In this months’ feature, the Local Rag chats to the team behind gardening company, Jayd.
Describe your new business.
JAYD is a gardening company for people who lack room for traditional gardens. It was started by myself, Nathaniel Holmes, and my best mate, Jayden Boylan. Our first product is a hydroponic pot that allows people to grow fresh herbs on a windowsill, book shelf, or table. Our goal is to grow into a company with a range of products that allow people to grow food in non traditional gardening spaces.
How did you decide to run with this concept and idea?
This idea stuck because there is a large trend pushing indoor plants and we found a gap in the market for growing indoor veggies. A lot of products on the market lacked creativity, style, and simplicity. It seemed overly complicated and so we thought we would make the process easier for people to understand, and more appealing.
What is your vision and mission?
We see a future where people no longer need access to a traditional garden. Our mission is to create innovative solutions for non traditional gardening spaces to allow anyone to grow their own food.
What are the benefits of running it from Raglan?
Raglan has a cool start-up culture where people are willing to help you out, give you feedback, and enjoy learning about what you are doing. Our product is ceramic and all we needed to do was go have a chat with West Coast Stoneware and they helped us make some of our first products. When we needed some photography, Honey Studios sorted us out. We’ve been able to build a great network of friends who we can ask serious questions and get really beneficial feedback from. It’s been a great place to start a business.
Have you always had green fingers and an interest in plants?
Jayden and I both come from agricultural backgrounds so we have been around plants our whole lives. Funny enough though, we haven’t always had green thumbs. This is what makes our product so cool, because if we can learn and grow plants using our product, anyone can.
What have been some of the challenges setting up the business?
We could probably write a book on this one question. Everyone loves locally made, but it’s incredibly hard to get products made locally at a price where people will actually buy them, so sourcing our products was difficult. Also, neither of us are marketing whizzes, so this has been a huge challenge that we are currently trying our best to improve.
What do you enjoy most about this process?
Starting a business is challenging and requires a lot of learning and these would be the two things that make it fun for us. But I’d also say meeting people who are stoked about what you are doing and supporting other people along the way as well.
How do people find out more and get in touch?
You can head to our website, jayd.co.nz or follow us on social media @jayd_nz. Feel free to send us a message with any questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. Happy growing!
This content was made possible thanks to sponsorship from Bizworx Consultancy Ltd.
