Where are they now: Garden.com

Mark Henricks — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:27:28 -0400

Founding: Garden.com was founded in 1995 by Jamie O’Neill and husband-and-wife team Clint and Lisa Sharples with $750,000 in backing from Austin Ventures.

History: The Sharples and O’Neill were marketing directors for the software company Trilogy Development Group in the mid-1990s when they decided to leave and start a dot-com. The Sharples had recently moved into a new house and needed gardening supplies and equipment to overhaul the yard. Market research suggested that this need -- extended to new homeowners nationwide -- might support an online business, and Garden.com was born. As the Internet boom gathered steam, Garden.com gathered garlands of plaudits, including best consumer Web site from one 2000 survey.

Garden.com’s 1999 IPO generated $49 million of the $107 million in capital it raised. But the company soon ran out of cash and closed in late 2001. The next year, its assets were auctioned off to Wal-Mart for $4.4 million.

What Happened: Garden.com possessed a solid technological underpinning, especially in its well-regarded supply-chain technology. It also had a forward-thinking strategy that included an early emphasis on building community using chat rooms and online forums. But when it came to purchasing gardening items, most green thumbs preferred shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores. High shipping costs also limited sales.

In any event, despite Lisa Sharples' claim that margins were good and the company had a predictable revenue stream, Garden.com never reached profitability and the investment climate turned against money-losing e-retailers. “[Investors] couldn’t tell the difference between a company that had good growth and margins and a company that had bad growth and margins,” Sharples recalls.

When raising additional capital became impossible, the end was inevitable -- or almost inevitable. Just a few months after Garden.com folded, analysts noted that gardening gear was one of the fastest-growing categories of online purchases during the just-ended holiday shopping season.

Recently, Garden.com joined dog.com, horse.com and fish.com, under Hazelton, Pennsylvania-based PetsUnited, LLC, and is once again selling garden tools online.

Where Are They Now? The co-founders never sold their shares and didn't cash out before the end, according to Lisa Sharples. “Our opinion was that until we helped the company get to profitability, it was really Monopoly money,” she tells The Standard.

After Garden.com closed in 2001, the founders took a six-month trip around the world. They then started a software company that created tools for software developers, raising another seven-figure sum from Austin Ventures. That company also faltered. Today, Cliff Sharples is a part-time consultant and is considering starting another Internet company (“It’s an addiction,” Lisa Sharples says).

His last job was president of Kinetix Living, a Seattle health and exercise company. Lisa Sharples is president of Reader's Digest Association's Allrecipes.com. Her previous job was senior vice president of marketing for Classmates.com. Like Cliff, Jamie O’Neill is also between business ventures and, according to Sharples, is in the midst of renovating his Austin home.

Were you an employee, customer, or client of this service? Then share your memories below! What did you like about the company? What didn't work? What other factors contributed to its success or failure?

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