Start a Microgreens Business — a Free Bootcamp Course

Type: Self-paced online course · Level: Beginner to first sale · Time: about 3 hours of reading plus one 10-day production cycle · Cost: Free · Status: Pilot version, feedback welcome

Microgreens are one of the few food businesses you can start with almost no capital — but they are still a real business, with production discipline, food safety, costing and customers. This course walks you from your first tray to your first honest business plan, with no get-rich promises anywhere on the path.

Module 1 — Decide if this business is for you

Before you buy a single seed, understand the market you would be entering: who buys microgreens, what they pay for, and why freshness is the whole game. Read with a skeptic’s eye — the goal of this module is an informed decision, not enthusiasm.

Materials: Grow microgreens for business and the business library (market and selling articles first)

You are done when you can name your two most likely customer types and the main reason this might not work — and you still want to try.

Module 2 — Master production before you sell

Nobody buys from a grower who cannot grow. Run at least one full cycle with the 10-Day Guide, then pick two or three commercial crops from the Varieties database — fast, reliable movers like radish and pea are where most businesses start.

Materials: the 10-Day Growing Guide (open draft) and the Varieties database — start with radish and pea

You are done when you have harvested two consecutive trays of consistent quality from the same crop.

Module 3 — Run the bootcamp

The Young Entrepreneurs toolkit is a ten-day bootcamp that joins daily growing practice with the business side: planning, finance, marketing and pitching. Work through it alongside a real production cycle — the tray on your shelf is your case study.

Materials: Microgreens Toolkit – Young Entrepreneurs (18–30) (open draft — your feedback shapes the final version)

You are done when you have a one-page business model you could explain to a stranger in two minutes.

Module 4 — Cost a tray honestly

Most microgreens businesses fail on arithmetic, not agronomy. Count everything one tray costs you — seed, medium, energy, packaging and, above all, your time — and only then set a price, from cost upwards rather than from hope downwards.

Materials: the costing and pricing articles in the business library, plus your own numbers from Modules 2 and 3

You are done when you know your cost per tray to the cent and the minimum price at which selling is worth your while.

Module 5 — Find your first customer

Start smaller than feels ambitious: one chef, one café, one market stall, one weekly subscription box for neighbours. Freshness is your unfair advantage over any supermarket — sell greens harvested the same morning and let the product argue for you.

Materials: the selling and customer articles in the business library

You are done when one real person outside your family has paid real money for your greens.

Module 6 — Grow without capital

If what stops you is money or space, this is the module that changes things: the Microgreens Cooperative in Athens offers a free growing space — no capital, no rent — with mentoring, for young people ready to build a real microgreens venture. Tell us who you are and what you want to build; you do not need a business plan to start the conversation.

Materials: The Microgreens Cooperative · Contact us · course feedback also very welcome

You are done when you have either sown your first commercial batch — or written to us to start one in Athens.

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This course is an open educational resource of the microgreens methodology — VET providers and youth organisations are welcome to use it as work-based learning material. The organisation behind the methodology is EVEC Athens (evec.org.gr). See all courses or partner with us.