Farmstand’s assembly as difficult as an “IKEA coffee table”. There was some light cursing when I noticed I had put some things together the wrong way up, but overall it was quite easy and like building a model airplane that I ended up having to eat. And now that my farm is up and running, as Pechenik predicted, I like having the ability to walk into my son’s bedroom and steal a pile of mixed greens for lunch. (I do not know how thrilled my son will probably be when he comes back from college and finds a garden in his room, but that is one other story.)
I talked to Pechenik about the idea, launch and development of Lettuce Grow to find out how to take an idea in your head and create a product that individuals can actually buy. Whether or not you would like to get into the food business, I suggest you read on because Pechenik has a lot of great advice for any entrepreneur on how to harvest your crops. (OK, I’m done with the farming puns now.)
From Wall Street to the farmer
“My life was quite winding. When I lived in New York, I built a weather derivatives trading platform. We have done over a trillion dollars in weather transactions. Eventually I got tired of dealing with traders all the time and gave up cold turkey. I went into film finance and in five years I financed and produced 35 films – that’s way too many. But on the 35th film I got to know him Zoey [Deschanel], who is the mother of my children. When I got pregnant, I really looked closely at what we were eating. I have become very aware of all the GMOs, chemicals and pesticides in our food. This led me to organic food, where I was simply shocked at the prices. And that was the beginning of my farming path.”
How the concept developed
“I started a farm in Austin, Texas to learn how to grow organic produce as efficiently and at the lowest cost as possible. In the process, I learned how difficult farming is – especially the distribution part. We took this beautiful organic head of lettuce, it was put in a plastic shell, put in a box, and then the box was placed on a truck that went to the distribution center, and then it was unloaded, sat there for a while, and then got on another truck that went to grocery store. The end result was that the product that was in the grocery store did not resemble the same products that we had grown. He was seven days older. It didn’t have the same feel, texture or taste and lost about 50 percent of its nutritional value. Then a little light bulb went off. What if we somehow kept the plant alive?
At the same time, whenever our friends came to the farm, they fell in love with it. They wanted to take their children with them, they wanted to become volunteers. Pulling a small plant out of the ground, wiping off the dirt and simply eating it is a magical experience. Speeding things up a bit, we combined these two concepts – ultra-fresh food that you pick yourself – growing lettuce. We founded it in 2017 and started shipping in 2019.”
Having a vision, but at the same time being open to change
“I was in Pennsylvania visiting potential manufacturers and I walked into what seemed like the biggest building I had ever walked into, and it was completely filled with plastic fence posts. And then we entered another building that was equally packed. This made me say, I don’t want to create any virgin plastic when creating Farmstand. I wanted to reuse materials and I wanted the components to be able to connect to each other for easier shipping, so I asked an engineering company in Austin for help and they built a prototype based on my design and… it was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. It worked well, but I knew it wouldn’t become a movement unless it was beautiful to display proudly in our homes. So I met an industrial designer, Pip Tompkin. I said, “Here’s my ugly design. Can you make it look better?” About a month or two later, he created several designs that became our original farmhouse a reality.”
Overcoming fear
“On the entrepreneur side, you never know if you’re ready to start a business. And the truth is, you never are. So you have to put that fear aside and take action. You listen to the reaction and repeat. From the client’s side, one of our biggest challenges is also fear. Everyone thinks they are exceptionally bad at gardening – that they have a brown thumb. I think it’s in our DNA that we don’t want to kill plants, so people are deathly afraid of it. The aspect of growing that causes fear and anxiety is seed germination. How deep do you press the seeds? Have I added enough water? Too much water? So we eliminated these stresses by sending shipments of live seedlings to our customers. To further alleviate anxiety, we allow people to grow with us for 90 days and they can return the product if they wish. We have a one percent rate of return, so the level of success has been high.”
Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
“The most important thing you can do is surround yourself with the right people. Understand your strengths and weaknesses, be honest in what you do, and find some other people who are great at what you don’t want to do. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re probably the creative type, not necessarily the accounting type. I want my specialist to always tell me what’s wrong and what they want to change. I may not listen to them in the end, but I want to hear a different point of view. And when it comes to technology, don’t reinvent the wheel, use existing tools that I want to build growing systems, not shopping cart functionality.”
Keep your body and mind healthy
“Any type of activity consumes every free second of your life. So, in order not to fry yourself, you need to include moments of peace. I learned that these moments weren’t just for me, but actually helped the company. Unplug, go for a walk every day and make time for other things in your life. Finding that time is a challenge, but the benefits to your health and your business can be enormous.”