Farmshelf

It's an honor to take the reins as Farmshelf CEO and I am confident this next chapter in our 7-year mission to make it easy for anyone to grow their own food wherever they are will be inspiring, exciting and successful. I look forward to continuing to work with our visionary founder Andrew Shearer who as CMO will play a big part in our future success. We are eager to get growing with you soon!

The “joy” factor is something we talk about a lot. It’s hard to quantify, but anyone who has been around a Farmshelf knows what we mean. It’s watching produce grow at a crazy fast rate, right in front of your eyes. It’s the thrill of nursing the plants from seed to plate (without too much effort, that is). It’s the taste sensation of super fresh greens and herbs—peppery arugula and sweet anise hyssop. It’s the aroma of basil, rosemary and thyme that transports you to summer regardless of the weather outside. It’s being able to harvest this goodness anytime just like the host at Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster does in this photo—it always personified the “joy” factor for me. #FarmshelfDiaries part thirteen

When we started Farmshelf the North Star was to be able to answer each of these three questions with a resounding YES. Does the produce taste great? Is it cost effective? Is it better for the environment? Our industrial designer Jaeseong Yi managed to capture all this in our first meaningful marketing piece. It’s still just as relevant 7 years later as it was when we first developed it. It’s been a long and winding journey at Farmshelf, but we have never wavered from our core mission. #FarmshelfDiaries part twelve

José Andrés was one of the of the first people I called when I joined Farmshelf. Of course as one of the world’s greatest chefs his attention takes some effort to get but once I showed him our units at Grand Central, he was a believer. He asked for one Farmshelf for his home and two for restaurants in his growing DC empire. We installed our beta units with him in 2017 (photo below). And we’ve been working with them including at Mercado Little Spain (photo from last week) ever since. Over the years José has said “we grow sage, kale, parsley, and lettuce [at home] in our Farmshelf. It’s very high-tech, and it’s about the future” and “This is the new microwave... I believe one day many homes around the world will have a garden like this”. I hope you are right, Chef! #FarmshelfDiaries part eleven

When Condé Nast and their café operator Restaurant Associates called and told me they wanted to create an experience using Farmshelf at the famed magazine publisher’s headquarters in One World Trade Center, I legit almost fainted. We already had a couple of Farmshelfs there that were situated near the windows on the 85th floor and could be seen from the street. That in itself was super cool. But now our very own station where Anna Wintour and the editors from Bon Appetit dine several times a week!? This was the dream come to life: a restaurant that shows their customers the food being grown and incorporates it into every menu item. That’s where Farmshelf lives—the intersection of form and function. #FarmshelfDiaries part nine Gaetano Gatti

Getting into the Food & Wine Test Kitchen was an early break for Farmshelf. Here we were, this unknown brand, featured in the test and video kitchen of one of America’s most beloved epicurean media outlets. The best chefs in the world would be there and see us. We would be featured in video shoots online and in the magazine. We customized the Farmshelf to match the kitchen, and it looked absolutely GORG! Biggest lesson: It was too loud. It was too bright. They had to turn it off every time they shot a video. While it wasn’t a total bust (because we still got tons of promo out of it), it wasn’t nearly as big as we expected. In hindsight, we should have done a lot more testing of Farmshelf as a video studio prop before we installed it. We likely could have made some modifications and made it better for everyone. Start-ups are always in a rush but some things need time and careful planning. #FarmshelfDiaries part eight Nilou Motamed Justin Chapple

URBAN-X is a startup platform and accelerator that brought Farmshelf from its infancy in San Francisco to Brooklyn and added tremendous value in our early years. Sponsored by MINI, they provided us with a company car in 2019. I always regretted us not being able to figure out a way to keep it beyond that generous gratis period. Having a Farmshelf branded car to run around the city sent some very powerful messages: We have arrived. We are real. We mean business. Don’t underestimate the value of putting your brand out there to remind people who you are and what you are doing. #FarmshelfDiaries part seven Johan Schwind

Rockefeller Center is as iconic as it gets. When they told me they wanted to put a Farmshelf installation in right after the Christmas Tree came down to “keep the momentum going for the season,” I nearly fell out of my chair. The Shelfs went up in January of 2020, and I think you know the rest from there. While Covid made it, uh, more short lived than expected, it was one of my prouder times at Farmshelf. We were the attraction in a place and city full of attractions. And, that high became so low when we had to move them out in late March in what felt like an apocalyptic Rock Center Rotunda. That deal was two years in the making. And while I have so many examples of this that I could share with you, just know that IT ALWAYS TAKES LONGER THAN YOU THINK IT WILL. #FarmshelfDiaries Part Six

“Hardware is hard.” I had an investor tell me that once, and he was dead right. If you’re in the hardware start-up business, you know that VCs are basically allergic to you. Here’s why: at Farmshelf for instance, to make an indoor farm a consumer doesn’t have to think twice about before growing delicious produce, we assemble more than 2000 individual parts sourced from nearly 50 different vendors. It needs to be put together in just a few hours and then run through an intensive QA process before being packaged and shipped. Worth it once you taste it but so much work before it reaches our customer. #FarmshelfDiaries part five

Eric Adams, now mayor of NYC and then the Brooklyn Borough President, loves Farmshelf He takes pride and some credit for our existence since he helped fund Newlab the climate tech platform and start-up space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation where we have been a member since 2017. The Mayor introduced us to the Brooklyn Democracy Academy, a transfer high school that has a Farmshelf lab with 12 of our systems. Students learn how to grow with Farmshelf, and how the tech works. The greens they grow go to the surrounding community, which is very much in need of fresh produce. This program was Mayor Adams’s idea for sure and has been a great success. While it is thriving, it has been difficult to replicate. We do have Farmshelfs in many K-12 schools, but navigating the bureaucracy of the NYC Dept of Education is challenging and very time consuming. We all want to do what we can to help kids learn, but that has to be balanced with your company’s resources. #FarmshelfDiaries part four