We are Darren & Deborah! a husband and wife team that believe in holistic living – healthy food, appreciation for nature, god, country, freedom to choose and community. We feel that now is a perfect time to
draw customers who are not interested in woke, corporate ideology, and to go back to the
mind-set that we vote with our dollars. We want to help link them to others with similar beliefs,
while providing them products to help them gain further independence.
Side note, but much of today’s food is engineered, full of pesticides, picked before ripe and
controlled by a handful of large food producers, all with the intertwined backing of the USDA
and FDA. We believe that being able to grow more of what you eat is gaining importance by
the day.
Deborah and I are high-school sweethearts that have raised 3 kids and are now looking to
help others with their quest to improve their lives, eat healthier and ‘getting back to basics’
with various elements of their lifestyle
We began our journey many years ago by adopting healthy eating habits, being more mindful
of what we eat and how that all plays a part in more sustainable food chains. Leaving the
corporate world 2 years ago has helped us calibrate this storyline.
We are from Eugene, Oregon and currently live in Spokane, Wa. We feel strongly that taking
a company founded in Tacoma in 1991 and combining it with our story, while adopting this
enhanced vision is compelling.
We believe in our mission and feel that it resonates with people… we believe more and more
people are going back to basics within their own lives, particularly post-covid and further
accelerated by this highly contested geo-political climate. We’ve already found deep
connections with most of our customers and have felt a mutual sense of purpose by doing
what we are doing. For us, we feel like what we are doing is much bigger than the sale of a
product, and we are eager for that to become an embedded part of our messaging.
Note, both of which get addressed when a customer goes to purchase, and if we can’t
provide that, we’ll ask them to ‘call for more details’
Solar Gem has the stated purpose to be the not only the ‘one stop shop for the Urban Farmer/grower’, but be a source for information, industry news, links to valuable suppliers that work holistically within the ‘Solar Gem ecosystem. We believe our product durability and efficiency speak volumes, but the vision to be the ‘one stop shop’ for the Urban Farmer (backyard grower), education provider or even small commercial farm can be unique, by not only providing the parts/pieces to perform the work, but further complemented by our ability to help them flourish through the resources available to them through our newly created ‘eco-system’ which would be comprised of things such as access to information (hence the Solar Gem Grow Products Blog), and by providing access to complementary products or services that we don’t offer but believe our customer may want.
Great customer service, good quality products, sound messaging
Mid to high in the price range, but strong on value which we are told repeatedly by our loyal
customer base
Drawbacks (are there any factors that make us less competitive, the marketing team
needs these identified please)
Two come to mind. The cost of logistics – preassembled units make them costly to ship,
therefore each mile between us and a customer becomes a larger issue in their decision
making. Secondly, the current appearance of the greenhouses are not highly aesthetic in the
modern area where appearance is valued more than functionality. Note, we are working to
address this with a newly designed concept for building a trellis over and around the
greenhouse, which will also provide protection for the greenhouse, greatly approve it’s ‘curb-
appeal’, but also give us a place to anchor solar shades to help keep the units cooler during
the summer. It will also feature integral outdoor planting boxes.
