How nice would it be to have an insight in the end consumers' thoughts? The guys from the GrowIt! app are on their way to achieve it. They currently have a member group of 850,000 people and with the launch of their Question and Answer feature in the app two years ago, they are now at a point where they can start to pull out actual insights from the consumer side. At the Cultivate'19, they launched their insight program, which will be of great help for breeders, growers and retailers.
Seth Reed and Mason Day at Cultivate'19 in Columbus Ohio, USA.
Mason Day and Seth Reed launched the GrowIt! app in 2015 as a community where members could share their favorite plant photos. People added hundreds of thousands of photos, and new gardeners were able to find plants that would work in their specific locations. Over the years, the community grew and the app kept developing and two years ago, they added the Q&A feature. "Still, the community wanted more. They loved how much plant information they could find on the app, but they wanted to be able to ask more", says Mason Day.
Predicting trends
From the photos that were posted on the app, they could predict several trends, but as there wasn't any 'proof' to justify these trends, they never announced their predictions, like the succulent and houseplant trend.
Day: "In 2015 and 2016, for example, the succulent trend coming was starting as we saw a huge increase in Echeveria posts in the app. Over 1 percent (which might not sound as a huge number, but is when taking into account the large variety of plants, it is) of the posts were on Echeveria. Afterwards, we saw the trend evolving from succulents to houseplants; over 50 percent of the interactions on the platform in the past two years were on houseplants. And last year, we saw that white and yellow where the top flower colors people spoke about on the app. And at retail, we saw it flowing out of the shelves."
Insight program
So, in order to get more 'proof' for their predictions they worked several years on creating an insight program. "With this program, we take the information and activity that we get from the Q&A side and filter and categorize it. With these results, we can make better predictions and therefore support breeders, growers and retailers to better adjust to the demands of the consumers.
Expanding internationally
As for their member base, they are only in North America currently, but they are looking for ways to expand internationally. "As translation becomes more readily available and automated in the coming years, we can introduce the app more easily in other countries."
For more information:
GrowIt!
Mason Day
Email: mday@growitmobile.com
www.growitmobile.com