Sprouthood cofounder Ryan Albritton
St. Louis startup
Sprouthood hosted its launch party in the midst of the fifth annual
St. Louis Sustainable Backyard Tour. Started by musician turned entrepreneur Ryan Albritton and two others, Sprouthood is an app that aims to connect you to food growing around you. “We connect gardeners and urban farmers,” said Albritton, “so that they coordinate planting and harvests.”
Really, the idea is bigger than that. “I got the idea from my own gardening experience, growing food in my backyard,” said Albritton, “and I have sold some of my produce before to others and once, even to a Chef, which was cool.” Sprouthood has a lot of cool features built in, and its easy to see the ecommerce opportunities that can be added as Sprouthood grows. Right off the bat, I asked if Sprouthood would make it possible for one user to sell to another while Sprouthood takes a small percentage. “That isn’t the plan right now, as we are leaving it to our users to work out transactions themselves.”
Project Garlic in Albritton’s personal garden
The main focus is to launch in St. Louis, and then start launching other cities from there. “We want to sell heirloom seeds to backyard gardeners, and we have other plans for how we make revenue and scale.” Sprouthood is currently in beta, so to get access you need to sign up and be get sent an invite code from the site. “We hope that people in St. Louis are excited, and even other startup entrepreneurs. Gardening is good for everyone, and its fun” said Albritton as he showed off his ‘Project Garlic’ to me (pictured). Sprouthood is in beta, but you can register to get free access now by visiting the site and requesting an invite code.
