166: AI Revolution in Greenhouses: Dima Chernobilsky & GrowDirector’s Game-Changing Tech

Harry Duran 00:00:00:

So, Dima Chernobylski, Co founder and CEO of GrowDirector, thank you so much for joining me on the Vertical Farming podcast.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:00:08:

Hey Harry, thank you very much for having me. Your title is much more wider. You are co founder of so many things. I wouldn't pretend that I remember half of them.

Harry Duran 00:00:19:

Yeah, I think that's what happens when you're an entrepreneur. You start wearing a lot of hats. I started podcasting in 2014 with my first show, so that's how I was introduced. And then I started a podcast production agency in 2015. So that's how we produce the shows that we create. And then vertical farming podcast 2020. So that's been a crazy ride and just opened up so many doors. Now my partnership with Sepper Ashard of Igro News, we have the AgTech Media Group and we're doing a lot of interesting things there. So you never know where the path is going to take you. And that's probably what we're going to find out in our conversation with you today as well. Where's home for you?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:00:56:

For me it's Israel.

Harry Duran 00:00:57:

Okay. Are you born and raised there?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:01:00:

No, I was born in. Tough question. I was born like in ussr, which doesn't exist yet. For a while I was thinking I was born in Ukraine, but then Russia has its. Crimea took over the Ukraine.

Harry Duran 00:01:14:

Okay.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:01:15:

So apparently now I was born in Russia, I guess. Let's see for how long.

Harry Duran 00:01:20:

Yeah, things are changing. I feel like every day. So.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:01:25:

Yeah, yeah. And 80s and 90s was good decades if you compare to the last one.

Harry Duran 00:01:31:

Yeah, that's true.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:01:32:

I think it didn't even started to kick in.

Harry Duran 00:01:36:

No. So prior to your work in. In indoor farming and CEA and everything you're doing in the space now, what were you. Without going through the entire cv, I'm just curious in terms of a bit of your background prior to entering this space.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:01:56:

My background is diverse as my geographics. So I started as a CFO of real estate company in Middle east, then for different company in East Europe. Then I became business development in Africa five years and actually in Africa I got the buck of agriculture. I don't know why I had too much free time on my hand or I just something like Salis was curious. And I also. Agriculture is very easy. Like you just throw seeds, spit on it a few times and it will grow for sure.

Harry Duran 00:02:29:

Sure.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:02:30:

And I failed the first time, second time and third time and who knows how many other times. And then like started to grow something and then I incurred. It was like A decade ago, even more. And then I understood how many problems there is.

Harry Duran 00:02:45:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:02:45:

And I actually went to hydroponics because I don't know why, it seems like more difficult. I don't know why, but it brought me there and hydroponics is much more difficult than just soil. And I dreamt about the product, not even the products. A few generations before that we have about the product that we started. And this time a friend of mine, long time just also started the company and just started talking, said, look, I have such idea and I was very eager to join this. And 10 years after and four generations later, I'm here showing you what we achieved so far.

Harry Duran 00:03:27:

What was it about your time in Africa that really piqued your interest in agriculture? You know, what did you see there? What was like the aha moment for you?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:03:37:

I'm not sure it was about Africa. It's maybe just like timing. So I wouldn't say something for Africa, but I had a big house and some free time on my hand. But no, yeah, actually maybe it started from Africa. I have a driver and he was a farmer and I was asking him like now it seems like stupid questions back then, like smart questions.

Harry Duran 00:04:01:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:04:02:

And somehow like things one thing after another, it's like became more and more interesting and said, well, maybe I will do something by myself. And as I told you, seems to be much easier than it is.

Harry Duran 00:04:15:

So talk a little bit about the origin story for a grow director because I'm wondering, you probably had a lot of ideas, you've been in a lot of different businesses, you've run a, you know, some companies before, you know, what was it that was driving you to feel like this was going to be your next big idea?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:04:29:

Well, our first generation, it was 2016, this when we unveiled our first generation it was huge cannabis height and like every entrepreneur, so two or three months you're going to be a billionaires and of course they fail the first time. Then we developed a second generation for more professional cannabis growers. It went quite well but it was always 2020 and cannabis wasn't like the best times for cannabis. And then we had a genius idea. So like we are missing some very tiny market called agriculture.

Harry Duran 00:05:16:

Yeah, very tiny, very tiny.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:05:18:

Especially with the cannabis home growers compared to. And once we figure out these things went really well. We developed a third generation, very cool, like wireless modular scalable device. It's completely horticultural automation and became very good. And now we unveiling in Greentech next week, our fourth generation device. I would say it's like very cool device. One of the coolest things about it, it's like it's real investment in your greenhouse future. We call it like future proof scalability.

Harry Duran 00:06:02:

Okay.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:06:03:

Like you get flexible and easy to scale up device. You always can get scale up your capabilities, features and hardware without much investment. Super scalable. Like one time you buy it and scale by itself especially get all the new features and AI capabilities. It's very cool. Second thing I would say it's like wireless network architecture, which means you have reliable wireless network and you can even work without Internet. It works very seamlessly, no matter what. Even when Internet's down, it's still working. And we got a patent for this. Like our modules can talk to each other without Internet. The next thing I would say, very cool thing. It's super adaptive to any sort of projects. Like universal adapted activity. Like it can be for like a very tiny project, let's say like 5,000 square feet to a huge project. Okay. And everything in one device. Like you can grow with us. As you grow, we also grow with you. And you also like under one system, you don't need to think too much. And another thing I would say, like it's effortless remote automation. Like if you have, let's say a greenhouse and especially for the old greenhouse, which is not built for automation. And one of our sweet spot is there as well. Now you have dispersed equipment. Let's say this frame is here, another frame is there. It can be like huge spaces and you don't want to wire things and you don't want to too much investment in it. So here we're actually coming with our wireless modules, can put them anywhere that you want in a greenhouse. And all of your equipment, like fans, irrigation and so on will work under one system without investing a huge sum. So this is one of the cool things and of course the AI. Now here I can talk a lot.

Harry Duran 00:08:11:

Yeah. So we'll get into the AI, definitely. So I'm curious for the. For people that are watching or listening who are not familiar with grow director, what are the markets that you serve and how would you describe the services that you offer?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:08:24:

Our markets are all over the world. We have clients from North America to Europe to Asia, you name it. We do CA now exclusively ca because this is where we can show our most of capabilities. Like in open field we still cannot call for rain, unfortunately sun. But in the greenhouse, we are the God, okay? We control all of your equipment automatically. Our AI can even predict problems which is coming into greenhouse and change the rules with Your permission. Okay. We can send you a notification if you want to change the rules. Thus to stress the plants as minimal as possible. So essentially you have a greenhouse. We are coming. We are connected to all of your equipment, let's say fence, irrigation and so on. So and so on. We disturbs our sensors in your greenhouse. And from this on we are your eyes and hands. Okay. You can create any kind of conditions that you want. The greenhouse. You can get advice from our system. How is the best to recreate some kind of conditions or how to keep the perfect environment for your plants. We are coming here to help the growers and to take some repetitive tasks from him. Things which people are forgetting. So are very keen into decreasing his stress level. I would say with all the modesty, we are good in this. Yeah, clear this what we are thinking. And even some of our clients are telling us this.

Harry Duran 00:10:03:

So Dima, I'm curious about what the experience you've had and having been doing this for a while, what are some of the challenges that you see greenhouses and indoor farms facing? And you know, and what were the challenges before they started working with you and then obviously they found your solution. And what were some of the problems they were able to fix?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:10:23:

Well, problem is the same. It's just coming with different forms. Now. The problem is not enough control and spending too much. It's either. No, it's both of them. Not enough control and spending too much time on controlling things. Yeah, it's the same problem, but different approaches. Yeah, this number one. Number two, the scalability now, especially in the old greenhouses, I will give you some examples that what we are doing for our clients now, let's say somebody is new to automation, you're not sure about automation, you know how to work with it and so on. So we can automate only, let's say certain parts of the greenhouse, let's say one third of your greenhouse, or let's say only fans, only water, and so on, so on. So now and after a person automating it and it sees that it works as good as we are telling him, okay, it's very easy for him to scale up and automate the whole greenhouse. And it will cost you the same either day one, you automate your whole greenhouse or you're doing like let's say month by month, quarter by quarter. Finance will cost you the same, but it decreases your stress level financially and emotionally. Because look, let's be honest, new things are hard, okay? And new year also, like we are a decade old company, but still like Our product is very innovative and it put some people down because of this because look something due I never use. Who knows. Also one of our pluses, it's very easy to use, working very hard for people to use. When we had like our first generation, we were on cannabis space. So we made our QA snow coat of wheat and even after this he gets what there is on the tablet. Then our interface as well. Now we have more mature.

Harry Duran 00:12:15:

That's when the good ideas come.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:12:17:

Yeah, now we are more mature and serious people. So we taking very old growers, like I'm talking about 80 years old growers and give us a mark system and if they understand everything then we did our job fine. So it's very important for us to have easy of use and be support because even the easiest thing there is support is priceless. We have very good and professional support, including agronomic advices as well as AI. One of the AI features we have, it's called AI support. It's the only entity in the world who actually read our whole menu. Even I am the one who wrote it, but who remembers everything there is. And in human manner with like human typing, any questions you can ask any question, how to create the rule, how to collect everything and it will be with you. 247 explained you very easily like it's real AI. You can ask really stupid questions and still it will be patient with you.

Harry Duran 00:13:17:

Unlike us humans, we're seeing that a lot. I think that the term that people are using now for this AI, especially with websites, is vibe coding. So this is, it's this concept of just being able to have a conversation. I've noticed it in some of the production tools we use as a service called descript. It's a video editing tool. But they've given you a command line prompt now that says what do you want to do? And you say, I want to remove the ums and the ahs from this video and I want to like, you know, make it a tighter edit. And it says okay, thinking, thinking. And it's going to do that. So speaking to what you were just saying, it feels like I think I keep talking about AI in each one of these conversations and the progress is just exponentially so fast. Amazing. It's just changing so much.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:14:00:

I was a big fan of gtp, but like two weeks ago Google just unrolled their new Gemini and storage gdp. But I for now I switched to Gemini. Yeah, and it's a hard one because like every week one of those guys Gemini open X and you name it. It's just getting better and better. Yeah it takes you a few months just on Sunday. It's better by times understand somebody else was better. But look, things are crazy and we are monitoring. It's very. We are very focused on it. We do believe this future.

Harry Duran 00:14:36:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:14:36:

One of the things actually this is last one that we are unveiling this month. It's called a summary. So actually what we do because we are in eyes and hands of the grower so we know everything what happening in the greenhouse. We know how much everything work, what's the temperature, humidity, you name it.

Harry Duran 00:14:53:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:14:54:

So we take. We analyze all of this and then. And then our AI send you a weekly report with the stamps. We have like 10 stars rating low. How would your greenhouse and still okay this your plans for too stress. So we think that next week you need to do abc. We see that you have like certain rules which will like work let's say and your. Let's say your temperature is jumping. So we think if you like tweak your rule a little bit, you can save X amount of energy and have the same perfect environment and such insights which frankly only AI look what we did. I have like very professional, good novice. I gave him all this data. It took him probably a week to get even worse summary. I did like a couple of minutes. And we were always checking what he's doing with our people. We have like a professional team of agronomists who actually knows what they do for a change. And we are checking what AI summary. And they admit that it's better than them. Maybe not to me between themselves.

Harry Duran 00:16:00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody need a job.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:16:02:

But they admit that it's better than them. And this like our new feature which we are giving to our customers, like real AI insight in your specific greenhouse, in your specific plan, in your specific data. Not something general. I think it's very cool.

Harry Duran 00:16:21:

So how do you think about the pace of AI and when to implement it in the solutions? Is it something that you're feeling you need to be more proactive with or are you being asked by your clients for easier ways to see what's going on in their environments?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:16:36:

First of all, paste is crazy, as I told you, just crazy. I don't have any other word for this. Number one, we are proactive because we are very imaginative people. We have a lot of dreams and hopes for our product and not everything is possible. Let's say we have like a roadmap for like five years ahead which we created about a year and a half ago. And we just put some crazy ideas with. We are laughing at each other because like we are crazy. It's. We'll never look. Okay, let's hire another like 50 engineers. Maybe like in five years they will do it like laughing at ourselves. And now AI and this roadmap becomes a reality. Okay. It's easier and easier to create it. Like what you just told about a summary. Look, I literally tell you my agronomist is talking also a week look, you have like, say like you have like 20 sensors. Each sensor give you data point one. It's five minutes.

Harry Duran 00:17:36:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:17:37:

And then you have all the equipment. Like it's great. Took him a week just to understand. And I do it like in. And give you a real insight. This is very cool. This number one, number two which we have like for a while. It's called agronomist, which means same thing like you can ask like any agronomic questions, like in real human questions, stupid questions, you name it, it will give you an answer. This number one. And it also has an image recognition. You can snap a picture and give you what's the problem and the solution. And all of these people getting like it's. We don't charge a monthly payment. It's one time payment for the product. This is our strategy. So all of these AI features that people enjoying for free. And we are adding more and more features. I wouldn't say every day, but at least let's say once a month we're adding new features and people enjoying it. So you can just imagine, okay, you have automation system, like every automation system. We also do like sensors and automation and devices and so on and so on. And then from this automation system you have agronomics. You can actually discuss with him any agronomic topic. You can send a picture of your particular greenhouse, not something theoretical. And we know what happened in your greenhouse. So we can give you much more insight. We don't give you like general question. Okay. When we saying that lettuce should be grown in X and X conditions, it's this tenure made for your specific conditions. Some conditions are hard, some battle, some conditions are warm. But for your specific conditions. So people enjoying this. And I think it's very cool, to be honest.

Harry Duran 00:19:22:

It sounds very cool. Definitely. And as with all AI products and services that we're seeing now, they're infinitely patient, they never get annoyed and they always feel like they want to support you and answer your question and help you out. So it's interesting how people are getting more and more used to it. Because they're seeing it across everything. Because they meet AI, maybe with ChatGPT and now, you know, it's not as a strange jump, you know, as it was with technology in the past. Because especially with growers who've been doing this, like you said, for decades, you know, they may have already been playing with other AI tools. So now we're seeing it in so many different industries that it's just becoming common for people to use these tools.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:00:

I see. Yeah, same. But sometimes, let's be honest, we are being annoyed by AI for like sometimes it feels perfect. Yeah. It used some stupid questions that I understand you. But still, like, it's getting better.

Harry Duran 00:20:16:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:17:

Every freaking day it's getting better and just better and better.

Harry Duran 00:20:20:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:20:

And nobody can imagine it's going to be in five years. Like nobody.

Harry Duran 00:20:26:

Or even next year. It's moving so fast.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:28:

Even next year.

Harry Duran 00:20:28:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:29:

I was blown away. What was Google and real like what I think two weeks ago.

Harry Duran 00:20:34:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:20:35:

Very cool. And one of the cool features. I will tell you what I'm using. I have Gemini, but Gemini can see your, your telephone, your, Your desktop. Sometimes like you have like some new software like Figma, some things which you don't like professional. I just take it. Okay. And it see my screen and say, okay, what do I do? And it's actually called put. You know, click here, click here, click here. On. Even my mobile device have some software that I the world which is buggy. I just show the screen of my. Of a mobile device. I have this problem. Go here, go here. Okay. Okay. Click here, here. Yeah, it's actually, it's so super cool this thing. What you do. What are you spending with Aguomis? Same thing. Okay, you ask him question. Okay. Do abc. You will get like D. Like we're still not Google, but we're trying to make.

Harry Duran 00:21:24:

Yeah, no, I mean it sounds like you're making a lot of progress. I'm curious, Dima, because you've had experience with vertical farms as well. And I know a lot of the work that you do is in greenhouses. How would you describe, you know, the different environments and what you've seen from your experience or the challenges of operating in a pure indoor farm, LED lights, vertical farm versus what you see and what's possible in the greenhouse with your tech?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:21:49:

Well, first of all, like coulombic wise, it's very hard to make money. But I must say proudly that we have vertical farms that actually makes money. They actually in Alaska we have a couple like container farms and we made them it was very hard for them to make automation. They need to be wireless and scalable and smart. And they found us, don't remember how but they found us and we actually gave them this for a very reasonable price. They managed to do like complete formation and they're like in remote areas, they don't have access like they don't have physical access to these farms. And with us you can do everything remotely. You can get data, you can get alerts. Let's say if something gets wrong you get alerts or if something like some threshold, you reach some threshold, you can get alerts, anything you want. And this is what we help to do to those guys. This about this. We also have vertical farms in Canada also not the easiest part of the world to grow. And in vertical it's. Yeah it makes sense for certain crops to be vertical. Same thing they had issue with scalability and price. Look, I don't want to name my competitors but like there are some big guys in the industry and just to say hello is like $10,000.

Harry Duran 00:23:07:

Yeah, no literally that's an expensive hello.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:23:11:

Yeah and we do complete automation like for container far less depends thousand two thousand, three thousand dollars. Depend. Depends what you need and what the levels that you want. So it's a significant difference. Plus we actually give him a very, very good customer service and are actually our technicians are also agronomists. So besides telling you where to click, he also can tell you where to plant. So it's like two in one and it's very cool. People really enjoying it. I also think it's smart thing because like you know if just put technical people and they don't know what to do and why do you need certain things won't help much. But when we talk agronomists and they teach them about technical and then they talk to people it's a different world and people also very happy about this. Like they happy now. In Europe we saw some vertical farms which. Well for me they're a bit strange because there's like imperfect environmental conditions to grow outside. And then they sell such expensive things and grow lettuce. Well some of them are not with us anymore.

Harry Duran 00:24:22:

Yeah, the model doesn't seem to work there.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:24:24:

Yeah seem to be smarter now we work on the same thing in Middle east where conditions are very tough, extreme and then it's becoming to make more sense once again I must to be honest protecting crops it makes sense. Look, I guess when let's say things will become more efficient energy wise let's say LED lights especially H vacs and so on more efficiently about energy wise. Plus it will be more robotization about these things like no humans. It will start to make sense. I don't know. I think we're talking about five to 10 years.

Harry Duran 00:25:08:

Yeah. Well, with the pace that everything's moving at when you put the combination of AI together with the robots, then you'll start to see something probably really interesting as well.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:25:17:

No, you cannot know. Yeah, it can be much better.

Harry Duran 00:25:20:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:25:21:

Look, if Musk, as he promised, will unveil his robots in 25, 26.

Harry Duran 00:25:27:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:25:28:

Let's say by 27, 28 will be like human robot, which you just need to show them what to do. And it will cost you the price of the car. Yeah, Everything will be super different.

Harry Duran 00:25:40:

I saw that you were doing a orchid farm in Vietnam as well.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:25:43:

Also working in Vietnam. Well, we started doing that now we need more financing. So we are looking for more financing.

Harry Duran 00:25:52:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:25:53:

Yes. But we also work in Asia, in Vietnam. They are very crazy about orchids. It cost like crazy amounts like 10, 20, $30 for a plan. It's not husband's idea. No, they're really complaining. It's not our idea, wife's idea that we need to buy. And then greenhouses make sense to grow it. So we now cooperating with a few companies to automate the greenhouse for orchids because it's very makes sense there.

Harry Duran 00:26:25:

So we talked about the upcoming GreenTech. When you think about these conferences, you know what's success for you because you know you're. I was recently at Indoor adcon as well, recently. And you see how much work people are put into these booths and how much they're trying to develop these relationships. But I'm curious as a CEO and having been to many of these conferences, how you think about it strategically. If you go in with a plan and what are your objectives when at these types of events because they're big events for this industry.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:26:53:

Green Tech is huge. And the way I got to GreenTech actually will be a perfect way for me to end the greentech. So a couple months ago in indoor Akcon, also a new company called Harvest. Today we've had Raycon.

Harry Duran 00:27:06:

He's a great guy.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:27:07:

Right. And we knew each other for a couple of years. But somehow last Indoor Akon we clicked and he started using our product for his clients and distributing it. And he invited me to be part of his booth in Green Tech.

Harry Duran 00:27:24:

That's right.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:27:26:

So if I would find a couple more rigs on Green Tech, this will be for me a huge success. I'M very happy to work with Rick. He's very cool guy and he's very cool product.

Harry Duran 00:27:36:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:27:36:

And he just lively person, like, you know, lively, likable person.

Harry Duran 00:27:41:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:27:42:

So I wish I had more people like this on my.

Harry Duran 00:27:46:

I think it's great to meet people in this industry and I've got to meet Rick as well. We've had him on the show a couple of times, and you get to have a different feel also when you're in person. That's why I love the conferences. And I think when you meet someone who's got a great personality, believes wholeheartedly, you know, very passionately about the industry and about his product. And so he's got that energy and enthusiasm and I think you need that to ride the waves. Right. The wide. The ups and the downs of what's been happening in vertical farming and cea. So I think every time people mention him, they talk about his energy and, and the fact that he's always looking for conversations and, and looking to make partnerships and working with people too, which I think is really needed.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:28:22:

Yeah. Oh, cool guy.

Harry Duran 00:28:26:

So as you think about the upcoming green tech and the things that you have on your plate, I'm curious, how big is the Grow director team?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:28:33:

We have 20 people on our team. Okay, 22.

Harry Duran 00:28:39:

And how would you describe your leadership style?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:28:43:

I'm learning. I'm making a lot of mistakes. I'm trying to trust people. Sometimes it's worse, sometimes it doesn't.

Harry Duran 00:28:51:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:28:51:

I'm just making a lot of mistakes. I'm trying to learn as fast as possible. In the past, my investors did pay a lot of money for my mistakes. Hopefully.

Harry Duran 00:29:01:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:29:01:

Became smarter and they will become richer. I'm trying to give a free hand because I'm not like into micromanagement. It's not me. And I wouldn't say it's very easy to find people that you can like completely trusting. Well, freehand. And it will be like into worthwhile. Sometimes you fail the surprise of trying. What can I say? Yeah.

Harry Duran 00:29:28:

When you think about your leadership style and the lessons you've learned in the past and all the things that you have on your plate right now, what is a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently in the management field?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:29:41:

You mean?

Harry Duran 00:29:42:

Yeah. Or whatever comes to mind for you. Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:29:46:

How to motivate people better and how to pick people better.

Harry Duran 00:29:50:

Okay.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:29:52:

How to pick people better. I would say this now. Recruiting people.

Harry Duran 00:29:57:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:29:57:

And stuff. I would say it's like a lottery. It's 50, 50 now. It's like Only like Russian roulette. You take people who seems like perfect and then like after a couple months, you. You discover it's not. And you take people not. Not usually. But it's happened for me a few times just because like you meet somebody right now and you compromise and then become like a gel. Like he's really like a perfect candidate and you like and you just will look. To be honest, you were just tired in recruiting because like interviewing for hundreds of people, sometimes you say, okay, like let's give it a chance without maybe and then become very, very good. And sometimes you made so much money and so much test and reviewing everything and then. And that doesn't work. And it's always make you sad because like, once again, you need to get this cycle and to find because not an easy thing.

Harry Duran 00:30:59:

Yeah. I think that's a consistent thread heard in some of these conversations on the show. And I think it's. It's challenging because people put their best foot forward when they're applying for a job. Right. And if you have a time crunch on the other side as the company, you know, if those two things meet and they give you, you know, I think maybe with some of these tools and maybe some personality tests or something like that, we can get a better match for you. But I think what would you say overall has been your lessons? Is it just to hire slower or just take your time with the process?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:31:29:

I heard from somebody who is, I guess, smarter than me. Okay. Higher, slow, fire, fast. Fire fast. I do think this is the thing because every time I gave a second chance work for me. So yeah. Higher, slow, fire, fast. I would say this good thing.

Harry Duran 00:31:50:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:31:51: I'm into second chances, but as I told you, it's backfired for me a lot.

Harry Duran 00:31:58:

Especially if, you know, what we've talked about is the pace at which your company is innovating and growing. It feels like the people that you need to bring on your team need to be moving at the pace that you think and the way your mind works. I'm sure you've got ideas that you want to implement and put into place. And it feels like people need to hit the ground running if they're going to succeed in your environment.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:32:22:

It's definitely so. And just one another thing about recruiting. Sometimes you just lucky. Okay. I got some of my best people.

Harry Duran 00:32:33:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:32:35:

Just because of luck. Okay. Nothing more. It's something I could read their mind or could or can understand their characters. There were some people who like super smart and the hologen. You can see somebody Understand a character. I'm not. I'm just trying a lot.

Harry Duran 00:32:53:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:32:54:

Sometimes just freak luck.

Harry Duran 00:32:56:

Yeah.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:32:56:

Okay. You cannot look luck. You can say it in different words. Let's say for a salesman luck. He can create his luck. Why? He's a lot with on the ground with people. He's talking a lot. He's very good in networking or not very good, but at least he networking a lot. And then he creates his luck as if he created luck because he has a lot of connection. He sells. Yeah, I'm gift same with me. Like I failed a lot, so sometimes I get lucky. So maybe I don't get lucky just because maybe. Maybe apparently I'm learning from my mistakes.

Harry Duran 00:33:29:

No, no, I think that's it really. I mean it's really just a function of learning from your mistakes. And it sounds like you're definitely, you know, you're very self aware because you've mentioned how you've made mistakes in the past and I think are there mentors or people that you've worked with in the past?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:33:45:

I did, first of all, I did had a mentor which was very helpful and not to sound the forgot the nice word, but let's call kissing an S. But I would say my chairman is one of my mentors and I learn a lot from him. And still learning. Yeah, mentorship, it's very important even for me. Look, I'm always like a founder and CEO and had a lot of things under my belt, but I'm still into learning. And yes, yes, mentorship is very helpful as long as a good mentor. I didn't have bad mentors. Okay. I had a couple and both of them were very crucial in what I do and most of the thing. But I spend a lot of time with him as my chairman. But I got a lot of mentorship with him and he was my co founder.

Harry Duran 00:34:43:

Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I think I've heard people say you also learn from the bad ones as well in terms of like, you know, if you don't get good guidance, it's almost like what not to do as far in terms of what you learn from the good ones also.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:34:58:

Yes. And maybe from bad experience, you even learn sometimes more than from a good experience. Like you learn much more for when you lose than when you win. Because when you lose, you can analyze and understand why you lost when you win, you know, if I'm smart or I'm lucky or whatever timing or placing. Yeah, you usually don't know why you won, but you mostly know why you Lost.

Harry Duran 00:35:23:

I don't think enough people do enough analysis of the, of why they're winning. They're just happy to be winning. So speaking of winning and looking forward to. So let's say we're having this conversation a year from now. What would success look like for a grow director?

Dima Chernobilsky 00:35:38:

Well, I would like to be more involved into agriculture in North America and Europe. I would like to help more of a grower. I would like to have more growers in our company and my product will give them more enjoyment and will be much helpful. The more clients that we have, you know, the more our AI actually becomes smarter. So it's also work for me. We have analyze a lot of data, although all the data of the growth is their own. It's preparatory data. Okay. We just use for the set points. But it becomes smarter and smarter. But I would like, yeah, I would like a deeper penetration to North America and Europe working with more distributors and integrators, greenhouse builders, so we can, so we can give a solution for more growers. I do think that our solution is very easy to use and it's very affordable and super scalable. And it's wireless and many people are afraid of wireless. But we did create systems that super stable even without Internet and being wireless. It means that it's very easy and not expensive to actually to introduce it to new of course, but even existing greenhouses and this is something lacking in our field. Okay, like if you're talking about greenhouse, let's say 100,000 or let's say 2, 3 acres. We're talking about automation, we're talking about let's say 10, 20, $30,000. So we can do. We are doing the same for five, $7,000. And I would say with much more input and much more steam that we're actually giving to the growth. So I would like to give our solution to more growers for their life will be easier. And the working, no, without the job. I actually working very hard to make their life easier and to predict things that they couldn't predict before. We prefer to stop the problem before it becomes a problem. So it's one of our key things that we are doing.

Harry Duran 00:37:39:

What keeps you motivated.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:37:43:

I would like to eat every day.

Harry Duran 00:37:46:

That's a good reason.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:37:49:

So you need to work hard.

Harry Duran 00:37:51:

I like to leave some time at the end of these conversations for any guidance you have for this industry. You know, specifically indoor farming, vertical farming, so we can start to work in a more collaborative fashion. And so I'm curious if any thoughts come to mind for you like closing.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:38:08:

Thoughts for indoor farming. Picking your crops very carefully. Okay. Because finally, besides the hype, you also need to make money. Okay. Picking your location very carefully. These are too many things, I would say, like, not everything you can grow, you can sell, and not everything you can sell you can make money from it. And with all due respect, finally you need to make money because you need to feed yourself, your family, and sometimes also get money to your investors. So be very picky about what you do, okay. And time is on your side, as we discussed. Like in couple of few things we made extremely different. For now, they are tough. So try to survive until times become better.

Harry Duran 00:38:56:

That's definitely good advice. Well, Dima, thank you so much. I'm glad we got to connect in person icon and you're going to connect with my partner Sepper at Greentech. So I'm looking forward to hearing how those conversations went. Sounds like you've been making a lot of information. Like you said, you're already on the fourth generation of the product. And I think at the end of the day, coming from your experience and what you've learned over the years, this mission of making lives easier for growers, I think is very admirable because as we all know, they have a lot on their plate and they're struggling to keep up with the demands of like, you know, understanding tech, understanding when to implement it. And I think everything that you're doing is helping make their jobs much easier. So it's one less thing to worry about. So congrats on everything you've accomplished so far.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:39:37:

Very much appreciate the kind words I didn't expect, but it's very nice to hear this. I really appreciate it.

Harry Duran 00:39:44:

Yeah. And so, yeah, we look forward to staying in contact and I'll keep you updated. But I appreciate your time. Where's the best place for folks to connect with you? I know they can go to grow director.com they can go to Grow Director.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:39:54:

Grow like growing director. Like director.com they can write me an email. It's dima d. I m a growdirector.com we have a WhatsApp on our website. It's also coming to me in these messages. So you can write me on our website. Write me an email. Go to our website growdirector.com we would helpful. We can give. We're also giving it free at the consultation with our professional agronomists. So we have like agronomic questions come to us. And you can use the free of charge. Our aagronom. Okay. Download an app, go to a section and go to a agronomist, and you can use our advice for free. We hope this will help people.

Harry Duran 00:40:36:

Yeah. Okay, so we'll make sure all those links are in the show notes. Thanks again for your time, Dima.

Dima Chernobilsky 00:40:40:

Harry, thank you very much. It was a pleasure.