How to Make Gardening Easier

An interview with Seedtime's CEO & co-founder, Paul Dysinger.

Even though 75% of children have nature-inspired names, I’m a bit of an indoor cat myself. But could technology change my interest in the great outdoors?

Maybe. Lately I’ve become very interested in software and apps that make gardening easier, so today I interviewed CEO & Co-founder of Seedtime, Paul Dysinger.

Used by over 400,000+ users on 6 continents (impressive), Seedtime’s mission is to make gardening and farming easier. Seedtime is a garden planner that makes it easy to visualize what to do and when to do it in the garden, turning actually growing a garden into the simplicity of following an automated daily or weekly task list. It aims to take the guesswork out of setting up succession plantings - and a lot more beyond that, which we get into below. Also interesting about Seedtime is that they launched on Kickstarter to great success.

Here’s my conversation with Paul:

You launched Seedtime on Kickstarter and raked in serious support, becoming the second most-funded app at the time. Do you remember the moment when you realized your company was getting serious support?

Yes, it was a pretty exciting moment and was the day that we launched. We were funded in 10 minutes and went on to raise over $100k in the first 12 hours. At that moment we realized we were getting serious support and were thrilled that it was going to really move this project forward! Excited to see the community rally around us!

Tell us more about Seedtime. What is the biggest gardening headache it solves?

The biggest headache it solves is figuring out what to do and when to do it in your garden - based on your location. We take the guesswork out of gardening for so many people and give them the confidence to grow. It also saves our users a TON of time with many users saying their planning process is 5X or more faster using Seedtime than before. (See testimonials here).

Are there any Seedtime features in the works that will make gardeners and their plants do a happy dance?

YES! We are currently working on inventory tracking. So if you’re tired of sifting through half used seed packets, never sure of what you have on hand or what you need to purchase - this will be a complete game changer making inventory tracking so incredibly easy. We are also planning to integrate weather data directly into the calendar with past weather info and future forecasting. And coming soon is record keeping and analytics as well.

As a gardener yourself, I imagine you live and breathe the business yourself. What’s thriving in your garden right now?

Right now we are in transition into the spring. We have lettuce and kale started and are getting ready to direct seed peas, carrots, beets, and baby greens.

What was the most unexpected challenge - the rockiest soil, if you will - that you faced while starting Seedtime so far?

The most unexpected challenge was figuring out who to work with to actually build out the software. We were blessed to connect with Railsware which is the same company who originally built Calendly and have continued on with them ever since!

Favorite tech tool that helps you run Seedtime?

Our favorite tech tool… that’s a hard one. Probably our affiliate/referral platform First Promoter that makes it easy for users to share Seedtime with their friends as well as make commissions. Figma is also extremely helpful with the actual design process.

Who do you want to connect with as you grow Seedtime? How can people try Seedtime for themselves?

We’d love to connect with garden and farming influencers in the space, garden centers, and really anyone who wants to grow their own food. Seedtime has a free level where literally anyone can start growing their own food without needing to pay a dime. Users can get started directly on our website here.

Thanks Paul for coming by Beck on Tech. And happy gardening, y’all!

-Molly Beck