Meet FlowerPen: Making plant care smarter and more fun!

The first team we’re introducing in our interview series with DDAccelerator participants is FlowerPen from the Czech Republic. A group of passionate students from CTU has come together with a shared mission – to make caring for houseplants simpler and more enjoyable. With their motto “Plant care made easy and fun,” they’re developing smart solutions that bring a fresh perspective to everyday plant care. The team behind the FlowerPen is made up of three innovators – Daniel Janota, Daniel Riley, and Jan Tonner.

Your team is working on a project dedicated to the care of houseplants, but what does it all involve and what direction are you taking? Could you give me an explanation of how I envision FlowerPen?
‍FlowerPen is a device that makes plant care simple and enjoyable by helping users keep their plants healthy. The pen itself comes with an accompanying mobile app, allowing users to have a clear overview about all their plants and connect with other like-minded people worldwide.

‍How did the FlowerPen team come together, and could you share the story of where you met and what inspired your collaboration?
Daniel Janota: We came together many years ago both with Honza and Daniel. Daniel and I used to go to the same class at our secondary school for 8 years and we’ve always been drawn into the same kinds of subjects – mainly math, later programming or pretty much anything science related. With Honza we met right about the end of our secondary school studies, and actually it was in Croatia where we randomly bumped into each other, and the rest is history. I remember Honza telling me about all the cool research projects he had been doing, constructing his own robots, drones or 3D printers.

The idea of automating plant care came to fruition about 4 years ago, Honza first thought about making smart plant pots rather than pens. About 9 months ago, we teamed up with two creatives from the world of TV commercials (Tomas and Honza) who helped shape FlowerPen’s vision. We've since parted ways due to mutual differences.

‍What inspired you to create your own solution in this field? Was it a lack of suitable apps on the market, or a personal experience with the challenges of plant care?
Daniel Janota: I have been into inside greenery for the past few years, slowly trying to grow my collection of house plants. I took care of them the best way I could, but sometimes to no avail. Then I came across an app that helps you take care of plants by giving you reminders to water them. However, the lack of physical sensor integration made me doubt the solution at times. Though it helped with my plant care routine, I still had to enter when I watered which plants, a pretty time consuming task. It also brought my attention away from the plants and closer to the phone – something I didn’t want and something for which I started caring for plants in the first place.

‍So is the main differentiator of your product compared to the competition its hardware-based solution?
It’s mainly two-fold. First of all, we offer a combination of a carefully designed app that is integrated with the FlowerPen device itself, giving you real measurements for metrics such as soil moisture levels, temperature or the amount of light the plants receive. Second, we offer community features that help users connect with other people with the same interest. But that’s still on the part of the technical solution itself.

What truly differentiates us the most is our vision behind FlowerPen, as this device is only the first of a whole family of solutions to come. We try to make people’s lives more fulfilling, not necessarily easier, and that is something we try to incorporate into every single step of the process.

‍You mention that you would like to achieve more user wellbeing products in the future. Do you also have in mind products for smart home or environmental monitoring solutions?
Yes, absolutely. Our long-term vision goes far beyond FlowerPen – it's just the beginning of a broader family of products focused on users’ wellbeing. While plant care is our starting point, we see it as a gateway to developing smart home and environmental monitoring solutions that help people live more fulfilling lives.

We already have a strong background in this area, having developed advanced IoT systems for aquaponics farms. Now, we’re building on that expertise to create high-quality, user-oriented solutions that bring the same level of intelligence and care into everyday living environments.

‍How should I imagine the typical user your product is designed for?
We want to have a FlowerPen in every single household all around the globe, that is also why we aim for affordability, while still maintaining a high-level standard for quality. Therefore, we think that everyone can benefit from having a FlowerPen at their home. However, the typical user of our device would be someone who lives in a city, yet wants to have greenery present, and is aged 25–45.

What has been the biggest challenge in developing your product so far? 
Choosing the right path in both development and philosophy has been one of the biggest challenges. It’s great to have ideas – without them, nothing ever gets created. However, ideas without action remain only dreams and can never become reality. At some point, it becomes essential not to simply generate more possibilities, but to find the right balance between functionality and vision, and decisively commit to the best approach.

What kind of collaborations or support are you looking for?
We have had preliminary discussions with private investors, as proper funding allows us to accelerate development. Additionally, we’re looking for skilled developers and designers to help refine both the app experience and hardware design, bringing FlowerPen to the next level.

‍How do you evaluate your participation in the DDAccelerator, what do you find most beneficial for your project? And what do you think about the time required to participate? 
The time commitment has been manageable – we’re able to stay involved in the accelerator even while working (and studying). The workshops have been especially valuable, particularly those focused on project management and building a pitch deck. While some of the content wasn’t entirely new to me, as I’ve taken part in similar training before, I still found useful insights and new perspectives that we’re now applying to our work on FlowerPen.

These workshops are especially beneficial for those new to the business world, but even for more experienced teams, they’re a great way to revisit and reinforce important concepts. In fact, we believe that the kind of knowledge shared here – like product positioning, design flow, or how to pitch – should be taught at universities. It would help students better understand company processes and improve collaboration between developers and managers.

What have you changed or improved in FlowerPen thanks to the DDAccelerator? Where has your participation so far taken you? 
Thanks to the DDAcccelerator, our solution has become much more practical. We’ve started to focus more on the business side – thinking about funding, approaching investors, and realizing that they’re actually more accessible than we initially thought.

We also discovered that there’s more interest in our product than we expected, which has motivated us to work harder on how to communicate and promote it to people. The accelerator's incubation program really gave us a boost. It helped us refocus our efforts and commit more seriously to the project’s development.

‍A big thank you to the FlowerPen team for the interview – we wish you lots of success with your project and look forward to seeing your results! 

The DDAccelerator will soon be opening applications for its third (and final) cohort – an exciting opportunity for anyone with an innovative idea in the field of ICT.

If you're working on a tech-driven project or dreaming of launching your own startup, don’t hesitate to apply. This is your chance to turn your vision into reality with the support of experienced mentors, interactive workshops, and a vibrant community of innovators.

We’re launching a series of interviews with teams from the accelerator – get to know the people behind the projects, starting with a team from the Czech Republic in Cohort 1: FlowerPen. New interviews will be published regularly at ddaccelerator.com – stay tuned!