Good Company: Coulter Lewis takes lawn care to the next level

Coulter Lewis snapshot:

Founder and CEO of Sunday

Age: 43

Hometown: Lafayette

What he’s reading: “Sam Walton: Made In America,“ by Sam Walton, of course. “It’s such an inspiring American story of what can be possible when you stick to your guns and work really hard,” Lewis says.

Coulter Lewis co-founded his Boulder-based lawn care company, Sunday, in 2018. When a new customer signs up, Sunday analyzes local weather and soil data to determine the unique needs of the individual customer’s lawn. From there, the company ships a tailored nutrition plan directly to the customer’s door, taking the guesswork out of groundskeeping for 150,000 subscribers (and counting).

After launching as a direct-to-consumer business, Sunday grew into a national retail brand offering a variety of products in more than 7,000 stores, including Target, Lowe’s, Walmart, Costco and Ace Hardware. Sunday is committed to reducing pesticides and unnecessary harsh chemicals found in traditional lawn care products by opting for nutrient-dense ingredients like seaweed, soy protein and molasses to formulate a new kind of lawn fertilizer with zero pesticides.

We caught up with Lewis to learn more about how a business can turn a profit while staying true to its core values.

ColoradoBiz: Give us a brief rundown on how you got into natural lawn care. 

 Coulter Lewis: Well, let’s see, first I was born, and—

CB: Ha!

CL: Professionally, I studied mechanical engineering at Cornell, then I worked in high performance automotive. I moved into design at IDEO, which was kind of my dream job. But I left to start Quinn Snacks with my wife, Kristy Lewis, in 2011.

CB: We recognize that brand name. Are you referring to the gluten-free pretzels on the shelves at Whole Foods Market?

CL: We’re a national, all-natural snack food brand that’s grown to be in pretty much every store in the country. My wife and I started Quinn when we were living in Boston, and when we moved to Boulder, about nine years ago, we brought the business here because of the local ecosystem surrounding natural foods.

 CB: Help us connect the dots. What’s the link between pretzels and lawn care?

 CL: Agriculture. With Quinn, the entire business surrounds how our food is grown, and that became a new and amazing part of my life. A few years ago, my wife and I bought a house for our three kids and dog, and I started thinking about our space through a natural lens. One day I found myself staring down the lawn care aisle at a home improvement store. I had no idea what to buy, but I could smell the toxins being emitted from all those sacks on the shelf, and I knew I didn’t want them on the perimeter of my home. It didn’t take long to realize traditional lawn care treatments weren’t going to work for my family.

CB: This sounds like a quintessential entrepreneurial story. You saw a gap in the market and decided to fill it, correct?

 CL: I guess you could say that. After that trip to the home improvement store, I started digging and learned that at 40 million acres, our lawns add up to the country’s third-largest crop, which is bigger than all of our national parks combined. The way we’re told to take care of our lawns is totally broken. The average routine has consumers applying harsh chemicals and toxic pesticides at a rate five times higher than conventional farms. We’re told conventional farms are toxic, but really the most polluted land in the country is your backyard. And for what? A few less dandelions? I got hooked on the idea of making something better.

CB: Wait a minute! You said your background was in mechanical engineering. Did you know anything about the science of lawn care when you set out to make a difference?

 CL: I’m just really curious about this stuff! At first, I tried making fertilizers in my garage. The joke was that I was probably on every FBI list out there. I started cold-calling the nation’s leading turf scientists to help me create something that was both safe and effective. That’s how I met Frank Rossi, Ph.D., an associate professor at Cornell and leading expert. The problem I wanted to solve was something he’d been working on his whole career. The more I uncovered about harsh chemicals and pesticide use, the more I was convinced it didn’t have to be that way. Starting a new business wasn’t necessarily a part of the plan with three young kids, a dog and a new home, but I felt called to help make the world a safer, less toxic place.

CB: We like where this is going, but we’re curious: Why custom lawn care?

CL: We could have developed better ingredients and modern branding – that recipe has worked for many popular companies – but we decided it wasn’t enough. We did a year of testing in 2018, during which time we gave products to 100 people across the country, did in-home interviews, and got really into it with individuals – all to understand what the opportunity was. What we learned is that nobody really knows anything about home lawn care. The gap in consumer knowledge and confidence … that was the problem we needed to solve.

CB: How did consumer research alter your business model?

CL: That initial round of research changed the shape of Sunday from being consumer goods focused to having a huge tech focus. Our biggest area is tech and data; that’s the foundation that makes Sunday work. When you go to our website, we start with a home address, which is a pretty wild thing to ask of somebody. But we use that information to pull a bunch of data, including soil test data from neighbors. As far as we know, we now have the largest soil database ever created.

CB: Is it tricky taking a direct-to-consumer biz into the retail space?

CL: Our first three years were only direct to consumer, and expanding – yes – it was wild. We’re helping people improve at a specific part of life, and that’s more straightforward when they’re coming to our website. With retail, we customize products on a regional basis, making products especially suited to particular areas of the country, which is not typically done. And retail customers can still use our website.

CB: Do you have any secrets to share about bringing personal passions into a for-profit business?

CL: I wish I had a simple one-liner for this question. It has been such a journey. There are times when it is really challenging, and times when you’re on top of the world, and the secret is you just have to keep going, through it all.

CB: OK, that’s fair, but what about practical tips for other business owners with altruistic leanings?

CL: Quinn was a company focused entirely on changing the food system for the better, and I brought what I learned from Quinn to Sunday. For example, with Sunday we set up a 1% for the Planet as soon as we formed the company, before we had any revenue, because I learned with Quinn that it is easier to make these choices very early on. The vast majority of our 1% goes to maintaining and restoring tallgrass prairie in the U.S., which once covered the majority of the country.

CB: In many parts of the country, lawn care is a seasonal undertaking. Has that come with any unexpected challenges?

CL: Actually, no. Because of the seasonality of Sunday, we’re able to use the fall and winter to rebuild and refocus. That first year, we were hanging on for dear life, and seasonality gave us a much-needed moment to step back.

CB: When a business is consumer oriented, what are the most important considerations?

 CL: Building a great customer service team is key. And customer service is even more essential early on, when you’re going to mess up more. Make sure you have great customer service available to support the customer experience as you grow.

CB: Any plans for the near future?

 CL: I like to think of Sunday as outdoor home care, not lawn care, and now we’re making that a reality, growing into all-natural garden pest control. New products are coming early next year.