KANSAS CITY - A Wellston, Missouri, entrepreneur who created self-watering planters recently received seed funding from Arch Grants to grow her business.
Kay Wells is the founder of Posie Potts, which is a 3-D printed self-watering planter where 'you only have to water your plants once a month.'
"You don't have to worry about killing your plant, overwatering, underwatering, no root rot or root bound," said Wells on 'Total Information A.M.' "Worry not, you got a Posie Pott."
Wells says she first got the idea for Posie Potts when she moved back to Missouri in 2012 after living out west and working in the aerospace and aviation space.
"When I moved back to Missouri, it was the winter time, no more greenery no more any of that," said Wells. "(My family) got to see all of the beautiful snow, fall leaves changing, and the kids had to experience that fall, winter, phase."
"Once outside gardening once the springtime came, the mosquitos got me. I forgot we had mosquitos and humidity in St. Louis. After that, I was thinking I need to make this a much easier experience of gardening."
Wells says she had to do a whole lot of research to understand what was already there.
"There really wasn't a lot in the space as far as a self-watering planter that held the water for an entire month without it getting too soggy or rotten," said Wells.
Posie Potts was one of 20 businesses to receive up to $50,000 seed funding from Arch Grants, which Wells says been a 'propeller' for her scale up business.
"We were able to use (the money) towards growing our business," said Wells. "We used a lot of that funding on increasing our production, and we've gotten the chance to get to even more retailers through the help of Saint Louis University's New Venture Accelerator program."
Saint Louis University's Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship is opening up applications for its second New Venture Accelerator.