Rows of leafy green plants bask under dueling grow lights inside an office at Beachwood’s incubator, the Business Development Center. No one is taking the concept of incubation more literally than Eric and Cary Senders, the brains behind the hydroponics company Sure To Grow.
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What to Ask
How are you protecting your idea?
When the Senderses see a new idea, their first thought is to patent it. Call the attorneys and narrow the idea down until you have something unique.
Are you reaching the right market?
YouTube videos, cheap and relatively simple to produce, made a huge difference in Sure To Grow’s sales because they tapped into a key aspect of hydroponics: It’s tricky, and directions on a package are no substitute for seeing it in action.
How committed are you to your product?
Sometimes you have to be willing to adjust, even if you think the product is great. “Every grower we gave [our growing medium] to, unless they read the instructions and understood it, could fail,” Cary says. “So instead of trying to spend years trying to educate people, we came up with another product line.” |
The two excel at growing new ideas. The foot-tall basil plants we’re looking at are rooted in Hail, a fiber-based potting material made up of airy white cubes the size of dice. Now the Senderses are working with another entrepreneur in the building to develop a new lighting system for home hydroponics growers.
Sure To Grow is the brothers’ fourth business partnership, and it began as all their concepts have: through their connections.
“Every business we’ve had has been a genesis from the business before,” says Cary Senders, the brash, booming yin to younger brother Eric Sender’s quiet yang. “It was a catalyst that came in front of us that said, ‘Go do this.’ ”
The two met Ben DuPont (yes, one of those DuPonts) while running GroundScape Technologies, where they were turning tires into rubber mulch. As a partnership of just two — agile, communicative and fast-moving — the brothers represented a golden opportunity for DuPont to offload two fiber patents left behind after the company sold its fibers division in the ’90s.
“They didn’t want this to go through 20 layers of corporate decision-making,” Eric explains. The brothers took six months for research and due diligence, then signed a licensing deal. “It was quick, it was easy, and from everybody’s perspective, it got done.”
And just like that, they were in the growing business.
“Everything we’ve gone into, we knew nothing about,” notes Cary. They’re quick learners, but the key, he says, is to know your limits. “I don’t even mow my own lawn, let alone know how to grow a plant hydroponically. So in order to learn that, we surrounded ourselves with very high-quality people.”
In the hydroponics world, that meant finding someone the growers could relate to. As Eric and Cary developed the fiber-growing mediums they thought would revolutionize the indoor growing market, they found entry was more difficult than expected.
“Growers take the attitude, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Cary says. They were slow to embrace Hail, despite its advantages. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than the most popular product sold in the industry, Hydroton.
“A bag of this medium weighs 50 pounds,” he says. “Our comparable bag weighs 1 pound.” Hydroton comprises tiny, kiln-dried clay balls that must be washed before use. Plus, it’s made overseas. Hail, like all Sure To Grow products, is made in the United States.
So the Senderses connected with a grower who was giving their medium a chance: Matt Geschke, a burly, goateed Kent State professor. He had a look the brothers thought other growers would trust and the credentials to back up his advice. Geschke agreed to appear in Sure to Grow’s instructional videos, billed as Matt the Grower.
“If you look at other videos on hydroponics, they’re all stoner dudes showing marijuana, not giving you any information on how to do anything,” Cary says. “This is very G-rated. You could sit down with your child and view that and really learn a lot. And many people have.”
The online videos helped translate Sure To Grow’s vision to their target audience. “Matt took us to another level,” Cary says. “The videos became a phenomenal international success for us.” These days, Sure To Grow showcases new products and growing techniques to a
YouTube stable of more than 1,200 subscribers.
With their growth mediums up and running, the brothers aren’t taking a breather; instead, they’re investigating the lighting systems their neighbor in the incubator brought to them.
“We hear something, and a light bulb goes off, and it’s like, Man, that sounds like a great idea,” Eric says. “And oftentimes, you say, Now, how come nobody else is doing this? But that’s how everything gets started. Everybody thinks somebody else is doing it — but nobody else is.”