Andrew Valenti (00:00)
tell me about your origin, how and why you started posting gardening videos of yourself online.

Kevin (00:07)
You know what? You're the first who's ever asked why I started posting the videos, not why I started gardening in the first place. But of course one proceeds the other. So I had come out of college, ⁓ with an accounting degree and I chose it because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. You know, you, you go to a college, you choose business economics. If you don't know what you want to do basically. And, accounting seemed like an okay specialty, but during college I had played online poker. ⁓ actually.

The day before I turned 18, don't tell anyone, I put $100 on. At the time, I think it was Pokerroom.net. ⁓ Maybe Pokerstop, Pokerroom.net. started playing. And then in college, I got decent at it. Nowhere near as good as some of my contemporaries who I knew that were really playing well. But it paid for college, man. when I was, yeah, it was huge. And it flipped my brain. I had like,

you know, sold DVDs as a kid or, know, some of those like lemonade standee type entrepreneur things. But, it flipped my brain cause I was watching my friends go into, ⁓ studying for the accounting exam and then go into big four accounting, you know, 80 plus hours a week at 55, $60,000 a year salaries, which, ⁓ you know, it just didn't, it, that would have been fine if I would have loved the work. I just didn't, it wasn't drawing me to it. So,

⁓ Poker was a way to kind of offset that and put me on this different path, but after I graduated I had no real way to kind of extend that nor did I want to. I kind of saw like the future of where people were going who were playing online poker exclusively and I was like I don't really want to live that way. But I had no substitute so I fell into playing video games which is like the next closest thing to poker is you don't actually earn any money.

Andrew Valenti (01:58)
So you

had never thought, did you consider playing in-person poker? Like moving to Vegas?

Kevin (02:03)
I played it a few times. I did not like it. ⁓ Mostly because, you know, I grew up on the computer, early internet, I grew up playing video games. ⁓ My mind, maybe I have undiagnosed ADHD or something, or ADD, I have no idea, but my capacity for input's like really, really high. And so when I play online, I play 16 tables at a time. And each of those tables runs roughly two to three times faster than one in-person table.

So I'm at like a 30 to 48 eight X multiplier on speed compared to in person. And so when I sat in person and played, I, it was like agony. was like just waiting, like what is going on? It's just so slow. So I just didn't like it. Um, and also again, like I, I fast forwarded, I was 21. So I fast forwarded like 25, 26 at the time. And I was like, I don't want to be a poker player at mid twenties. Like I don't, where's my, where's my potential there? You

But I played video games instead. that logic was kind of twisted. But anyways, ⁓ I got into gardening one summer with my brother because the way I remember the story is my mom asked me to pick a hobby with my brother Brian. And I offered him this selection of hobbies. And we were both Southern California kids. So I offered him like surf, skate, whatever. this is a younger brother. Yeah, so he came home from college and she was like,

Andrew Valenti (03:22)
And as this older or younger brother.

Kevin (03:27)
you know, he's just going to play video games too. Like you need to pick a hobby. So I'm like, you know what? Okay, cool. The way I remember it, I offered him all these hobbies. His ears perked up at gardening. We go down to the nursery, get, get a basil and cucumbers. He grows the basil, I grow the cucumbers. And that was it. Like I was, I was hooked on, there's never been a year since I've not grown, you know, and, usually not expanded the stuff that I've grown. Why I started posting videos.

think it's just in my innate DNA at this point. I don't have any deep answers anymore for this. I think it's just I have to put stuff out. ⁓ I don't really care. I do care if people find it valuable. ⁓ But I would still do it if I found it valuable to put it out. Like it's the synthesis, I guess, of the information and putting it out there. And so yeah, that started as a hobby. And then when I was like, you know what, I actually do need

to make some kind of money here, I was designing websites for people. And I would use the gardening blog at the time as basically a business card.

Andrew Valenti (04:31)
then, so it built from there. it was, didn't you start with, was it aquaponics or what was it? Not aquaponics, hydroponics, right? And so it was strictly that, right, right, right.

Kevin (04:39)
Yeah, was hydroponics, hydroponic gardening. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I didn't have any space. didn't have any space. Yeah. And, and, and

it was the more scientific approach, ⁓ cause you're controlling the whole environment, you know? ⁓ so I was like, you know what? This is, this is the one for me. And of course I don't, I don't do a lot of hydroponics anymore. If, if much at all, I've seen the light of, of the soil, but, yeah, no, it was, it was very simple at the beginning for sure.

Andrew Valenti (05:04)
So I guess the content creation, it wasn't really about just like, okay, I have to record all this gardening stuff for this. It was just like a natural thing for you. But in your gardening process, was there ever, did you have a moment where you were like, this is actually really therapeutic. This is actually really nice. I enjoy this.

Kevin (05:13)
I did it. Yeah.

It came later, I would say. ⁓ cause at the start it was, it was hydroponics. So you're, kind of like monitoring all these different things and making sure it's okay and all that. ⁓ and then I would say once I got to the house that I actually just moved out of. So 2020, when I bought my homestead and started to develop that space, it was a lot more longer days in the garden. Cause, cause prior to that, even I was growing in a small urban

front yard. So yeah, you can work the garden for sure, but there's not that much to do. It's like 10 by 15 feet or something like that. So the longer days, you work until the sun sets, you're weeding and that kind of stuff. That's where I started to find a little more of that calming energy.

Andrew Valenti (06:12)
many years into your journey was that?

Kevin (06:17)
Maybe, I since the first thing I really ever grew, that would have been seven years, I would say. Yeah, yeah, lot of it was, ⁓ those early days, a lot of it was learning gardening, practicing it, ⁓ but not like going to it as a pure refuge, let's say.

Andrew Valenti (06:37)
it's almost like in the beginning, it was more scientific. You're more of a scientist than a And so the space really is what opened up solace, that chance to...

Kevin (06:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and then I got

to see a space transform, like land transform over time instead of ⁓ crafting a system that a plant would grow in. You know what I mean?

Andrew Valenti (07:00)
Right. And it was your own hands did that. It's so satisfying. like, wow, I busted my ass and I did that. It looks great.

Kevin (07:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I know. Well, especially now because

the orchard's four years deep now, so it's actually producing. So you go, yeah, I did plant those that many years ago.

Andrew Valenti (07:16)
Mm, yeah.

And so as this was going along, you were steadily growing, but was there a moment where you were like, wow, this is really working and I can do this full time? Like when were you able to say, this is my full time gig now?

Kevin (07:36)
Yeah.

Well, so I said that sooner than it was true. So I quit a job in 2016, June of 2016. At that time, Epic was making about $400 or $500 a month in revenue. one in San Diego is living off of that. But I initially thought, you know what, I'll just build it up to the point where I can get to

two or three grand a month in revenue and that's probably enough, because there's not a lot of expenses, it's just my time really, ⁓ that's probably enough to live off. And then I thought I would farm in people's front yards. I do like this networked farming model. There was a bunch of people doing that at the time. Curtis Stone on YouTube was kind leading the way there. And I was like, you know what, that's what I'll do. ⁓ But I did hit that number in a couple months after quitting the job, which was great. And it kind of kept slowly growing.

And eventually I was like, you know what, why do that when I can farm and learn and publish and other people can join along that journey and whatever sort of healing property or beneficial thing that gardening brings to them, hopefully it'll bring that to them as well and keep building this as its own business, as a media business basically. But what ended up happening to answer the original question is in 2019 and 2020, we all know what happened in 2020,

But in 2019, I started offering products to the audience because eventually it just started to make sense. Everyone kept asking what the stuff I had was. was like, I'll go find out and I'll offer it to you. So setting that up in 2019 and then 2020 was crazy. mean, obviously that was our revenue as a brand exploded by like six and a half times from year to year. It was lucky timing. mean, it's really, there's obviously everything is luck and preparation, but yeah.

Andrew Valenti (09:22)
Yeah, amazing timing for you, for home gardeners.

Kevin (09:32)
course, to have your whole supply chain set up the year before rather than the year of ⁓ a supply crunch pandemic, then yeah, I was pretty lucky.

Andrew Valenti (09:41)
So everything before that was ad revenue.

Kevin (09:44)
Yeah, it was either like Google ads on the blog or YouTube ads, or if someone bought through a link that went to Amazon, you would get 4 % of it or something like that. And so, you I was making a good living doing just that. But as you add team members, that can quickly go away. And so the products have now become the core of what we do.

Andrew Valenti (10:07)
the timing was amazing. So I was during the pandemic, right before it, I was a touring musician. And from a farming background, but as soon as that hit, tours canceled. And the first thing I did was started my building raised beds and growing my own food.

Kevin (10:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, you and Jacques on our

team is the same for him. I mean, he wasn't a touring musician, but as soon as the pandemic hit, that was his chosen hobby. Yeah.

Andrew Valenti (10:30)
Okay,

and he's crushing it. So I'm curious how you guys... How did you guys get connected?

Kevin (10:33)
He's got more subs than I do now, yeah.

That one's wild. So in 2020, uh, I was probably at tail end of 2020. I was talking to my friend Diego who now works at Epic. He's the developer of our six cell trays. That was our original sort of product line. We have a bunch of products in that sort of tray line now. And he was saying, Hey man, I think I developed like the best seed starting tray. So he drove down, gave me the trays and I was like, you know what? I think you're right, man. These are really amazing. So I started talking about them a little bit on Instagram.

And then I had just moved into my new house, right? And this pumpkin avatar on Instagram DM'd me and said, Jacques. And he's like, hey, I think I'm your neighbor. I'm like, oh, great. You see Jacques, you see a pumpkin avatar. like, this might not be a sane individual. I have no idea. And I go, OK.

I don't know why said yes, but like, yeah, you can come by. If he already knows that he's in my neighborhood, then I'm not going to avoid this guy, right? So you can come by and check him out. So up walks this 28, nine-year-old Bulgarian man. And he's like, hey, I'm Jacques. I'm like, OK. That's like a curve ball. But anyways, I gave him a couple of the trays. He tried them. He's like, yeah, I really like these, man. And then a couple weeks later, I was putting a position out for a garden assistant because I just needed a little

Andrew Valenti (11:50)
.

Kevin (12:01)
help on the Homestead. And he put an app in, and it was the best application. He had the best thinking behind his answers and all that. And no surprise, he's a geology PhD. But we started working together. And I would say about six months later, he left his PhD program and joined Epic full time. And then by the end of that year, we had developed a channel for him. And now he's at over half a million subscribers.

Andrew Valenti (12:28)
and still very much a part of the Epic team with his own thing going. Yeah, totally. You know, that's an interesting thing about, I wanted to ask you this too, because you built Epic very much on your journey. You were the face of Epic. You your face was Epic. And so eventually along comes Eric.

know, because people are like, okay, this guy's Eric. ⁓ Tell me about that whole story.

Kevin (12:54)
Yeah.

I don't know what it

is. I to me, it's pretty clear that the brand isn't named Eric Gardening. You know, like, I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess a P kind of looks like an R. Maybe that's where it all came from. But I started getting called Eric a lot. And I was like, you know what? It's kind of annoying, but if it's annoying, they're just gonna keep doing it. So I'll just lean in, you know?

Andrew Valenti (13:08)
Yeah. But here's this guy.

Kevin (13:27)
And so we created Eric basically as this alter ego to me and he'll sometimes show up on the videos, which is nice. Cause you, you, you actually get a new character, but it's just me, obviously acting, I guess. and it brings some levity to the videos. Cause what I've learned over the years, I mean, I've been on YouTube now a long time. Back in the day, you didn't have to do everything you have to do now. Back in the day, you could just say what the video was about and then say,

Andrew Valenti (13:40)
Yeah.

Kevin (13:56)
the stuff that it was about and then leave. You didn't have to think about the packaging, the title, the thumbnail so much. Actually, in the early days, I think you could only choose from one of three screen caps, so you couldn't even customize the thumbnail. Once they allowed that, a whole new game opened up. But yeah, it allows us to have more fun with the audience, basically, just leaning into this Eric character.

Andrew Valenti (14:23)
Yeah. And so with, when you're engaging with your community with comments, I mean, it must've gotten to a point where you were like, I just, I can't respond to all of these now. And so, so how did you manage that as you were going along?

Kevin (14:34)
Yeah.

Okay, so this, this I have a strong belief on for audience building, ⁓ that I don't see a lot of people do. And I'm like, why? Like it doesn't make any sense. ⁓ up until 2019 and you know, Epic was even on YouTube, we were over a hundred thousand subscribers by then. ⁓ on most platforms we were at or over a hundred thousand by then I would say, I, I responded to every comment, ⁓ all the time, every day, every single comment.

email, et cetera. And then eventually, of course, that broke down. Even if the response was tapping the like button, they still know I saw it, right? ⁓ And so to me, go, think about it like a viral coefficient or any sort of like compounding type of mathematics, right? All I really need, well, first of all, if you're gonna spend the time with me, I'll try to spend the time back with you, right? That's just reciprocity.

But I go, if I answer even just 100 of these comments a day, they know that I care that they watched what I put out and I've given that back to them. There's the chance that they might stick in, I might stick in their mind a little bit more and the next time they talk about gardening to someone, ⁓ this guy, actually, I sent him a picture of my cukes and he actually told me what was wrong with them. and then that person goes, that's pretty cool. I'll go check that out, right?

So you start to spiral that snowball. And I see a lot of ⁓ creator types just not do that. They just don't respond. I'm like, what are you doing? It's free growth. And these are real people. They are real people on the other side of the screen.

Andrew Valenti (16:19)
Yeah,

it's a bit dehumanizing to not in a way if you're at a certain point.

Kevin (16:23)
I think it's

understandable. Where we're at now, it's not possible. That's all I would do all day. But then you put systems in. We have a customer service team. We have a social team that tries to do their best there as well. But yeah, at the start, it's like, man, if you're not responding to the 10 people that liked or that commented on your post, what are you doing? Shouldn't you be stoked that they're there?

Andrew Valenti (16:48)
Who are you doing this for, really?

Kevin (16:50)
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Valenti (16:57)
Epic just totally blew up after the pandemic. I saw articles about you, you know, making millions of dollars for an online gardening blog, essentially.

Kevin (17:09)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Valenti (17:09)
And

then the thing that really, really piqued my interest because I was a botanical interest seed buyer. I loved their seeds for years. I mean, I just loved the packaging. I'm such a sucker for packaging. And, you know, when I see their seed packets, I'm just like, that's, that's what I want. You know, looking through their seed catalogs are really nice.

Kevin (17:17)
cool.

Mm-hmm.

They're nice, yeah. Yeah, they're

nice.

Andrew Valenti (17:30)
So that was huge. me about what that was like, how you got introduce to them and ended up acquiring botanical interests.

Kevin (17:39)
Yeah, I mean, so we had raised some funding in 2021 and that funding was intended to be used to acquire something. And we had looked at so many different businesses in the gardening space and there, you know, it's just, when you do these sorts of processes, there's just, there's just a big filtration phase that you have to go through. And then we had the idea, was like, why not seed though?

that makes the most sense. It's, it's the literal start of the journey. And if you put your business hat on, it's a recurring revenue business because people usually tend to buy seeds every year and it's not anywhere near as painful to ship around the country as our raised beds have been, you know? And so I actually had, had grown botanical for quite some time because just like you, I'd imagine you go into the store and you see the package. You're like, yeah, those are the coolest ones. So I'm going to get those, you know? ⁓ and so I go,

let's take a look at this one. Turns out the founders, Judy and Curtis, they were a married couple. They had separated and they were, you know, approaching their 30 year anniversary of botanical and we're looking to move on. And so we put our ring or hat in the ring I think it was like six people were trying to buy it and we were the ones that they chose. And so for us, it made a lot of sense cause we were like, we need to diversify our, our revenue.

But also we want to buy something that makes sense for our customers and our mission, which is teach the world to grow or help a garden in every home, these sorts of phrases. And what better way than seed, you know? ⁓ And frankly, if we didn't buy it, it would have been bought by a bigger seed company. It would have shut it down or just subsumed it, you know? Or like some big equity firm, something like that. yeah, that's big buy for us. Yeah, big buy for us.

Andrew Valenti (19:26)
So thank you. Thanks

for keeping it alive too. mean, it's really nice to see that it still exists on its own I'm curious to learn more about it because production is really interesting. I'm curious if you've visited all the farms or how many farms are producing those seeds for you guys?

Kevin (19:47)
So we have a couple of different ways that it's done. And I think this is what people don't know about the seed industry. So let's say you're buying like Genovese basil, right? You're not going to be buying that from, in almost all cases, to get it at a price that is reasonable, that consumers will actually buy, right? At the scale of business that we are. So it's not like we're not saying, hey, we're only buying from tiny farms.

And that is the value prop. So you have to pay more for the seed, right? ⁓ so if it's something like Genovese basil, that's like widely mass produced, very stable variety, you're going to buy it from some supplier that can produce a lot of it so they can give it to you at a relatively affordable cost. And then we put it through our own processes to get it up to germination standards, ⁓ quality tests. You do organic tests, non-GMO tests, pesticide tests, all that kind of stuff, which some brands do. Some brands don't do that.

There's other seed that we want to add to our assortment that really not that many people are producing or maybe no one really is producing at the scale we want. In those cases, we have a network of farmers that will do contracts to grow it out with us. So we'll say, look, we need this much of this zinnia. ⁓ Can you do it? Or beans might be a good example, peas, something like that. And they'll say yes or no. And then you're buying that.

two seasons ahead and you're hoping that the water in Utah isn't low that year, you know, so, so you actually get the, the amount that you ordered. ⁓ and so yeah, it's a little bit, it's a little bit complicated. It's, know, when you, when you get to like really popular varieties, there's a few suppliers that have a lot of, a lot of that seed. ⁓ so it, it doesn't, if you bought it from someone else, basically it's just market forces. If you bought it from someone else, your consumer is not going to buy it because that packet is going to be too expensive.

Andrew Valenti (21:41)
Hmm, interesting. Do you know what one of your top selling seed is? Like what is the number one thing that people grow?

Kevin (21:48)
Man, number

one, I don't know. Off the top of my head. I mean, it's gonna be anything that you'd imagine, like a sungold tomato, right? It's very popular. Specifically tomato, or like a Cherokee purple, Cherokee carbon tomato. Those are gonna be really popular. Any of the classic herbs. Yeah, stuff like that's gonna be, yeah. What's nice too is like as varieties get more popular, they get cheaper. unless you get a supply crunch, like sometimes you'll get a supply crunch, but.

Andrew Valenti (21:51)
or at least in the top.

Kevin (22:18)
This happened with the rare house plant market as well in 2020, 2021. They got really, really expensive. Like Pink Princess was like $500 or something. Now Pink Princess is at Home Depot for five bucks, you know? So if you don't buy it at its peak popularity, because of the breeding cycles or cloning cycles of plants, you just have to wait two years. You'll get the rarest plant of the time ⁓ for very cheap in the future, basically.

Andrew Valenti (22:44)
What are some of the, can you tell me what some of the more difficult seeds that you're trying to get are?

Kevin (22:50)
Well, mean, there's seeds that are difficult to keep, like edamame does not last very long. So you have to buy it. ⁓ I believe it has about a six to 12 month germination fall off sort of rate. So like after about six to 12, it's really not going to be good ⁓ next year. It's not that it won't be good. It's just like maybe your germ goes from 90 to 50, right? Which is unacceptable. We're not going to sell it to you. ⁓

Doesn't mean that if you bought the packet, wouldn't get germ though. Half the packet would still germ and that might be fine for you. ⁓ And then there's stuff that the parent lines of the hybridized varieties are basically starting to degrade or run out. Unless I'm wrong, I think that's happening to the sun gold tomato right now. ⁓ So the sun gold cherry, it's kind of been held up as like the cherry tomato for a while, you know? And I

think in the next couple years, you'll probably see that start to decline or get more expensive perhaps, unless someone's maintaining those parents in a way that I'm not aware of. hopefully, you'll start to see a newer, better ⁓ hybrid sweet cherry come onto the market. Because that's really what it is. mean, that's the thing people don't get about some of ⁓ this world is like,

Is it an open pollinated or heirloom style variety? Then really anyone can produce it. It's not a problem. But if it's a hybrid variety, if it's an F1 hybrid specifically, to make it every year, you need to keep the parent breeding lines intact. And then you need to breed it and collect the seed every year. So if you're buying an F1 hybrid, you're buying a lot of intense farming labor basically that someone or some group of people is maintaining. ⁓

And that's why some of these plants can get really expensive, which we do get the complaints sometimes from either a customer or just randomly, like $5 for a packet of 15 seeds or something like that. I'm OK, your coffee's $5 and you consume it in a day. And these 15 seeds if you grow that well, potentially 100 pounds of this tomato for you. ⁓

At triple the price, to me, that seems like still a bargain. Not to say I'm trying to overprice seeds We're not. It's just like if we're getting, let's say, Sun Gold, it's an expensive seed You'd be shocked at how much that might cost for a pound of that seat to the point where we need to count it out with lasers to make sure we're putting the right amount in the packet, because if we put too much, we'll lose money. So it's kind of crazy how it works sometimes.

Andrew Valenti (25:35)
And I'm sure you have videos telling people how to save their own seeds too, right?

Kevin (25:40)
Yeah, we do. And you know what's crazy is they're never that popular videos to make. No, no one really seems to watch those videos. Jacques did put a great one out though about, um, saving tomato seed in short form and, uh, it worked. It worked really well. It got like millions of views and hopefully some people did it, but I was putting seed saving videos out in like 2015, uh, and, they never did that well. So I was always kind of bummed.

Andrew Valenti (25:44)
Interesting. ⁓

can be hard to let your plant just go grow to the point where you're able to collect the seed, depending upon what it is. Tomatoes are easy, though. You just pick a tomato and then you got the seeds.

Kevin (26:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's cool. and yeah, I mean, you can save a sun gold hybrid seed and you won't get a perfect sun gold next year, but like you'll get something and there's nothing wrong with that.

Andrew Valenti (26:24)
One thing that I've always been interested about botanical interest is they organic certified organic seeds available and then non-organic seeds. is there I'm curious if there's discussion about going fully organic and kind of how how that feels to you. What's the importance of organics to you?

Kevin (26:47)
Yeah. Well, the thing that people, ⁓ I didn't know this either is if we were to go, let's say full organic on the, on our whole assortment of over 750 varieties, flowers would, wouldn't, they wouldn't disappear, but they'd go away significantly. It is so hard to get organic varieties of let's say the fourth lupine variety that you carry, like sundial lupine blue bonnet.

Who's growing that organically? Basically not a single person. And so you'd have to, let's say like 20 % of your assortment is gonna be certified organic flowers. You're gonna make that switch. You're probably gonna have to manage the contract growing out of all those varieties if you can even get someone to agree, which you probably can't, because we've tried it. ⁓ And so some of these, they would just disappear.

or they would happen at a price that no one would buy them. So effectively that's like disappearing. ⁓ And I think it doesn't matter as much for something like a flower as it might for something like a vegetable, at least to me. ⁓ But yeah, part of it is simply, it's like seed access. Can you even access the organic variety at a price that someone will buy it from you at? And that's really the key of it is.

I would love to do it. It's just, I know if I drop a $10 packet, no one's buying it, even if it's certified organic. You know what I mean? So I try to listen to the feedback from people, but then I also try to look at what they say. There's like stated preference, first revealed preference. No one's gonna say, oh, I don't care about organic at all. Like, I don't want that. So they're always gonna say, yeah, I would want everything certified organic, of course. Okay, here you go. Oh, I'm not buying that.

But they're not saying that they're not buying it. They're just not buying it. So then you look at the data and you go, okay, well, what you say is not matching your behavior, so I'm going to follow your behavior. I'm not going to follow what you say. ⁓ I mean, it would be great if we could get there. But also, there are some sort of faux beliefs about organic as well. I'm not a conventional fan, but certified organic, you can still use pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. They just have to be naturally derived.

⁓ And so for certain plants, I think the difference is somewhat negligible.

When you're looking at tomatoes, you're going to get someone. There's a lot of volume going through those seeds. And so you're probably going to get someone who's willing to do it. think about it. It's a cost to the person growing it. Because the certified organic process, you could argue, has some really great things in it that force good behaviors. And there's some very silly or foolish regulations within it.

that make it more expensive to do, but don't confer some actual benefit to the seed itself. It's just like, okay, I have to keep this this far away from this. Why? There's no reason, you know? But I need to hire someone to help me do that, and now my seed becomes more expensive, you know?

Andrew Valenti (29:52)
Right, Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people are becoming of kind of how bogus the organic certification actually is. And so you're seeing, you we're seeing more more certified certifications coming out, like regenerative certified. ⁓ Is that, are you starting to see any of that with your growers, with your seed growers that they're moving more towards?

Kevin (30:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. mean, and something we, something I definitely believe in and I have even when it comes to like buying produce at a market, let's say, if I know how you grew it and I can ask you questions and you can answer them, I don't really care if it's organic or not as far as the stamp goes, right? ⁓ A lot of the market farmers, cause San Diego has, that's where I live. ⁓ We have, I believe still the highest per capita amount of market farmers out there. So there's so many people doing this.

Many of them have actively opted not to get the label, right? ⁓ But they'll say, here's what I do. I do this, I do this, I do this. I'm like, that's actually beyond organic. Because you're not actually spraying anything. You're not putting copper fungicide on, even though you could, ⁓ So yeah, I'm hoping we see more of that.

Andrew Valenti (31:14)
So botanical interest, that was a huge, huge acquisition. Was that your first acquisition

Kevin (31:21)
Technically, no, ⁓ but it was by far the largest one we've made. But the seed brand, or sorry, the seed trays, our Epic Tray line, initially came from my friend Diego. It was his design. And we started selling it with him. So we were the first company to launch his trays. And they did really, really well. And so they did so well that basically I was like, Diego, do you want to just join the team?

We will acquire the assets and we'll hire you and you can have kind of free reign to build out a whole line of trays with us. And so that's what we did there. So that, that counts as an acquisition. And then we also purchased a blog, a gardening blog and folded it into Epic Gardening, which made us like the second biggest gardening blog out there. so technically that was a BI was our third acquisition.

Andrew Valenti (32:12)
And so, and there have been some other ones since botanical. Talk about those.

Kevin (32:17)
yeah, we just acquired GrowVeg. So been a fan of Ben and the channel for a very long time. And then Jeremy on the planner. He's the founder of GrowVeg. I've used the GrowVeg planner since 2014. I logged in and looked at my first plan and it was 2014. So it's been around a while and I've used it for a while. I've tried every planner out there.

And it's the best one from a gardening functionality perspective. ⁓ So for us, go, we teach you how to grow. We now offer seed and other products. want to bridge those two layers and help you plan your garden using either the products we offer or not. It doesn't really matter. And ⁓ the plants you want to put in your garden and help you manage and learn. And then we've even built out custom functionality where you can buy directly from the plan itself. So let's say you were like,

you move to a new house and you set up like a four bed garden, you could put in some Epic raised beds if you wanted or just wooden beds, whatever you want. You could plant, let's say you wanted to do a row of beets. You could drag that out over a four by four grid. It would actually calculate, that's 42 beats. ⁓ so you need two packets because one packet only has 30 seats. You know what I mean? It knows all that. ⁓ and then it says, Hey, of your plan, this is the stuff we actually can get for you and deliver it right to your door. Do you want that?

Yes or no, you can do that. So we're trying to build out some of that functionality, but it's really gonna be the core of what we're calling the greenhouse, which is gonna be our membership program, ⁓ which is basically this idea that like, no one that I know of, at least in our space, has the educational content side and the product side. What would a membership program look like that blends those two things? What if you could get like free shipping, seed discounts, expert advice?

⁓ and planner access all wrapped into like a price that makes it basically free. Kind of like, you know, like you always buy a Costco membership because you know you're saving more anyways. So we're going to test that out, but that's kind of the core of that acquisition.

Andrew Valenti (34:19)
Cool. That's exciting. Yeah, I've used that planner myself. It's impressive. I mean, it's so easy and just dragging things to, ⁓ okay, I have way too many. I was thinking I needed way too many seeds of garlic or whatever. ⁓ And then what about modern farmer? I remember seeing something briefly about that.

Kevin (34:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Modern Farmer was not doing so hot as far as I can tell. It was either going to go away or not. ⁓ And so yeah, we ended up ⁓ taking over Modern Farmer and trying to keep it afloat. It's challenging because it's media and media, especially blog-specific media, is just getting destroyed right now by AI. ⁓

So hopefully we can continue. But yeah, it's a tough time for written content on the internet.

Andrew Valenti (35:16)
Are they still doing physical magazines as well? No. Yeah, I remember when they first came out. I mean, I live over in Europe now, so it's been, wouldn't, haven't seen them on the shelves, but that was one of the coolest things when it came out. I was like, sweet. Yeah.

Kevin (35:19)
No, not anymore, no. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a cool. was a great magazine. It was a great magazine. Yeah.

Andrew Valenti (35:36)
I'm to tell you a little story about myself first. So, January, I had 450 followers on Instagram, mostly just people I knew or grew up or And then I just started posting reels about myself in my garden.

Kevin (35:51)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Valenti (35:52)
And

it just completely blew up really fast, 120, 120,000 followers. And I was just like, Whoa, like I just got to keep making content. And then it got to the point where every time I went into the garden, I was like, shit, I like, I forgot my tripods, I go back in the house, my tripod, set it up. And then, you know, for me, I started to this feeling I was like, this isn't

Kevin (35:55)
Cool feeling, right?

Andrew Valenti (36:16)
this isn't the same for me. I used to just love just going into the garden. was just me. I would leave my phone inside, you know, but now it was like, okay, I'm making these videos. I'm doing this thing. ⁓ And I was just getting this burnout. was just like, gardening's not even fun because I have to feed the beast of Instagram, you know. So I'm curious to ask you, have you experienced any of this burnout with just gardening or with...

Kevin (36:23)
Mm-hmm.

yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I go through phases. ⁓ But yeah, I I would say over the last year, lot of, call it lot of accumulated chronic stressors or whatever kind of built up, you know? And turns out I had some health stuff that I was not aware of that was, was basically, my body was trying to fight, but I didn't know I even had it. So I was working on that without knowing it. And yeah, it all kind of came to a head and yeah, for a while I was like, I don't want to be in the garden. I don't want to make anything.

I don't want to work. I don't want to do anything at all. I want to just lay on the couch and be a zombie, you know? ⁓ So yeah, that took a while to get through and some, you know, medication that I'm thankfully I'm now off it, but it got to a point where I was like, I think if I don't take this, like something will not be so good. I might not do something so good, you know? So ⁓ yeah, like, and I was like, I was always like, I'll never do that. You know,

Andrew Valenti (37:42)
Mm, scary.

Kevin (37:47)
never do that. And turns out I did. And who knows if that's the reason why, but it took six months to kind of taper off, but I'm off now and yeah, I'm thankful I guess that I made the choice because I I don't know how it would have gone if I didn't. But yeah, yeah. I mean that happens. Every creator I know who's had a blow up moment where they, they then take that and run with it for a while has had a crash out moment afterwards where they're like, ⁓ I was just like running on

pure will for like potentially a year, maybe more. And then it all came down on me.

Andrew Valenti (38:24)
Well, good on you. I'm glad you got through it. mean,

Kevin (38:29)
Yeah, thanks.

Andrew Valenti (38:31)
from an outsider's point of view, looking at you, you've got this huge company that just seems like it's growing and growing and growing. You're like nonstop trajectory upwards. meanwhile, you're a human being going through your own shit. So how was it being the owner of this and maintaining all of that? Like maintaining your company?

Kevin (38:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, mean, you

gotta get help, man. I put a video out on my personal YouTube channel recently talking about YouTube myths, and one of them has to do with businesses that are built off of YouTube. And I have a belief that, I would say for 90, 95 % of YouTubers who build a business off of it, it's actually the best sort of structure is to keep it a lean, focused model where you can handle the workload and you don't hire up.

If you decide not to go that path, I think it's dangerous to go the middle road, which would be to like hire like eight to 10 people and try to support a team like that. Cause you end up becoming a manager, which most creators don't want to do and aren't good at. ⁓ And that becomes over half your time easily. So then you're being stolen away from the thing that kind of got you to the ability to hire them in the first place. ⁓

If you can push through that or if there's a bigger opportunity, let's say gardening big industry, ⁓ you, you would go for the fences and you would hire up a proper, what I would call like a proper company sized team where you have, you know, operational layers, you have a leadership team that helps you do all of this, which we now have. ⁓ and so without that, there's no way I could do it at this scale. It's just not.

I tried for a while and I think I probably contributed to some of that kind of crash out.

Andrew Valenti (40:16)
And so you just left the homestead. So what's gonna happen to that whole property?

Kevin (40:19)
Yeah.

Same as it always was. ⁓ I'm down there at least three days a week, if not more. And the team works from there. ⁓ I'm still in San Diego. I'm 15 minutes away. ⁓ I just needed a physical mental separation from the space. And so now we do weekly team, team days there. We'll have our gatherings there. ⁓ We're kind of tricking out the inside with like hot desks and offices or like things like that. ⁓ So yeah, it's a hard choice to make, but once made, it became easier.

Andrew Valenti (40:30)
So you're still in San Diego.

And so is this what led you into making art?

Kevin (40:58)
Yeah, pretty much. mean, I needed a hobby that had no tie to business, right? Cause like you, mean gardening, anything I did that wasn't recorded, let's say, I'd be like, well, that was kind of a missed opportunity or whatever, you know? ⁓ And so I needed to do the art. ⁓ First of all, I did it as a kid and I just never picked it up after that. And I wanted something that was pure hobby, you know?

Of course, knowing me, I started like selling it and this and that, but I don't care. It's not, I'm never going to make it into something that's going to live and die off. You know, my income is not going to live and die off that. So I'll do that for fun. Cause I do enjoy like seeing it get out into the world. And if someone wants to buy something cool, that's great. some of stuff I've sold, I'm like, I don't know why you bought that, but it was for sale. So you, you, you made that, you know, you made that choice.

Andrew Valenti (41:52)
Well, people

like to support the arts,

Kevin (41:54)
Yeah, that's

true. That's what I'll tell myself. But yeah, no, it's been fun. It's been really enjoyable. Building a new skill set or rediscovering a skill set has been great.

Andrew Valenti (42:04)
And so that's kind of been, it hasn't really become your new gardening because gardening was always connected to content creation for you, Yeah.

Kevin (42:13)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah. It has not become my new, my new gardening. I will post a lot about my art on my channels, like my personal stuff. I don't, I think some people are interested. Most people are like, this guy's going through something, you know, but, ⁓ it doesn't bother me cause I like posting now on social for my personal stuff, whatever I want to post. I don't care if it does well or not, you know? ⁓ so that's a freeing feeling to have a space that I can do that on, which is like,

Literally how every other person in the world is not a creator uses social media by the way ⁓ So

Andrew Valenti (42:49)
Yeah, you know, and it must feel good too because you've built, I mean, Epic is its own functioning thing now. And from the things that I've read on LinkedIn and just, you know, just the vibe that I get off of Jacques and all the videos where I see anybody else, some of the people that I've interacted with behind the scenes on Epic, like it seems like a great company, you know, and the employees seem really happy. It just seems like a really good place to be at and...

Kevin (42:56)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Valenti (43:18)
It must feel easy for you to just be like, okay, I need a minute. It's in good hands.

Kevin (43:25)
Yeah, I think the team has had a of grace for my difficult times, which is good. And I'm thankful for it kind of goes back to having that operational layer. I can trust that ⁓ my operations and logistics team knows what they're doing. ⁓ Whereas in the early days, it'd be like, why did this shipment come with the wrong stuff in it?

Why are we not getting orders out on a seven day lag time? We should click to deliver, which would be like when the customer clicks checkout to when it's at their door, needs to be under 4.5 days or whatever your metric is. ⁓ And we were at nine, it's like, okay, I'm gonna fly to Colorado and start packing to figure out why it's not working this way. And now I don't have to do that as often. Of course, things bubble up, but it's not like every part of the company at all times.

Ha

Andrew Valenti (44:23)
And you recently flew to the UK and that was part of the acquisition. But you also got some nice free time because I follow you on your personal Instagram. Tell me about your time in Scotland and all the hiking.

Kevin (44:32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

dude, that was so fun. I don't know. It's people always trash talk the UK and I'm like, why the, the, the food's like not that bad. Really? Is it healthy for you? No, but is it good? It's like hearty food. You know, the food's decent. ⁓ I had some haggis. I didn't know what it was when I ate it, which was probably, it was probably better. You know, I didn't realize it was like, cause they hide it. So they call it sheep's pluck. And I'm like,

Andrew Valenti (44:58)
That's good.

Kevin (45:05)
Okay, that seems fine, but it's like ground up lung or something like that.

be fair, I think in historic times when we found an animal to eat, we would eat the whole animal, right? And it conferred a lot of nutritional benefits to us. So I don't have a problem with it, but yeah, no, it was fantastic. The countryside was amazing. I can understand the gardening culture there a little better now having been there, because they call everything a garden. What isn't a garden over there? can't really tell.

You know, like a backyard is a garden, but the garden in the backyard is also the garden. So it's like nested the same definition. ⁓ But yeah, no, the culture there is just, it's really enjoyable. Everyone's pleasant.

Andrew Valenti (45:53)
Yeah, you know, the land energy, I I love Scotland. I'm in Wales right now, actually, and it's so nice. you know, I don't know why people, I haven't heard much bashing on the UK, but it's pretty great over here. So many people are into gardening and the food is good, depending upon where you go. And I love haggis.

Kevin (45:58)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ nice, nice.

Yeah. Depending on where you, yeah. Depending on where you go. Yeah.

I mean, I sat down, I got to Edinburgh and I got a full Scottish breakfast and I was like, damn, like I look, I mean, I got some weight to lose already right now. Actually three weeks there, I gained five pounds. So cause you know how everyone's like, I went to Europe and I ate anything I wanted and I lost weight. What's wrong with the food in America? Like they're always kind of taking that line. I'm like, okay.

Andrew Valenti (46:42)
Yeah. We're talking about Italy.

Kevin (46:45)
Yeah, they're probably talking about Italy, right? But

either way, I was like, you know what, let's try it. I'll just eat whatever I want. I'll do my walking and hiking and this and that, gain five pounds. So, looks like joke was on me for that one, but no, it was great. It was a great time.

Andrew Valenti (46:59)
So I'm curious, what's coming up next for Epic?

Kevin (47:03)
Man, well, I'm excited about the greenhouse, the membership program that we're gonna launch. Might do well, might not. think we've, I always try to craft something I think that the audience is gonna really enjoy and go like, ⁓ obviously I need that. Like when I saw the trays, it's like, obviously I need that tray. ⁓ So I'm looking for like a smash hit like that. ⁓ We're gonna try to really return to form, I guess you could say, with our content. Not that I think we've lost it, especially in long form. I think we make good long form content.

Our short form content, not so strong right now, so I wanna get better at that. ⁓ And really nail down the ideation and sort of packaging of the concepts that we make so that we get the most out of them and that the audience gets the most out of watching them. ⁓ Because you can really put stuff out, can kind of, channel gets big enough, your brand gets big enough, your sort of cache with the audience gets big enough, you can put stuff out.

that it's like, okay, you know, um, and, and in season when things are slammed, sometimes you've got to just let one rip. But, um, I want to craft a little bit more this year. And that whole art journey I've been on has helped me with that. I'm like, Oh, well now I can more confidently design a thumbnail because I can sketch the whole thing with a greater level of detail, you know? Um, or I'm learning like compositional techniques or storytelling techniques that I may have not known in the past. So I'm like excited to try that.

So for me, it's getting back to making some really kind of banger content.

Andrew Valenti (48:34)
Cool. And you're designing some seed packets now too, yeah?

Kevin (48:38)
yeah, yeah, yeah. I did the bok choy or toy choy. I just got another commission for the ⁓ red echinacea, which every time I say yes, I'm like, that one should be easier. Cause I thought that toy choy would be easy. No dude. It's like each bok choy leaf has like 15 different greens in it and it's all rippled. And if it's, and if the light's hitting it, it's like each little bump has like 10 colors that you'd have to appropriate. You know I mean?

⁓ cause, cause it, cause this is realism and I'm not a realist so far as far as my artistic skillset. So it takes a long time. It took me like seven hours to do that piece, but I'm learning an art, like maybe seven hours isn't actually even that long. So, ⁓ I guess we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Andrew Valenti (49:24)
So as the owner of this company, who's asking you to, can't you just be like, you know what, I'm an artist now, I'm gonna.

Kevin (49:30)
No, so you're right, I could. I could. And I'm aware of that I could. So I went to our

art team, and Kelly on our team. said, I've been asking, Kelly's very talented at colored pencil and watercolor, Katie as well, but I've just seen more of Kelly's work. And so said, Kelly, I want to do a packet, but I know I'm the founder and CEO. So you'll just let me do one if I want to. And then you'll just like not tell me that it sucks, right? So I'm just putting the attention out. I want to do one.

you come to me when you think I'm ready to do it based on the art I've shared. So a couple of weeks back, she was like, Hey, do you want to do the toy? I think you can handle this one. And ⁓ I was like, yeah, cool. And then I was like, I sent it to her and I go now be honest, is this, would you pass this through and let this go onto a packet? If I wasn't the one doing it, she's like, actually, yes, I would. I would just change these sort of values on this green cause I'm red, green, colorblind.

So I made it a little too warm, which implies over or under watering on a plant. If a plant is too yellowish, too reddish, it's like you did something wrong to that plant. So you can't be that off on the color. So she's like, we'll do a little adjustment to some of those colors. But yeah, on a form and composition basis, I would totally pass it. So I was super aware of that. was like, I don't want to be self-nepotistic about this or something.

Andrew Valenti (50:56)
Sure, yeah. So how many artists are there making those seed packets?

Kevin (51:01)
Offhand, I don't know how many there are, because most of them, of course, are already made at this point. ⁓ Yeah, but we work with a handful of talented artists, and they're all botanically, I guess, except for me, botanically, know, botanical art trained.

Andrew Valenti (51:18)
gardening influenced you as a cook? How has it influenced the way that you eat?

Kevin (51:24)
Yeah, I mean, I'm not that it's weird. Like I used to be more into cooking than I am right now. Just it's, it's mostly a time input thing. Like if I'm doing the art, I'm doing the business, I'm trying to get healthier. Obviously cooking would be part of that, but like exercise, et cetera. ⁓ One of these things has to give. And so I just do pretty simple stuff, but I've learned a lot, you know, honestly from Jacques on cooking, he does a lot with, with garden fresh stuff.

Andrew Valenti (51:51)
So he's more influenced by what he's growing to bring it inside and use it.

Kevin (51:57)
Mm-hmm. Plus his family eats ⁓ vegan. So for them, you know, he can crush a lot more garden produce. Yeah.

Andrew Valenti (52:06)
Tell me one of your favorite food memories.

Kevin (52:08)
this is going to be weird. So my grandpa on my Filipino side was a chef in the Navy and he would cook up all these crazy good meals like ⁓ flank steak marinated with like soy and teriyaki and stuff like that. Pancit, et cetera. But for some reason, this thing my grandma would make always stuck with me and all of the cousins, all we all remember it. It's literal. I think it's literally just

white rice with milk in it. Like you just pour milk on top. And she served it in like a little oval banana type looking bowl. And then we would just eat that and we just loved the taste. It's like two ingredients. I'm gonna try to Google it. Milk, like Filipino milk rice? Is that a thing?

Andrew Valenti (53:02)
So you cook the rice regularly and then just pour milk on it. Sounds like rice cereal. rice. No.

Kevin (53:04)
Cook it regular and just pour milk on it. I can't.

I don't even think it's a real recipe at this point.

It's just, I remember her doing that and I remember us always being like, we want that, you know? So, simple guy, I guess.

Andrew Valenti (53:17)
Hmm.