This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
We're gonna talk today about indoor vertical farming, hydroponic sustainable agriculture. Yeah, it's exciting stuff here. We've got Maria on the line today from New York City. She's passionate about sustainable agriculture and believes that indoor vertical farming is the way of the future, especially for people living in big cities. She wants to jump into the business, make sure she has a sense of the best ways to start, as well as what to keep in mind when it comes to scaling a business such as this.
So let's hear it from Maria, at least after this quick shout out to our sponsor. What's got her so pumped up about indoor vertical farming? [Music]
Hey there, my name is Maria and I'm calling from New York. I'm passionate about sustainable agriculture and I believe indoor vertical farming has a lot of potential, especially for people in big cities or concentrated areas. I'd love to hear your thoughts on starting this kind of business, including the best ways to get started and what to keep in mind in terms of scaling and efficiency.
[Music]
Hey Maria, thank you for the question. You're definitely not alone in your excitement about hydroponic farming or indoor vertical farming as it's called here. I've been hearing more and more about this as a way to bring fresh locally grown produce to cities or just to a household. In fact, if we go way, way back to episode 888 of the podcast 888, indoor garden system raises $226,000 on Kickstarter. That was obviously a very successful project.
That guy is still going with his business today. I think it's a million dollar business. We had a throwback Thursday episode with him at some point. And of course there are many others as well. So I guess my first tip here is like before you start, look around at what the competition looks like in your area.
Are there other indoor farms there? Like what are they offering? How are they differentiating themselves? What is Maria's indoor vertical farm going to look like? What exactly are you providing?
What supplies? In fact, that's probably the next step here. These indoor farms can offer a wide range of products. So what are you gonna specialize in? Are you focused on growing greens, herbs, or specialty crops?
You're gonna have a subscription service. Are you selling wholesale? Are you selling directly to consumers? Just having some focus is gonna help you better understand what steps to take next. And as part of that, you're gonna consider some logistics, right?
There's a lot of planning and coordination here. So just make sure you have a clear understanding of the costs involved, what you're gonna need to get started. Definitely a lot of research to be done, but I think it is something people are paying for. So that's always a good start. Maria, good luck.
Let us know how it goes. Anybody else out there who's doing anything in the hydroponic plant world, let us know. You've got a question or a comment, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Hope you have a wonderful day over there. Take care of yourself.
Got a new episode coming out tomorrow. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
