Pre launch / Hobby Phase (2013–2015)
Blog and gardening forums
Kevin started a gardening blog as a hobby, writing about what he was learning. He commented in gardening forums and dropped links to drive early traffic to the site.
→ Baseline organic traffic; blog eventually reached ~$400/month
Going Full Time on Content (2016)
SEO — blog content
Kevin moved in with friends/family to cut living costs and spent 12 hours/day writing blog articles and researching gardening topics to scale content output as fast as possible.
→ Blog grew from ~$400/month to $2,000–$3,000/month within 2–3 months, then $4,000–$5,000/month a few months later
Year 1 Full Time (2016)
Brand deals and sponsorships
Monetized the growing blog and content audience through brand deals and sponsorships — gardening media brands and product companies paid for reviews and promotional content.
→ $70,400 in revenue for the first ~6 months full-time
Scaling Content (2017–2018)
SEO — blog content
Continued scaling educational content output. Revenue grew from $75K (2017) to $225K (2018) through the same content + sponsorship model.
→ $225K revenue in 2018 — roughly 3x year-over-year
First Product Launch (2019)
Instagram stories
Identified the most-requested product from audience comments (corrugated metal raised garden beds). Sourced an existing product from overseas that wasn't available in America, built a basic Shopify store, and promoted it via a single Instagram Story to his existing audience.
→ Sold all 250+ units within 2 weeks of posting the Instagram Story
Pivot to Owned Products (2019)
Owned audience content to ecommerce
Recognized the business model shift: instead of sponsoring other brands' products, become the brand. Split revenue model into media (sponsorships) and product (own e-commerce line), using existing content as the top-of-funnel for product sales.
→ $540K total revenue in 2019 (~$250K media + ~$250K product)
Hyper Growth (2020–2021)
Content plus ecommerce flywheel
Scaled the dual content + owned-product flywheel. Educational content drove audience growth which fed product sales. Revenue exploded, likely aided by COVID-19 gardening boom in 2020.
→ $2.8M revenue in 2020; $7.3M in 2021 — roughly 3x+ each year
Maturity (Post 2021)
Content plus ecommerce flywheel
Continued scaling the brand beyond $7.3M, reaching 'tens of millions' in annual revenue. Introduced more product lines, product development meetings, and executive operations typical of a scaled brand.
→ Tens of millions in annual revenue (exact figure not stated)