Evergreen Corp and How to NOT Grow A Few Things

What I learned from stealing a "No-mow grass" startup idea from a stranger

I was at the Aspen Ideas festival and chose to approach a stranger to eat dinner with. He happened to have an education non-profit, which has everything to do with grass, of course 🙄 (well, kids also grow). Really nice guy, he told me how he helped more children in the Middle East get access to quality education. Then I introduced myself as someone who engineers plants to make new things. “Plant synthetic biology is what we call it”.

We were about to say our goodbyes as he was looking for a potential funder for his organization, when he said “You know, I know nothing about plants or genetic engineering but ever since I was a child I’ve had this idea of making grass that doesn’t grow. Sounds like it’s down your alley and could be a big business. You know, cause mowing your grass is always a pain in the neck, especially for big national parks or sports clubs. If you like it, you can run away with the idea, make a lot of money and then donate some of it to my foundation”.

I’d oooobviously never thought about that idea before! I’ve never actually mowed my own grass. I don’t know how much of a pain in the neck it is, I’ve only rejoiced at the smell of freshly cut grass from afar and felt some empathy for those adults who let their homes’ grass grow until it looks like a jungle. “Grass that doesn’t grow” sounds something out of an 1980s futuristic cartoon.

So of course I said “bet, I’ll run away with your idea”. After going down some rabbit holes, I’ve decided to share it with you you can now run away with it too, if something about it happens to be a good idea after all, and if you’re more passionate about grass than I am. Don’t mind donating money to me though! Just tell your friends to subscribe to Biopunk so we all keep creating and enjoying the smell of real fresh biotech 😝.

What’s the problem?

Entrepreneur hat on. When asking myself for whom it is the greatest pain in the neck to mow grass and is willing to try out EverGrass’ biopunk solutions, golf courses were the most obvious call. Their main problem areas, ranked in considered order of importance are:

1. Salaries represent over half of total maintenance costs. The US national median is 30% of gross profits going to course maintenance. Rough mowers were budgeted at $100,000 in 2023. The greens are the most expensive area to maintain, taking 4,920 annual labor hours greens in mowing and rolling plus fertilizer and chemical applications.

2. No-play Mondays and mowing mornings suck. Even if clubs spend what they can afford to spend, they’re limiting their users in play time as maintenance takes time. Since workers don’t arrive before 4am in most cases, there’s only so little time to finish before the first tee goes off. Stopping maintenance activities for 2-4 weeks or more, the first mowing will lead to scalping of the playing surface and turfgrass loss.

3. Disease and weed control are second most expensive. Changing weather conditions in some areas mean new things growing that we definitely don’t want to see in a golf course, like Bermuda grass. Other pests like Dollar Spot have also caused trouble in the past and need a lot of costly chemicals adding up to the budget. Can you guess what the most effective prevention against weeds in turf grass is? Mowing!

4. Humans aren’t perfect. Never remove more than one third of the leaf blade in a single mow, for grass cut too short or allowed to grow too tall can adversely affect the health and playability of the putting green and stressed turf is more susceptible to diseases, uneven growth, and decline in overall quality.

5. Machines are noisy. EverGreen could solve this for courses located in residential areas. Not that anyone else might care too much.