We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful David Stevens. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with David below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I recently decided to scale up by raising funds via investment crowdfunding at Wefunder.com/IGWorks. I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss scaling up, and why I chose investment crowdfunding to help do so.

Now that IGWorks® has developed a product that people love and a brand that people trust, it’s time to scale. Scaling, for IGWorks® means developing new products, introducing the brand to new markets, and creating further brand and product awareness. But scaling is not as easy as I imagined it to be. The biggest issue is money. Developing new products requires tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So too does manufacturing those products to sell them in new markets. And creating brand and product awareness takes even more money to market those products.

Can I scale organically? Yes, I can, and thus far I have. For instance, IGWorks® is already developing new products that we expect to launch soon. But I cannot pay for that product development, manufacturing, and advertising while at the same time creating additional products and entering new markets without raising funds.

There are a lot of ways to raise funds. Some people can depend on friends and family alone. Others take out a loan. And others raise money via venture capital and angel investors. IGWorks is taking a less traditional, but rapidly growing path to raising funds. We’re crowdfunding our investment via WeFunder.com/IGWorks.

I can certainly say that there are some pitfalls. I initially tried to raise funds with a different investment crowdfunding site. I found the company to be immoral, dishonest, and untrustworthy. Eventually, I realized that I had to move on to find a partner that had similar values to those of IGWorks, and thus far I’m very happy that I was introduced to WeFunder.

Another reason I’m happy to be raising money via investment crowdfunding is that large institutional investors often want a proportionately large, or even disproportionately large control of the company. Raising via investment crowdfunding helps me keep control of my company while still raising capital.

There are disadvantages to investment crowdfunding as well. Venture capitalists can be more than investors…they can be strategic investors with the ability to help a company scale in ways that go beyond providing money. Sometimes, industry connections and knowledge are just as valuable, or even more valuable than money. But, on the other hand, investment crowdfunding is a nice way to increase brand awareness and sales, while developing stronger connections with your customers and raising money at the same time.

Ultimately, I believe that anytime you scale a company, you must make tough decisions. Resources will always be constrained in one way or the other, so you must invest your time and money as strategically as possible. Fortunately, my decision to use investment crowdfunding as a way of scaling my business will not prevent me from using more traditional fundraising routes in the future. And, hopefully by creating new products and entering new markets, any future fundraising rounds by IGWorks® will be able to take advantage of higher valuations.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Dave Stevens, and I am the founder at IGWorks®. IGWorks® stands for Indoor Garden Works. It is the company I created when I realized that I and others wanted to grow our own food, but were limited by a lack of outdoor space, weather, seasonality or even a brown thumb. There were a few indoor gardens available at the time, but most were either too small to grow anything of significance or too ugly to want in your living room. So, I created our first product, the iHarvest® Indoor Garden that grows up to 30 plants in only 2.5 square feet of floor space. The system relies on automation and hydroponics to make growing as easy and fast as possible. Just as important, the system was made to be a beautiful work of art for your living room, both when the system is unused, and after you’ve grown a beautiful, vertical wall of fruits and veggies that you can harvest anytime. Now, I am scaling the company by developing new products and accessing new markets.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe that reputation is everything. I aspire for IGWorks® to be a combination of Apple and LL Bean. Apple is known for developing incredibly attractive and functional products that are low maintenance, easy and fun to use. LL Bean is the company that I grew up trusting whenever I purchased anything from rugged outdoor equipment to attractive clothes to live and even work in. LL Bean always stood by their products, and I knew I was purchasing a terrific product at a fair price.

In keeping with these companies ideologies, I try to build beauty and a wonderful experience into all of our products. Our customers know that IGWorks’ products are sleek and sexy, but also the easiest to use on the market. I have also avoided the gimmicks that other companies use. For instance, I built a garden intended to be ‘open source,’ where you are not forced to buy seeds and seed pods from us because they are the only ones that will work with our system. I know that our customers appreciate that, and trust that we ultimately provide the lowest cost and most customer friendly gardens on the market.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

IGWorks® spends very little on marketing at this time. Our profits from sales go, as much as possible, to building the business and developing new products, Therefore, ensuring that our customers have outstanding experiences is key to word of mouth marketing. It’s also key to our affiliate sales program, which is where we offer those who garden with our product an incentive anytime a new customer uses their discount code to make a purchase. Eventually, IGWorks® will have the resources to market more widely. But for now, the most effective strategy is building wonderful products that provide users with a wonderful experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://igworks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indoorgardenworks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndoorGardenWorks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18347685/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/IG_Works
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwVywYccMXuVpdacleS3Nqg