Gift-A-Green’s Bryan Kinney shares how to grow a successful business

The path to starting your own business is different for every entrepreneur we speak with. Some paths are straight from point A to point B. They start with a great idea for a product, they find a way to produce, and they take it to market. Others find inspiration during a struggle in their lives – a job loss, a change in the family, a mistake – and turn that into a new business that changes their lives.

For Gift-a-Green's Bryan Kinney, the inspiration for his business came from working at a tech startup. It was a round-a-bout way to get from building a mobile app product to microgreens in a pouch  – and we were excited to sit down with Bryan to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey.

Tell us about how you got started with your business, Gift-a-Green.

It's a funny story. It started by accident, which lots of businesses kind of do. I was involved in a tech company several years back, and we were developing an app for your phone. The whole premise was about contact information where two people would download an app and connect through it. Anytime you had to change contact information, you would update your profile which would sync in real-time. We built that, and I thought, okay, people don't change their information all that much. How do we keep them engaged and using the app? 

So the idea came up that we need to build a gifting function, and we need a product. We came up with this idea of Gift-a-Green through some research and development. It's a greeting card that's a pouch with microgreens inside. There's some soil, and you can write a message on the back. You can mail it out to somebody, and when they get it, they get the lovely note, of course, but open it up, and they have a tangible use for it. Just add water, and it grows into organic microgreens. It’s a perfect little gift that someone gets to enjoy for an extended period of time and the final use is the best part, they can eat it! 

We love how the feature used to get people to use an app became its own product. What happened next?

I decided to take what had become a retail product – Gift-a-Green – and I took that side of the business and went my separate way. In time, Gift-a-Green became less of a retail product and more of a direct-to-consumer and corporate customer product.

In our early days, we went on Dragon's Den with the product as a prototype and struck a deal with two of the Dragons. But that never panned out. The episode never aired on TV, and I think it's because I had backed out of the deal. Shortly after we recorded the episode, the business started to go in a real positive direction. The valuation I accepted on Dragon's Den didn't make any sense. Five years later, the product is still going strong. We have many great followers and customers – Chocolate Soup is one of them. I'm just really delighted that this product that I created  has resonated with so many people. 

What's a typical day like for you with the business today?

It's funny because Gift-a-Green is a bit of a side hustle. I'm involved in a corporate career for my full-time gig. I've recently brought in a partner to help me run the business. So a typical day for me is getting up early and addressing emails, and all of the orders that have come in. I have a small team that works with me to process those orders, get them ready for the day. 

Is it hard balancing your day job and Gift-a-Green? 

It can be extremely challenging, I have a young family as well, but honestly, I love it! I love the idea of Gift-a-Green. So even though it's a lot of work, it’s so much fun and amazing to see something you have created from scratch be successful. . It's something that I wish I had more time to do. I'm creating new products, new designs, things like that – it's energizing for me. It's exhilarating when I see all of the positive social media feedback. It makes me want to go even further. 

What would you say is your one biggest lesson from starting the business and running it?

You know, there's a lot of mistakes, as you'll always hear. It's a cliche in business, but there are always many errors that are great learning experiences. But for me, the number one thing that I've learned is to manage inventory. It can be the entrepreneur's death knell. I got excited early on about the product, how big the market was, and where we were going with it. So I just stocked up way too much product and spent way too much capital and doing that. Then the problem becomes now you have to sell it. If you don't have much working capital to operate the day-to-day business, you can get yourself into trouble. My biggest learning is to make sure you're managing the business, understand the market, know your sales channels, and what your potential is.

Where do you see your business growing in the next five years?

I certainly could see the business becoming my full-time job. My other career, I love that as well, and this has been manageable for me to do off the side. But I think the business would have been a lot bigger by now had I dedicated my full time to it. I've brought on a new business partner who will help me build it and take the business to new heights.

We have a really good strategy for entering the U.S. through the direct-to-consumer and retail markets. In the next two to three years, our business will likely triple in size based on our projections. 

What's your favourite product? The one you'd personally choose to send to someone?

My product of choice is the You Broc Broccoli Microgreens greeting card pouch. It's quickly become our number one seller. It's broccoli microgreens, and I think just the colorful play on words that's a little bit out of the norm of the traditional greeting card and its fun and light which is what we are all about.

I got tons and tons of requests for that, and when it went into production, it quickly sold out. There's a learning experience there. Now for the next order that we bring in, we will bring in a lot more quantity of that product because it's now a top seller. 

What do you love most about the business? 

For me, it's not any one thing. It's a little bit of everything. Working with great customers, the sales and marketing, talking to new customers that will email me and say, 'Oh, I found your product. I love it. We want to order it for our employee appreciation.' It's inspiring for something that you have created. When those things happen, I want to step on the gas and keep going. 

I have a young family, and I work with my kids. They help me pack orders. They help me make pouches – it's super fun. They're helping me grow the pouches – they love to water them and watch them grow. And surprisingly, they will eat their greens because they've grown them. So it's a little bit of everything in the business. All of the pieces come together and keep moving. It's just inspiring. I wish there was more time in the day!

What has it been like working with Chocolate Soup?

We have a great relationship. I connected with PJ a couple of years ago, and she had discovered the product and had some questions. I sent a couple of samples, and she loved the product and thought it would be an excellent fit for the gift boxes. We did one order and got a positive response. Distributing through Chocolate Soup has been very positive for us. 

Want to share Gift-A-Green pouches with your team? Contact us today to learn more about our subscription and one-time employee appreciation gift boxes.