Toward Accessibility – PlantWave (2019-Present)
By 2016, MIDI Sprout had cultivated a cult following among musicians and sound designers. But as we traveled to festivals and museums, we kept encountering a different kind of user. These weren't people who wanted to plug a device into a synthesizer; they just wanted to listen. They wanted the connection with nature, not the technical hurdle of the interface.
We tried to bridge this gap with an iPhone bundle, but it required a MIDI-to-Lightning cable that cost us $40 wholesale just to acquire. It was clunky and expensive. We realized that if we wanted to truly democratize this experience, we needed to cut the cords. We needed a wireless, app-driven experience that was beautiful and intuitive.
Turning a Bootlegger into a Partner
Interestingly, the path to building PlantWave started with a conflict. We discovered a guy in Germany named Manuel who was making and selling "bootleg" MIDI Sprouts using not only our open-source code but our trademarked name and logo as well. When I reached out to him, he was incredibly gracious. He immediately offered to change the name and even sent us his remaining stock of enclosures.
The enclosures were actually better than ours. So, instead of suing him, we hired him. We started by having him 3D print enclosures made of cork for MIDI Sprout. As the relationship growed, we worked with Manuel to prototype what would become PlantWave. We launched a Kickstarter in September 2019, raised $80,000, and planned to ship by Christmas 2020.
The Pandemic Crucible
Then, 2020 happened.
The global supply chain collapsed. We couldn't get parts from China to the US, and our team was scattered across Los Angeles, New York, and Germany. Worse, my primary source of personal income, live plant music installations and breathwork workshops, evaporated overnight due to lockdowns. The money we raised on Kickstarter was supposed to pay for manufacturing, but without other revenue coming in, we were forced to use some of it just to keep the lights on and survive.
By the fall of 2020, we received our final sample from the factory. It wasn't good enough. I had to make a choice: ship a subpar product to meet the Christmas deadline, or delay it and face the wrath of our backers.
The Integrity of the Apology
I chose the delay. But I decided I wasn't going to hide behind a faceless company email. I put my face on camera and owned it. I told our backers, "This is on me. I’m sorry."
To make it right, I made a crazy offer. Since many people had bought PlantWave as a gift, and many of the giftees were fans of me on TikTok, I offered to make a personalized video for every single gift recipient. We sent out a survey asking for the recipient's name, their favorite plant, and what they had going on in their life that might be relevant.
I spent that November recording 300 personalized one-minute videos. On Christmas morning, families gathered over Zoom to watch me explain that their gift was coming, but it was going to be late because we wanted it to be perfect. Surprisingly, people loved it. That act of vulnerability bought us time and goodwill.
Manufacturing in a Backyard
By 2021, we still couldn't use a factory in the US. So, we had all the parts shipped to our operations manager's brother's house in the San Fernando Valley.
It was insane. We had a team of eight people hand-assembling nearly 3,000 devices in a back patio next to a pool. Along the way, we discovered a design flaw where the power switch didn't line up with the enclosure, so I sat there with a Dremel tool, hand-carving the hole for the power switch on thousands of enclosures.
After about a month of long days, we gave them one last test and finally shipped them out. We thought that nightmare was over. It wasn't.
Reports started coming in. The power switches were breaking. It turned out to be a 30% failure rate. We had $3,000 left in the bank. If everyone asked for a refund, Data Garden would have gone bankrupt immediately.
Survival Mode
I had to go on camera again. I explained the failure, the broken switches, and our plan to fix it. I asked for patience one more time.
To fund the repairs, I got rid of my car and my apartment in Los Angeles, put my belongings in storage, and moved to Sayulita, Mexico, where I could live out of a backpack for $700 a month. I took on side gigs—like creating plant music for the skincare brand Tatcha—to generate the cash flow needed to hire engineers to redesign the enclosure and fix the broken units.
It took everything I had, but we didn't go under. We finally shipped the perfected units in January 2022.
Today, there are over 25,000 PlantWaves out in the wild. But that number isn't just a sales statistic to me. It’s a testament to a community that stuck with us because we told them the truth, even when the truth was that we were assembling their devices at a friend’s house and doing surgery on them with a Dremel. We built a platform for listening to nature, but we built it on a foundation of human trust.