FX Rouxel: Founder and CEO of Gardyn

Episode 735

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, I’m joined by FX Rouxel, Founder and CEO of Gardyn — the smart indoor gardening brand reimagining how we grow and eat food at home. Gardyn empowers anyone to grow fresh, nutrient-rich produce year-round with no green thumb required. Using patented Hybriponics® technology, AI-powered plant care, and optimized LED lighting, Gardyn delivers 8–10 pounds of produce monthly — enough to feed a family of four — all from just 2 square feet of space.
Before launching Gardyn, FX was training for an Ironman when he noticed his energy plateauing despite following a healthy diet. He realized that much of the “fresh” produce he ate had lost nutritional value during long transit times. Drawing on his background in clean energy, automation, and AI, he created Gardyn as a more sustainable, nutrient-dense, and convenient alternative to the modern food system. Since then, Gardyn has been named one of TIME’s Best Inventions, recognized as one of TIME’s Top Greentech Companies, and honored by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards. FX opens up about the inspiration behind Gardyn, the challenges of rethinking food production, and his vision for a more sustainable, food-secure future.
Whether you’re passionate about wellness, sustainability, or the future of food, this episode is packed with insight and inspiration. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m joined by FX Rexel, who is the founder and CEO of Gardyn, the revolutionary smart indoor Gardyning system that makes it possible for anyone to grow fresh, nutrient rich produce at home, year round, and it’s actually more than produce, because I have some marigolds going right now on my beautiful system. So Gardyn is spelled with a Y, by the way, in case you’re Googling it right now and checking out their website, it isn’t just another gadget. It’s a patented hybriponics technology, AI powered plant care and the ability to grow over 120 varieties in just two square feet. It’s changing how we think about food. So such an incredible idea, such an incredible execution. I can’t wait to hear about how the idea was born and what he realized was missing in the market, and how he decided just because something’s missing in the market doesn’t mean you go start a company around it. So I I’m very impressed by everything FX has done. So welcome FX, super excited to have you

FX Rouxel 2:02
here. Hi, Kara, thank you very much for having me super excited as well.

Kara Goldin 2:06
Very, very excited. So I was not familiar with with Gardyn and what an amazing, amazing system I have it set up actually in the corner. You’ll never believe this, but my living room, and it looks absolutely beautiful, and people think that I have a green wall, which I guess I do, but it’s when we hear the system. Every morning. It’s very quiet, but you hear the dripping. People are like, what is that? And I’m like, Oh, my Gardyn is getting nourished. So I’m very, very thrilled with everything about it visually as well as how it all works. But how would you describe Gardyn, for the first time user that is thinking about, what is this system? What is this company? Yeah,

FX Rouxel 2:57
that’s a great question. So at the end of the day, you know, we want people to have access to healthy food. And we were thinking, Is it possible for everyone, everybody, to have a vertical Gardyn at home with no green thumb? And the main issue most people have is, you know, everybody would love to have a Gardyn, but you have no time, you have no space, you have no skills, no green thumb to take care of it. Everybody would love to be able to go to their own Gardyn and harvest produce and have a super healthy dinner, obviously, but that’s not the case. That’s not the case because it’s really hard, but life is busy. Our goal is to make this possible using technology. And we were thinking, could we imagine a system that would be super compact, that you could have in every home, that would be fully autonomous, that you don’t you don’t need to take care of, you don’t need to have skills or green thumb to take care of, that would just grow everything you want to grow at home. And that’s what we did with with Gardyn. To your point, most people have it in their living room. It’s a beautiful object. It’s just two square feet, and on this two square feet, you can grow enough food to feed a family of four people with a big salad every day. So that’s the total revolution.

Kara Goldin 4:07
So when I originally set it up in the living room, I was my husband was actually setting it up, and I said, just so you know, don’t set it up so that it’s going to be permanent, because I don’t know how it’s gonna look. And let’s just put it over here for now and see what happens. And it’s, I mean, it’s now a part of the living room, so it’s, it’s, uh, really terrific,

FX Rouxel 4:31
correct? And you know, to your point, what we see is most people buy it because they’re like, I want healthy food. This is super important for me, for my family. I want also something that is sustainable, that is that has no impact on the planet. Impact on the planet. There is zero pesticide. It’s using 95% less water. So that’s a perfect solution for yourself, but also for the for the planet. What we’re seeing after a few months is people just also love it, for the look of it, because it’s beautiful, because it’s plus, because it’s it’s mindful. We have a lot of people. Telling us, You know what? It’s in my living room when friends come. That’s the main, you know, topic we’re talking about. And I just love it. I look, I look, I love sorry, the look of it, the plants are like smiling to me. We have people doing meditation in front of it every morning, and that’s something we, you know, I’m super proud of, is we’re seeing we’re really helping people having a healthier lifestyle. When we see when we say healthier lifestyle, it’s about food, for sure, but it goes way beyond. It’s about mental health. I think we live in a world where it’s crazy busy, it’s stressful. Things are moving super fast. At some point you want your home to be this nest where you feel comfortable, where you feel mindful, where you can recharge. And I think that’s also what Gardyn is bringing to

Kara Goldin 5:45
people, definitely. So I read, you’re an Iron Man.

FX Rouxel 5:49
I love doing long distance, you know, swimming, cycling, running, and when I started doing this a long time ago, I realized that nutrition is paramount, and that’s how I realized that actually what we’re eating every day is just sorry for the term crap. And even you, if you try to go to a great grocery store, buy produce that are pretty expensive at the end of the day, most produce in this country is produced and harvested many weeks, sometimes months, prior to reaching the shelf. So that means, at the end of the day, what you buy, something that looks great, but there is nothing left inside. There is no nutrient. There is no vitamin left. And that’s something I realized doing this long distance, long distance, poor you really realize that actually you are what you eat, and you really want to pay

Kara Goldin 6:38
attention to your nutrition, definitely. So you come from a background in technology and clean energy. How did that expertise help you to not only design but actually have Gardyn, the the actual product made?

FX Rouxel 6:54
Yeah, that’s a great question at the end, that you realize that you know someone said you can connect the dot the dots only backwards, and I think that’s true. When I started my career, I was really interested in technology, in also helping the planet and being trying to protect what we have for the future generations. So I work in these fields, and it’s really only later on that I realized that this very strong interest in technology and protecting the planet, and then nutrition through sport was, you know, leading me to trying to invent something like Gardyn, so that that’s really where it’s coming from. It’s really a mix of, how can we have our own food with zero pesticide, no GMO, you know, no impact on the planet, have a healthy diet, and at the same time doing it in a way that is that is good for the planet, and that’s where Gardyn comes

Kara Goldin 7:45
from. So how long did it take you from the concept that I’m going to go and start Gardyn to actually having the a product that maybe a prototype and then a product that you could actually sell?

FX Rouxel 7:59
Yeah, to your point, it’s entrepreneurship, you know, it’s always ups and downs. It’s really hard. I started with this idea in 2018 looking at so I was working in AI at that time, at that time, AI was not that well known. It was not the buzzword that it is today, but it was really clear that AI could really change the world and bring a lot of value. So I was thinking, Could we use AI to do something good for this world? And, you know, I was really focused on nutrition, really focused on growing my own food. My question to myself was, Can I use AI to grow food? And that’s how I started. I started in my garage, you know, the very usual way, trying to build prototypes. I bought a printers. I put three printers on my kitchen top. I enroll my wife and my two boys to actually do shifts around the the printers to try to start, you know, prototyping some some parts and build the first systems. And guess what? It failed miserably. The first systems I built were so bad and it wasn’t working and it was breaking, and that was, that was a nightmare. And it took me months and months of iterating and trying to new things and so on to anyway, come up with something that I was like, Hmm, now it seems that it’s it’s working. It was pretty clumsy and not great, but it was kind of doing the job. And I was like, Hey, I have something I’m gonna, you know, now, go to the market and have this big company and so on. And my wife told me, No way. She told me, you know, FX, be serious. You know, you you know, we have a mortgage. We have kids are gonna go to college. You cannot just drop everything for for this dream of yours, that’s not serious. And she was right, and she was right. And I said, Okay, you know, that makes sense. So what do you think I should do? And she told me, you know, I think you should test it. You cannot just go like this with just because you are excited. You need to make sure, you know, we call it product market fit. We you need to make sure that other. People feel like you and like it. I said, Okay, but how can I do that? And she suggested, you know, you have these 3d printers, maybe, instead of using them for prototyping, use them to build a few systems and give them to France. And that’s what we did. So I built in the range of 15 to 20 different prototypes of Gardyn at that time, pretty again, pretty ugly, but, you know, functional. And I gave them to France, and I told her, you know, I’m going to ask them what they think about it. And she said, No, no, no, you won’t. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it because I really want a fair and non biased view of this. And again, she was right, because, you know, when you when you start something, when you create something, it’s like, you know, a parent looking at their baby, it’s always the most beautiful baby, and the reality may be very different. So she was right. We gave this to France. We gave them a few months to, you know, play with this and experience it. And then she went through every of them to ask. She’s very organized. She had this long list of questions and question and form and sort of survey. And then she came back to me and said, Okay, effects, you know, I went through everybody, and here are the results. I was like, Okay, well, what if? What are they thinking? You know, is it, is it, is it okay? Or are they excited? Are they disappointed? Is it, is it, does it make sense? And she said, You know what the main feedback is, there is still a lot of work. There is a lot of things to improve. It’s it’s far from perfect, of a lot of things that are not great, that needs to be fixed. But overall, they love the experience. They love the ability to be able to grow their own food. It is super delicious. It’s super tasty. There are a lot of things that needs to be improved, but there is something there I think FX, you should go and and start this company. And that’s how it went. And that’s, you know, how I formally incorporated the company and started got it?

Kara Goldin 12:01
Yeah, so the first one from the time you were tinkering in your garage and and putting something together to actually selling it, it often takes a lot longer than you ever think to actually get to a prototype. So what was that like? How long did it take?

FX Rouxel 12:21
It took us basically almost two years to get to something that we could start selling. Because at the end to your point, First there is the idea, and then you’re like, Okay, how do I move from an idea to something that is real, concrete, that is that is kind of working. So that’s the product prototyping phase. But then these things needs to be manufactured. So it needs to be designed and or redesigned so that it can be manufactured. And you need to find partners. You need to do all these designs. So that’s what we did, basically. So most of the R D I did in 2018 moving into 2019 I started working on the real design that can be manufactured. Try to find partners. I found a great partner at that time in China to manufacture this. I went to this place many times, and then, you know, it’s, it’s always the chance. I remember, I was finalizing the manufacturing of the first batch of Gardyn. So I was in the factory with this partner to make sure that it was manufactured the right way, with the right level of quality, and so on. That was in January 2020 I was in China in January 2020 in this factory trying to make sure that all the Gardyns would be manufactured the right way. That was the first container, the first batch. And then when I left, that was end of January, I left China, and I took a few audience with me. I put the container on the on the sea, went back to the US, and then made a few friends, and they told me, what are you saying? You ain’t you in China? Have you heard about this thing? There is kind of a virus over there, like Corona something. I was like, No, I have no clue. You know, they were not talking about any virus in China for people being in China. And I was not in Wuhan. I was in the it was in China when I was in the south of China. But, but, yeah, so everybody was scared, like, hey, FX, are you bringing this virus back? I was not, obviously, but, um, the thing that is crazy, if you think about it, is, I left China, I came back to the US. January 2020, a few days after I left China, China just went into lockdown. And then the containers arrived in the US, early March 2020, lockdown in the US was March 12, 13, something like so that would these containers had arrived, you know, just a few days later, there would be no Gardyn, there would be no discussion today together. So that’s really, I think, what it is being an entrepreneur is, you know, you need to, you need to move fast, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. But you also need to be lucky. And that’s what happened with us.

Kara Goldin 14:57
Yeah, definitely. So how many? What was like the first. Order that actually arrived. How big was it, and how scary Was that too? I mean, obviously nobody had really, I mean, there wasn’t much of a comparison to what occurred during that time in 2024 especially for a brand new founder. So like, what I mean, what was that risk at that point?

FX Rouxel 15:23
Yeah, I mean, you know, at the other day, you believe in what you’re doing, so you’re placing orders. That means you’re spending your own money to try to get this thing manufactured, hoping that you’re going to be able to sell it. So you always start with a small batch. But you know, to your point, what we look now looking back as a small batch at that time, was a lot, you know, I think the container was like, 300 Gardyns. That’s what we had to start with. So pretty limited number, small number. But back then, you know, when you’re just a small team and that’s a lot, and you’re like, Hey, are we going to find a way to sell these 300 Gardyns? And that was a big question mark. Guess what? Fast forward, we sold north of 100,000 of them so far. So that’s, you know, you see the scale and how fast things can can change. But to your point, when you start 300 is a big figure. Few years later, that’s a small thing that makes you smile.

Kara Goldin 16:17
So you have a registered trademark, hybriponics. Can you talk about the difference between that and maybe hydroponics, which I think many people have heard about.

FX Rouxel 16:30
Yeah, absolutely. So. Hydroponics is this very common technology whereby you grow plants using water, and that means there is no soil, and the plants are getting the nutrients from the water. The nutrients are dissolved in the water. There are many different types of hydroponics. When I started working on Gardyn, I was really wondering how we can make sure we can grow enough food for people. And if you think about it, most people have a house or an apartment. It’s not that much space, so you need to have something that is very compact. So that means we had to really imagine a new system, a new technology that would allow to grow a lot of food in a very compact space. And to get there, we totally re imagined this hydroponic technology. We had to it had to be vertical, it had to be with a very high density of plants. It had also to make sure that the plants were getting the best conditions in terms of nutrients and watering and light and everything. And by working on this, we ended up with this totally new technology that we ended up patent, and we have like 25 or 30 pallets on this, and it’s called hybrid products, these technologies. What is amazing with this technology is that’s the highest density of food that exists today. That means, in just two square feet, in your apartment, in your house, you can grow enough food for family for and that’s the game changer.

Kara Goldin 17:49
So when I say the name Kelby, what comes to mind? Yeah,

FX Rouxel 17:54
Kelby is our AI. The beauty of this system is it’s driven by AI. AI is really a buzzword now, so you’re gonna tell me, Hey, what is it that is doing? Actually, what the system does it? There are a lot of sensors, temperature, humidity. The system is looking at your plans, to understand what are the plants that are there, how fast they are growing, and so on, and then optimizing the growth of your plants, and also letting you know if you need to do anything about your plants, and we give a name to this, to the CI we call it Kelby. Kelby actually is a Gaelic name. It’s pretty ancient name that can be male or female, and it means fountain of life. And we were finding that, you know, fountain of life for something that is about water and that is about creating life and bringing life to this world was really a great name. So Kelby is the name of this AI. And what Kelby does is gonna Kelby is looking at your plants, 24 by seven, optimizing their growth, and then letting you know step by step if there is anything that you need to know or do about your plants. And that way, most people that have a Gardyn had to keep no green thumb. They have no clue. They just they are busy people. They just want to enjoy amazing plants, and krB takes care of this for them.

Kara Goldin 19:10
So when we first received our Gardyn, it was, you know, we got a variety of as I mentioned, it wasn’t just produce, but it was also some flowers as well, which are quite beautiful. It took probably to sprout. It took a couple of weeks. Now we have a very full experience a couple of months in. It’s really, really incredible and tasty. I should also mention too and so easy as well. As to your point, I was really concerned that there might be, it might attract bugs, and we have a lot of insects outside so, but nothing. I mean, it is just, it’s absolutely terrific. So. So when you think about maybe the moment since launching, where you started to hear consumer stories and you said, Okay, this is working like we’ve got a company here. We’re doing something, right? Do you remember any of those stories that kind of helped you to keep going, especially when things get a little challenging, you know, those, those are the love stories that help.

FX Rouxel 20:28
Yeah, no. Ton of stories. And I think that’s the beauty of the life of entrepreneur. You have a lot of stories positive and negative that you need to to, you know, live with. One thing that I really vividly remember is this email I got from a very early customer. When people get the device, they get an email from me saying, Hey, we’re super, super proud that you’re part of this Gardyn community. If you need anything, let me know, and I sign and I give my email so people can reach out. Obviously, we have a customer service that is helping everyone. But if people are like, hey, I want to talk to the CEO, because there is something I don’t like or something I want. Something I want different. I’m super happy to hear from people. So this guy sent me this email back, and the email was really weird, and that’s why I still remember it vividly. It was starting like, I hate you. That was the beginning of email, I hate you. I was like, wow, that’s going to be a hard email, you know, and you’re receiving a lot of emails, so some emails are positive, some are pretty negative, and you just need to deal with it. That’s, that’s the the job of, you know, managing the company. So the email started with, I hate you. You know, I hate you. I spent so much time looking at your website and trying to understand what this system was about and whether it could work for me, and what is it that I could draw on this, and whether it would be hard or not, whether that would be a lot of work, and so on. And I ended up buying your stuff, your Gardyn, and I hate you because I love it. It was so hard for me to make a decision, and your website sucks because your product is so great, you should have a much better website to explain how beautiful, how amazing, how easy it is. And you know, so I see that was several years ago. I still remember this email, because I was like, wow, that’s gonna be a hard one. And the guy was, right. I mean, I think, I think we have a product that is really amazing that people love at that time. Our website was really bad, and we it was really hard, and I think it’s really hard. Also, you know, when you do something new that doesn’t exist to explain what it is about, and that’s kind of what you said. Also, Kara, you say, hey, you know, I got this stuff. I was not sure. I tried it, and now I love it, and that’s the case for most of the new staff. And I would say the main challenge we have as a new company developing a new product. I mean, we’ve been now in this field for many, many years, but it’s really for people who come up, who are in touch with us for the first time, like, what is this? This makes sense. Is it going to really produce a lot? Yes, it will. Is it really easy? Because they’re saying it’s easy. Is it really true? Actually, it is true. But, you know, it’s really about trying to make sure people understand what it is about, so that they can really, at some point, adopt this, this new system. And what we’re seeing is, when people adopt it, they just love it. So that was really the memory I would say that this email I got.

Kara Goldin 23:23
I love it. So when you receive the Gardyn and all of the different the produce and the flowers, the seeds, then you also subscribe. And so can you talk about what that subscription does for people? Is it part of what they need to do, or is it something that a that somebody doesn’t have to do in order to have success with the Gardyn system?

FX Rouxel 23:52
That’s a great question. This subscription is absolutely optional. You absolutely don’t need to take it. So when you when you buy your Gardyn system. It comes to your place within a few days. Our warehouses in, you know, we have three warehouses on the West Coast, Texas and east coast. So basically, within two days, you’re gonna get your Gardyn. It comes with everything to get green. So you get, obviously, your device. We have two models. We have a small one that is called Gardyn studio, perfect for, typically two people in apartment. We have got in a home that is the big system. Bigger systems, two square feet, still pretty compact, perfect for house and a family. And it comes with everything. It comes with the plant food. It comes with all the plants that you can start growing. These plants come as a we call it a white cube. So it’s a cube like this, and you just put it in your in the pot, and then you put it in the in the colons, and it sauce, you know, growing. So you get everything to get growing. In addition, you can also take this this membership, if you want to, if you don’t take this membership any way, you can use the Gardyn app. You can manage your your Gardyn the way you want. You can. Order all the plants you want from the Gardyn app. Very early on, people told us, You know what I want, something simple. I want something that is kind of all you can grow. System. Can you do something like kind of a bundle? And that’s how we came up with this membership. In this membership, you have two things, you have all the plants you want. So typically, if you have a Gardyn home, we give you credits for 10 plants every month. You can order whatever you want, free shipping and so on. So it’s really all you can grow. And with this membership, come also care the and the ability to have someone that is looking at your Gardyn 24 by seven and hand holding you step by step. And the reality is, most people also you’re really free to take this membership or not, but it’s a brick it’s really a big bargain. You’re getting all these plants for free. You’re getting 60% on any additional plants you want. The result is, most people, the vast majority of people, actually take it, because it’s really it’s really good bargain.

Kara Goldin 25:54
Is there something you’ve created as part of the Gardyn system that has kind of surprised you. Either it’s been, you know, amazingly received, or hard for for consumers, and you thought it’d be way easier for people to to kind of catch on to,

FX Rouxel 26:15
I would say the the one thing that really surprised me is the emotion that is attached to the Gardyn system when you know, I’m an engineer, I developed this system with our team to fix a problem, to address the problem. The problem was, I want to have access to healthy food. I want my own food at home with your pesticide. I want to be super healthy. That was the problem I was trying to solve, and I think we did it in the Gardyn system is really amazing for that. What surprised me is actually people telling us, yes, it’s working super great, but I love it. And it’s really this emotional side of things that we were not expecting. People are super proud of what they’re growing, even though dei is doing most of the work. People are like, Hey, these are my plants. These are my babies, you know. And people are very proud of it. They spend time with it, they look at it, they talk to them, you know. I’m sure some people are singing songs, you know, at night to make sure they have a nice sleep. And I think this is amazing. And in particular, for all these, all the people who are listening to us today, who have kids, I have two kids, I see the impact it had on them, because suddenly, you know, they were able to relate to plants, to see these tiny little sprouts growing and then turning into real plants, and then harvesting them. And that was so easy, based on this, to actually have them eat healthier, you know, eat healthy, but also for them to really relate to nature, understand what it is about. And I think growing to healthier, more balanced adults. So this emotional side of things is something I was not expecting. That is huge.

Kara Goldin 27:50
Yeah, definitely. So when you think about success, what is success for you? FX

FX Rouxel 27:57
for me, success is making it possible for everyone to have access to the lifestyle that they deserve, having a healthy lifestyle in particular for the future generations and kids. We’re also working a lot with schools. So in my mind, success is having a Gardyn in every home. That would be my dream.

Kara Goldin 28:15
I love it. Well. Thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve got a world changing idea, time fast companies so many have recognized Gardyn as just this incredible, incredible company, but also product that is really, really changing the space. So thank you so much for doing what you’re doing and disrupting and innovating. I mean, you’ve just really created something special. So for all of you listening, be sure to check out my Gardyn. And again, it’s with a y, y n.com to explore more of what the Gardyn system is doing, the smart indoor Gardyning system. You won’t be sorry. I’m obsessed with mine, and I’m going to have a salad for lunch today from there. So I’m very, very excited to be able to say that. So until next time, thanks for listening, and thanks again FX for joining us today.

FX Rouxel 29:16
Thank you for having me. Bye, bye.

Kara Goldin 29:20
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you, too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.

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