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It’s rare that I come across a presentation that ticks almost all the boxes. It’s a very good thing, actually, that I… Plant’s group fed into the AI tool it designed, and determined that there was a 97.7% chance that Plante would raise the money. This tool generally specifies that only about 7.5% of all presentation decks are scratch-able, so Plantee’s is positively off the charts.
However, what the bots didn’t pick up on is that Plantee’s Kickstarter campaign was canceled before it was completed, and there are some other confusing parts as well. Let’s dive in to see what’s working, and what could be improved.
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Slides in this surface
- Slide cover
- Summary slide
- Team segment
- Advisors and investors are slipping
- Task slide
- Market verification segment
- Slice the problem
- Solution slide
- Product segment
- Segment the competitive landscape
- Traction chip
- Target customer segment
- Market size segment
- GTM chip
- Segment pricing and unit economics
- Vision chip
- Slide question about money and its use
- Operation plan slide
- Close the slide
- Appendix Slide 1: Products under development
- Appendix, second slide: Sources and references
Three things to love about Plante’s promo
It turns out that the Plantee team has been reading my Pitch Deck Teardowns book very carefully indeed, and it shows. The company includes a lot of details in its surface.
This is how you do an introduction!
Slides 1 and 2 together (slide 1 at the top of the article) set the stage for the investor to 100% understand what the company is, why and how:
[Slide 2] One-page summary of applause. Image credits: plants
The opening slides for Plantee Innovations’ presentation are very solid. Between the two slides, the founders provide a clear and engaging introduction to what the company stands for and aims to achieve. The brief overview grabs the audience’s attention from the start but also serves the dual purpose of efficiently leveling investors and filtering interest based on alignment of the investment thesis. The cover slide includes “IoT Smart Home/B2C Consumer Electronics/AgriTech/Raising $1.7M” — it’s basically a keyword bingo game that helps investors decide whether or not to bank on it. And this is a good thing: if this company is not a good fit for investors, they can move on immediately.
Gotta love a good technology solution
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a geek, and I love good hardware. I also love plants. I have dozens all over my apartment, and I can keep most of them alive. As stated, I like Plante’s approach to ensuring plant-based parenting.
[Slide 8] Technology, artificial intelligence and happy plants. Image credits: plants
I’d hazard a guess that most plant owners think about light exactly once: when they first bring a plant home. They will think about watering as much as possible, hoping that the plants will be dry, crunchy and sad in the corner of the closet. I’m glad there’s an AI that takes care of all the other stuff, because I had no idea plants needed so much!
On the one hand, this is convenient. On the other hand, maybe I’m just a naive, novice vegan parent, but this left me scratching my head. I haven’t heard anyone mention humidifying the air and heating the soil. I could be convinced that these things make a difference, sure, but I’m certainly curious to what degree they’re worth worrying about.
Good competitive scene
This market does not have many competitors. Viewed through one lens, this is a good thing: it means there is a thriving market, and Plantee can see what its competitors are doing well or poorly and position itself accordingly.
[Slide 10] That’s a lot of competitors. Image credits: plants
As a competitive overview slide, it’s pretty comprehensive. It separates the competitive landscape into “hard to grow,” “easy to grow,” and niche (e.g. mushroom/avocado growers) versus general growers. This all makes sense, but there’s still a small piece of the puzzle missing here: the only real exit in this space that I know of is… ScottsMiracle-Gro acquires AeroGarden, about 50 million dollars. It’s not the smallest acquisition in the world, but it’s not terribly encouraging either.
The other question I have is whether this dichotomy makes sense. If someone grows a bonsai — a specific use case demonstrated by the Plant team — they likely won’t repot the plant, which presents an interesting challenge. If you’re positioning yourself in the market as “you can grow anything,” I’d assume you might want to replant from time to time. However, a small bonsai tree can They grow up to 800 yearsso it’s hard to claim that the “grow all plants” argument is a strong selling point.
Three things Plante could have improved
At first glance, Blunt’s combination looks pretty impressive, and the AI tool gave it a 97% chance of success. As a human investor, I am less convinced, and I disagree with AI for several crucial reasons.
Does it make sense as a producer?
I love a good indoor growth system, and many have tried (and failed) in this area. GROW raised $2.4 million in 2017, before eventually shutting down. I reviewed the $1,000 Abby a couple of years ago, which, like Blunt, had previously sold $100,000 worth of products on Kickstarter, and it was absolutely terrible. I did too I built my own hydroponic system for less than $150which is obviously a lot of work, but it shows that these types of systems don’t have to be expensive.
Plant faces some formidable competition. At the low end, For only $40 You can opt for a pod-based hydroponic system. If you want to spend more, Click & Grow has your back. Rise Gardens recently raised a $9 million round. People kill houseplants all the time, but most of them are very easy to care for. If you need some help, a quick Google search for “AI plant growing app” gives you dozens of options, most of which are free.
The biggest challenge I have with the Plantee collection is not what is there, but what is missing: the broader context. If you take all the company’s claims seriously, it will be an extraordinary opportunity. However, zoom out a little, and talk to a few plant lovers, and you’ll realize that there’s probably not as big a gap in the market as one might think. The assumption inherent in Plant’s story seems to be that people who aren’t good with plants will spend $1,400 on a fancy automatic plant pot.
I argue that this is a fallacy and that people who are not good at plants instead get a kitten, pick up watercolors, or get a plastic plant, before they are willing to invest four months of car payments in a fancy piece of technology.
So what happened to that Kickstarter campaign?
[Slide 11] Blunt argues front and center that her Kickstarter campaign is part of market validation. But there is a catch. Image credits: plants
Plante, in fact, Convincing 109 supporters to pledge just over $100,000 for her product. The campaign was Fully funded in less than eight hours But it was canceled just under a month later.
What happened? Image credits: Screenshot from Kickstarter
This puts the Plantee team in a strange position: it claims that the Kickstarter campaign demonstrates market validation. And that may be true: The company says it was able to attract customers who pre-ordered for a CAC of $275. With 109 units sold, basic math suggests the company spent about $30,000 to generate $100,000 in sales. That’s not too bad, assuming there’s enough margin in the product to make the customer acquisition cost reasonable.
However, the problem is that the company does not mention anywhere in the presentation that the campaign has been cancelled, nor does it discuss it. Why have been cancelled. You could argue that it never intended to do a Kickstarter campaign and that it was just a marketing test to help confirm whether there was a market for this kind of thing.
I’m not sure this makes sense. Before Plante’s campaign, EcoQube (Funding of $300,000 in 2019),Grobox($70,000 funded in 2019), Herbert ($280,000 funded in 2019) and dozens of other experiments were already successful, and it is not entirely clear what Plante learned from this exercise. Since then, a number of others have run successful campaigns on Kickstarter (Herbstation, Planet Mars, Grow Chef).
Simply put, I’m having a hard time seeing how the Kickstarter campaign fits into the overall narrative, and by pretending to avoid the issue within the group, Blunt is doing herself no favors. Maybe I’m painfully sensitive after one of my Kickstarter campaigns It caught fire a decade agoAnd eventually She took the entire company with her, but personally, I’ll include a “So, What Happened with Kickstarter” slide in the appendix to move forward with this part of the story. Bad news must travel quickly.
A little on the dramatic side
I love a good story, don’t get me wrong, but parts of this presentation seem to have lost all perspective. Phrases like “Never lose another green baby,” “It started when my dear friend died,” and “Stress affecting farmers’ mental health” are undoubtedly powerful and emotionally charged, but for those of us who have lost a good friend, challenges serious mental health issue, or have already lost a human child, it seems insipid to compare the immense, almost unbearable pain of that to the loss of a houseplant.
[Slide 5] I’m sorry for your loss, Ondra, but this borders on bad taste. Image credits: plants.
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