Hi,
It’s Jared (founder of Terrashroom)
Just wanted to share what we've been up to, give an update on the business, & what the upcoming months look like.
Before we get into this email, to all of our backers & supporters - thank you.
We have some of the most passionate & wonderful people supporting our mission (you know who you are) and we want to take a second to express our sincere gratitude. Thank you x10000.
What we've been up to
Terrashroom has been a rocket ship lately & we are working tirelessly to make sure we build:
- An incredible product
- An operationally sound business (that can serve & support your mushroom cultivation for years to come)
Terrashroom is still a very small team & we are working overtime to make sure we accomplish these goals.
Here’s what we’ve been working on lately:
-Product (app/software, firmware, hardware, etc.)
-Emails, emails, emails
-Fundraising & investor management
-Recruiting & hiring
-Marketing
-Legal & intellectual property
-Setting up/dealing with supply chain & material sourcing
-Answering facebook/instagram comments & messages (& fending off internet trolls)
+ millions of other tasks
We have been working through hundreds of design iterations, testing, refining, testing, refining, etc. & we are maniacal about engineering a superb, high quality product that you will love.
Our goal is not follow the same path of the world of fast consumerism where cheaply-built products break after 2-4 months of use.
Terrashroom is being designed with an incredible amount of thought + detail so you can grow hundreds (maybe even thousands) of pounds of mushrooms over the lifetime of a single Terrashroom.
Quality takes time :)
Update on the business
Terrashroom has transformed from a weekend hackathon project to a substantial business, with thousands of supporters in a matter of months.
Our business boils down to 3 main things:
- People
- Capital
- Product
Below we’ll discuss more details around each of these areas.
People:
Part of building something great requires having talented & dedicated people on board.
We are quickly building out a roster of A-player individuals who can help us build out the Terrashroom mission.
-World class engineers & designers
-Investors & advisors (many who built $100M+ businesses)
-Influencers & advisors (their media accounts have millions of subscribers)
-Wildly talented marketers & creative producers
We are sharing this because we’ve been deeply focused on building the human-capital infrastructure that allows us to build a better product, business, and provide you with the absolute best mushroom grow experience possible.
Capital:
Building any business is expensive & capital-intensive.
Terrashroom knew early on that raising money from investors would allow us the financial padding to be thorough on building, manufacturing, & distributing the best mushroom grow chamber on the planet.
Thanks to a handful of prominent angel-investors who believed in our mission, we've raised a sizable amount that helps us be financially stable without being overly-reliant on the deposits or (soon) pre-orders from the terrashroom community.
After many conversations with early supporters, it’s clear that a many are interested in investing in terrashroom while we are a small startup.
We expect to raise additional investment funds in the spring/summer next year (2023) through an equity crowdfunding platform (i.e. WeFunder). These funds would primarily be used to hire employees, R&D for product expansion, etc.
Perks of investing in terrashroom include:
-free product (terrashroom + other supplies)
-unique terrashroom swag
-access to exclusive company insights & information
-invite to the terrashroom investor retreat (Q3/Q4 2023)
If you would like more info on investing in Terrashroom (minimum investment check size is $250) you can learn about investing in terrashroom here.
Product:
As we've continued with testing & product development, we've made a laundry list of improvements & upgrades.
Here's what we've been working on:
-
Upgraded & expanded the Terrashroom grow chamber size.
This allows for even larger mushroom grow cakes, more aesthetic viewer appearance, & bigger potential yields.
-
Testing different time lapse camera modules.
Test parameters include autofocus capabilities, full field of view, excellent depth of field, good color saturation & high visibility in low light conditions.
- Re-designing & modifying systems to allow for damage-prone parts for self-repair.
- Airflow simulation testing.
-
Auto-desiccation system.
This allows you to both grow & dry your mushrooms within the Terrashroom chamber.
- Expanding the lighting total lumen capacity to accommodate non-mushroom grows (i.e. allow you to grow carnivorous plants, rare orchids, microgreens, etc.)
- iOS/Android app & wifi device connectivity.
The future of Terrashroom
Our singular concern is getting a quality product available to pre-order & then shipped out to you ASAP.
With the many product changes we’ve made, this has slightly pushed back our launch timeline.
We’ve decided to push back our launch date to early spring 2023. The reasoning behind this is as follows:
- We’ve made many highly visible improvements to the product in the past 45 days.
- We want to make sure that these changes are reflected in product photos & videos that we advertise on launch day.
In short, we had some hard conversations in recent weeks about this launch date.
We believe it’s in the customer’s best interest (and the ethically the right thing to do) to wait a little bit longer & make sure we are marketing & selling pre-orders for a product that is a near exact representation of what you’ll be receiving in the mail.
With this in mind, here’s the timeline we are now expecting:
- Launch date (when we will accept terrashrooom pre-orders) - January/early February 2023 (~45 days)
- Ship date - late spring/summer 2023.
Please note, we are working 80+ hours/week to shorten this launch & ship timeline as much as possible. If you have questions or frustrations, please shoot me an email personally at jared (at) terrashroom (dot) co.
As stated before - we are maniacal about shipping an ultra high quality product that is engineered to last. Quality takes time & we are doing our absolute best.
Good things come to those who wait :)
Takeaways
Many supporters have asked how they can get involved with terrashroom, here’s a couple of ways you can get involved:
-
Spread the love - share Terrashroom with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, etc.. We’ve set up a referral system so you you get rewarded with amabassdorship, laptop stickers, free mushroom grow cakes, & terrashroom hoodies.
Terrashroom referral program + mega giveaway
-
Help us build & grow terrashroom- launching a business is challenging & there’s a million areas we could use additional help with.
If you’re interested in helping more with terrashroom, you can learn more about ways to put your unique skillsets to use below.
Rewards include free swag, product, and will be put at the top of the list for future hires.
Help build + grow terrashroom here.
-
Give feedback - customer feedback is really useful to us & we love to hear your thoughts & suggestions.
Also, by completing this survey you win points towards getting swag, stickers, & free product.
Terrashroom customer survey.
-
Invest in terrashroom - we will be launching an equity crowdfunding campaign early 2023 so anyone (you don’t need to be an accredited investor) can support us.
More info about investing in terrashroom here.
We couldn't be more excited to be building a product that we believe will play a significant impact on the wellbeing of millions of lives.
Your help & contributions are powering us forward & we're immensely grateful to be working alongside & guided by such gifted individuals.
Thanks,
Jared
If you missed this customer update in your inbox, please sign up for our mailing list here: https://terrashroom.io/pages/join-waitlist