Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Mariana Ferreira, Co-Founder of ingarden, located in Portland, OR, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
ingarden makes indoor gardening accessible, affordable, and sustainable. We have created award-winning (Red Dot, IF awards) hydroponic indoor gardens and an organic seed subscription. ingarden tackles issues of food waste, nutrition, and sustainable growing with our hydroponic, patented indoor garden. Our customers are adults aged 25+ living and residing in the US or EU with a focus on improving their health through wholesome, real food. We have a countertop indoor garden that is easier than all others in the market, guaranteed. It allows you to grow the best nutrients in just a few days.
Tell us about yourself
From the first company I started, my mission in my professional life has remained the same: How can we improve the lives of our society through food, education, and our connection with nature? These are more linked than we like to admit. ingarden allows us to provide nutrient-dense nutrition into every home while promoting a connection with mother nature and reducing the impact on our soils.
In the near term, I hope we can increase people's livelihoods through higher quality, higher nutrient-dense foods. In the long term, I hope we can improve hyper-local growing methods to continue to promote diverse, nutrient-dense foods in a sustainable way for our microbiomes and that of the planet.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
This is a tough question, it's very dependent on whom you ask. I can answer it in 2 ways. The first is by sharing big/significant accomplishments that a path in entrepreneurship has allowed me in my passion to promote diverse, nutrient-dense foods in a sustainable way for people & the planet. If I answer that, I would say that though it harms profits, just putting an idea out there that is better and cheaper than the existing ones is the goal. And measuring that goal as success would mean seeing your competitors and especially the large competitors in the space, copy your idea... This means: when you innovate in a category, and the incumbents see this, the biggest reward is seeing them replicate your product or an ex-employee reaching out to you after being recently fired and telling you over coffee that one of the last projects they worked on included researching your product to essentially launch a similar version and compete against you. (Yes, that's a true story).
The second way I could answer this is what big business (think $$) accomplishment I have made. To answer that, I would say that my biggest ones as an entrepreneur were with my first company, naturally, as I have only just begun work at ingarden. With my first company, Snow Monkey, my biggest accomplishment was getting on Whole Foods shelves. This alone did not equal hundred$ of dollar$, BUT what it did was get us a foot in the door of a large company and start to build a success case for retail/wholesale. From there, we were able to open many other doors that had been previously completely inaccessible to us.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Personally, it's the self-doubt. I have to admit, it is harder now in a world that seems to have gone completely digital and sources of information come from virtually anywhere. Virtually anyone can call themselves the 'master' or expert or influencer on a topic, and all they need is social klout now (likes, views, followers, etc.). This, coupled with the staggering number of new tools and options available to do business online, means you now have a million sources to learn from or guide you and a million and one ways to do it. Options are limitless. This obviously has an upside, but it also means it's a lot easier to constantly ask yourself: am I really doing it the 'right way'? That person did this, that other one that, should I reconsider? And never mind all the well-intended people who try to guide you in their direction. So, for me, the hardest aspect is dealing with this self-doubt. How I do this best is by asking the opinion of those I truly trust to verify what I am seeing elsewhere and daily meditation (though I can't admit I do it every single day! more like 5/7 days :)
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Find a program/course. As I said before, there are limitless options to do what you want to do, and as our tech grows, every day, there's one more new way. If you are new to entrepreneurship, find yourself a few mentors and a course/accelerator/incubator. You don't have to do everything they suggest, but it's at least a path to help you get started and to keep you in check. From there, you can color your path in whatever colors you want and maybe even find slight deviations. Some of those offshoots will help you skip forward, and some might derail you for a minute. But if you have a path, then there's always a place to come back to. If not, where will you go if you have gotten totally off track?
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://ingarden.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingarden_com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariana-ferreirav/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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