It started with printer paper, sticky tape, and an upside-down plastic cup. 
That's not a joke or a quirky marketing line, that was the actual first prototype of the Vegepod, built on a coffee table by a bloke who, at the time, struggled to keep a vegetable garden alive.
A decade ago, that same bloke walked into the Shark Tank with sweaty palms and a self-watering raised garden bed under his arm. Ten years on, Vegepod’s are growing veggies in backyards across the globe. So, we thought it was about time we sat down, put the kettle on, and told the whole story… from the garage to the globe.
The Problem That Started It All
Long before there was a company, there was just Matt Harris, a dingy, dark garage, and a string of failed veggie patches.
Pests got in. The weather did its thing. The watering schedule never quite stuck (we've all been there). Matt remembered his grandparents pottering happily around their own patches and wanted that same simple joy, grow your own food, eat it fresh, feel good about it. Instead, he just kept destroying his veggies...
So, he went looking for a fix. There wasn't one. No product on the market solved the actual problems, pests, inconsistent watering, flimsy materials that didn't last a season. Just the same issues, over and over.
That's when the idea started ticking over. For a few years it stayed exactly that, an idea…with no time to chase it. Then, in 2008, Matt was laid off during the GFC. Suddenly, he had nothing but spare time.
A Cup, Some Skewers, and a Very Patient Wife
The first prototype was built from printer paper, sticky tape, and skewers, balanced on an
upside-down plastic cup. Not exactly the polished product you'll find in backyards today, but every big idea has to start somewhere.
From there came hours in Photoshop sketching up what this thing could actually look like, followed by the conversation every founder dreads...asking his wife if they could dip into the house deposit savings to fund a "product thingo" he'd been tinkering with.
She said yes. And the tinkering well and truly began.
Four of Australia's largest mould companies took one look at Matt's design and said the same thing: this can't be done. Rather than take no for an answer, Matt enrolled in a weekend plastic welding course, bought two sheets of plastic, and welded together a three-quarter-size model of the container garden he had in his head. He drove it out to a mould company in Western Sydney and plonked it down in the car park. This time, the answer was different: yeah, “I think we can make that.” 
The container was sorted. The cover came next, built from whatever materials Matt could get his hands on — electrical conduit, aluminium tubing, hinges, and a sewing machine he taught himself to use (badly, by his own admission, but he got there).
The Moment It Actually Worked
With nowhere of his own to test it, Matt set up the very first Vegepod on a friend's property. He planted some seedlings and, because it was a wet week, didn't check back for a fortnight.
Driving up to the property two weeks later, he could see the foliage from the car. It was actually working. By the six-week mark, he was… in his own words… flabbergasted. He shed a tear on the drive home that day.
The first Vegepod was rough around the edges. But it worked. And that was all the proof Matt needed to keep going.
Walking Into the Tank
Fast forward to 2016. A very nervous Matt Harris stood in front of Australia's toughest investors on Shark Tank AU, pitching something the panel had genuinely never seen before, a self-watering raised garden bed, built from scratch by a guy who'd taught himself to weld and sew just to make it real.
There was nothing else like it. More than one Shark sat up and took notice. But it was Naomi Simson, founder of RedBalloon, who saw something she couldn't let slip by, and backed Vegepod on the spot.
The investment mattered. But what mattered just as much was the exposure…suddenly, all of Australia knew what a Vegepod was. It was the push the business needed to go from a backyard project to a household name.
And if you needed any more proof that the Sharks knew what they were looking at, every single one of them bought a Vegepod of their own after filming wrapped. That's not something that happens every episode. When the people whose job it is to be sceptical become customers, you know you're onto something real.
Watch the moment it all unfolded below.
From a Garage to the Globe
What happened over the next decade still makes the team shake their heads in disbelief.
2015 — Vegepod crossed its first border, launching into New Zealand.
2016 — The Shark Tank appearance airs, and Naomi Simson comes on board.
2017 — Vegepod takes home not one, but two Australian Business Awards, for Product Innovation and Product Excellence. Matt also moves his family to California to help launch the brand into the USA, with distribution also kicking off in Canada and Portugal.
2018 — New branches open in Singapore and the UK. Vegepod is invited as a guest exhibitor to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show — the most prestigious garden show on the planet — to showcase its urban farming credentials on the world stage. The USA also hands over a Golden Shovel Award.
2019 — The Great British Growing Award and two Australian Enterprise Awards (Best Garden Product Provider, and Emerging Business of the Year) land on the shelf.
2020 — Chelsea comes calling again, this time naming Vegepod the Garden Product of the Year.
2022 - Vegepod comes indoors. After 13 years helping people grow food outside, the Kitchen Garden launches. Same Vegepod thinking, same self-watering magic, now scaled down to your kitchen bench.
2027 - Something's growing at HQ… and we can't wait to share it with you.
Along the way, Vegepod has shown up at some of the biggest garden and lifestyle expos in the world, the Chelsea Flower Show(UK), the Queensland Ekka, the Philadelphia Garden Show, the Auckland Home Show, the Sydney Royal Easter Show, the Melbourne International Garden Show, the Pacific Northwest Garden Show in Seattle, Hamilton Fieldays in New Zealand, the Singapore Garden Festival, and Spoga+Gafa in Cologne, Germany.
What began as one person and a small bank account stretched thin now spans offices and operations across the United States, New Zealand, Canada, England, in addition to home base in Australia. Vegepod’s have found their way into more than a dozen countries and hundreds of thousands of backyards, something Matt still says, blows his mind!
Still Family at Heart
For all the awards and air miles, Vegepod has never stopped being what it started as: a family business. 
The company remains predominantly family-run, with family members across multiple countries working within the global HQ and local markets. It's grown into something much bigger than a backyard idea, but at the heart of it, the care, the stubbornness, the belief that growing your own food should be simple and joyful… hasn't moved an inch.
That's the thing about an Aussie battler story. It doesn't stop being one just because it gets big. If anything, it becomes more of one…because the bigger you get, the easier it would be to forget where you came from, and the team at Vegepod simply hasn't.
A Word From Matt
[Matt Harris's personal reflection, looking back on the last ten years since Shark Tank, what it's meant to him, and where he sees Vegepod heading next.]
It has all been such a rollercoaster ride these last 10 years. Staying level-headed and humble has kept us on track. I hate saying it but is sure seems that all business these days is focussed on making extremely large profits very quickly and then selling out. We’re not like that, we’re old-school and love what we do. We are in no rush to ‘sell out’, we want to keep focussed on what matters. A happy, healthy and exciting place to work making a product that has a positive impact on people’s lives. Could anyone ask for more than that?
In this day of rapid-fire collection of useless trinkets we seem to have lost touch with the things that matter – one of which is growing food with family – another is eating food with family,things we should all aspire to.
Here's to the Next Ten
From a printer-paper prototype on a coffee table to garden beds growing veggies on every continent bar Antarctica, the Vegepod story is proof that you don't need a green thumb to change how people grow food… you just need to refuse to give up on a good idea.
To everyone who has supported us along the way, our customers, our stockists, our partners, and every single Podder who's ever sent us a photo of their first harvest, thank you. You're the reason this story keeps going.
Here's to the next ten years of growing food, growing community, and growing the Vegepod family. The best is still to come.
Inspired to start your own Vegepod story? Take a look at the range.
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