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.

It works. It does something. It has bugs. But that's the point of the MVP, right?

Anyway, I could use some moral support. This is very scary.

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. :)

[hugothefrog]

I'd just like to echo others comments about C being a really good idea. I live in London, and have recently moved into an apartment with large windows that are just screaming out for planter boxers.

My partner and I are trying to figure out what to plant, etc, but all we really want to do is have someone deliver two planter boxes, the right amount of dirt and fertilizer, and some flowers and herbs that we can plant now, as well as in a few months time.

We would pay quite a bit for this privilege - even more so if the planter boxes showed up with the dirt already in them. Doing any sort of work like this in an apartment is an exercise in frustration - there's just not enough room, and dirt goes everywhere.

We can't find anything that sells what we want..

[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.

[erikpukinskis]

Yeah, that's definitely where I'd like to head. It's a little more complicated because it's more like having 12 babies of 12 different species that were born at 12 different times, but yeah. On it. :)

[kixxauth]

Fantastic idea. I remember having a baby put my wife and I on a bunch of mailing lists. However, some of the niche targeting they used worked very well. For instance, my wife now subscribes to the parenting mags which were sent to her for free.

A news letter seems like it would be spot on here, but I would take advantage of the two way internet and allow comments and reviews too.

[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.

[mahmud]

I just bought a plane ticket on united.com with an Aussie credit card. Had to make up a billing address, since there was no "Other" category besides the 50 states and territories :-/

[jacquesm]

It only works in the US today, but how is that different from movies or ipads or any other product to be rolled out in the largest target market first?

It's non-trivial to scale this to 'planet wide' so until the home market is established and the concept tested there is no really good reason to scale it beyond the US, there are substantial costs associated with doing that.

Just the shipping alone for a biological product would drive you nuts.

[rythie]

To see the next screen you could use the Whitehouse's Zip code: 20500

[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...

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.

[erikpukinskis]

Alexandria did the illustration, and I did the rest of the design. I suck at color, so it was nice to be able to work off her brilliance!

Thanks for the feedback about the plans page... It's getting an upgrade next week probably, so I'll hold on to your comments.

[daveambrose]

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

[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>; 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. :)

[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.

[erikpukinskis]

I voted you back up. :) Checking it out right now...

[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.

[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!