The People Behind Kiku

Sam grew up on a small farm, which gave him a deep appreciation for what farming actually takes — and an honest awareness that he wasn't naturally good at it. What he was good at was experimenting, observing, and designing systems to make things more consistent. That combination led him to hydroponics, where isolating variables finally made growing something he could master. He's spent the last three years obsessing over how to encode that knowledge into software so farmers don't have to learn every hard lesson themselves, or fret over precise chemical mixing or timing.

Professionally, Sam brings five years of systems architecture and embedded software experience, ten years of horticulture, and a certification in Monolithic Dome construction from the Monolithic Dome Institute. He leads product development, software architecture, and overall company direction.

Danny is an industrial designer in San Francisco, pursuing dreams of entrepreneurship and creativity - the perfect fit for Kiku's need for well designed enclosures and connections to dreamers. He has inside access to commercial manufacturing resources and connections to faculty who push his exceptional work even further. He's responsible for the physical form of the New Leaf product line — the Nutrient Mixer, the Plant Isolation Chamber, the housings and enclosures that make our technology something you'd actually want in your operation.

Danny also has a strong musical background - producing incredible a cappella arrangements, and beatboxing, which has much more to do with his eye for design than it might seem.

Walker is the engineer who makes the hardware actually talk to the software. His background is in embedded systems — low-level communication protocols, firmware, and making physical devices behave efficiently and reliably in real environments. He's the reason the Farmhand's sensor array, relay controls, and networking all work together without drama.

Outside of Kiku, Walker has a habit of seeking out new programming languages and technologies just to understand what they're capable of — which means he's almost always aware of a better way to do something before anyone else on the team has heard of it.

Marvin has been building and maintaining large electrical systems for over thirty years. He's the person on the team who has seen what happens when electrical design goes wrong — and has spent a career making sure it doesn't. At Kiku, he ensures that our designs work safely and are built to last. He also has a talent for finding elegant solutions to wiring problems that would otherwise require twice the hardware.

On weekends, he tinkers. Which is exactly the disposition you want in the person responsible for making sure nothing catches fire.

Chris is a software engineer with a background in content creation, digital media, and entertainment. He contributes both technical direction and creative vision to Kiku — helping ensure the software we build is not only functional but thoughtfully designed, and that the way we present ourselves to the world matches the quality of what we're building.

He's the co-owner of Chrysanthemum Productions, a game design and entertainment content creation company which he and Sam founded together in college. Kiku started when Chris and his wife Taylor gifted Sam his first kitchen-counter hydroponic system.