Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in agriculture but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Miguel Quezada, co-founder of Kelpy by Kov, located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Kelpy by Kōv is a plant fertilizer made from the fastest growing organism on earth: wild harvested kelp from the coast of British Columbia. Our customers are people who desire lush, healthy plants in their homes and gardens. They are people who like to use plants for home décor. And they are people who don't want to feed their plants petrochemical additives.
Tell us about yourself
My partner and co-founder, Alicia, and I started Kelpy after listening to the podcast How to save a planet's seaweed episode. Spoiler alert, kelp is a climate change fighting superhero that deacidifies oceans, captures carbon, creates a healthy ecosystem, and is renewable (grows 2 feet a day), but it has one major problem. Not enough demand. When we listened to the episode, the lightbulb went off for us as our plants loved kelp to the point that people always asked us what we were using. Because our skincare business was already using kelp for its formulations, we had some familiarity with the industry. We started to connect the dots from there.
What motivates me is seeing new growth in plants. It just brings me so much delight to see healthy plants growing. Since we have launched, the plant community has become an additional source of motivation.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My biggest accomplishment as a business owner has been putting out products that bring people joy and doing it in a way that considers the environmental impact of our decisions.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Having to be proficient in so many areas is incredibly tiring, and deciding which aspect of the business requires attention first. If I concentrate on the task at hand, it becomes easier, but it's so easy not to see the forest for the trees.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- If you don't find the process pleasant, think about doing something else. There is so much grinding work that you have to embrace it, or it will grind you up and leave you worse off.
- I often think about Seth Godin's phrase: delivery is more important than perfection. There are so many aspects of entrepreneurship that this applies to. You can get stuck perfecting some copy, editing a photo, or curating your IG feed but the truth is putting out a perfect project means you won't deliver on time, and delivering is what entrepreneurs do.
- Find a co-founder that complements your skills. I couldn't imagine being an entrepreneur on my own.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://kelpy.ca/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelpyplants/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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