Welcome to Internet Empires
A show where we go deep with internet-native creators who've built empires from scratch.
Using nothing but ideas, code, and Wi-Fi.
Each guest offers a playbook for turning creativity into leverage and attention into income.
Why are we doing all of this?
Building on the internet is one of the highest-leverage things you can do with your time. Every episode helps you understand how others have done it.
So, you can skip guesswork, avoid dead ends, and apply proven strategies to your own journey.
This case study feature: Kevin Espiritu
Kevin is the founder of Epic Gardening—a media and ecommerce brand that’s taught millions how to grow food, start homesteads, and build backyard systems that actually work.
He literally made growing vegetables cool.
The comment section calls him ‘real-life Dwight Schrute’.
What started as a hobby blog in 2013 turned into an 8-figure business with a warehouse team, seed brands, product lines, and a media empire built across YouTube, TikTok, email, and beyond.
But what makes Kevin different is this:
He’s not the world’s best gardener. He’s the world’s best gardening educator.
A common theme among internet entrepreneurs.
So let’s break down how he built his empire.
From poker player to planting seeds
After college, Kevin paid off his accounting degree by playing online poker.
But the lifestyle wasn’t sustainable. So he quit and started building websites for local businesses.
One of those sites was Epic Gardening—originally meant to be a portfolio piece.
But as Kevin learned SEO and content marketing, he used Epic Gardening to practice. He discovered he could drive traffic. Then that traffic could earn ad revenue.
And eventually, that audience could be turned into customers.
He slowly scaled from blog posts to YouTube videos, to podcasts, to TikTok. By 2019, he was making a full-time living from content.
That year, he launched his first product:
A wavy, corrugated metal raised bed.
Yup, those are the famous metal beds.
Sold out in days.
And that announced Epic Gardening as a physical product brand.
Massive growth during the pandemic
When lockdowns hit in 2020, interest in home gardening exploded. Epic Gardening was ready.
The day after lockdowns began, Kevin’s YouTube gained 15,000 subscribers in 24 hours.
He doubled down, publishing three videos per week at exactly 12:00 p.m.
The result:
Epic passed 1 million subscribers within the year.
Short-form video also played a key role. Kevin adapted early to TikTok and later repurposed that format to Facebook Reels, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts. That gave his content an edge in every platform’s new algorithm wave.
He optimized for each platform's incentives and let the compounding do its thing.
What he’s built: Media + Ecommerce + Infrastructure
Today, Epic Gardening is a multi-8-figure business with 60+ employees across content, product, and fulfillment.
He’s made strategic acquisitions to go deeper:
A gardening blog (for SEO and traffic)
A seed-starting tray company (hardware)
A 750-variety seed company (Botanical Interests)
These acquisitions gave him physical product leverage and entry into wholesale.
He also built original products like the Epic Seed Line, which simplifies choices for beginners.
Instead of 20 tomato options, you get 3: clear, high-performing, beginner-friendly picks.
Every product is validated with his audience first—usually teased via short-form video.
If demand is clear, he launches. If it flops, he shelves it.
Mental models that helped him
Content-first, not product-first: Kevin grew an audience before he sold anything. That gave him zero-cost customer acquisition.
Platform arbitrage: He paid attention to platform incentives. When IG launched Reels or YouTube pushed Shorts, he published more. That let him ride the algorithm.
Acquire instead of build: When a great product already exists, he buys it and hires the founder—instead of rebuilding from scratch.
Default to leverage: He avoided service businesses, skipped brand deals, and focused on assets that scale: media, courses, and physical products.
Build systems, not silos: His audience, content, products, and even fulfilment flow into each other—creating compounding loops.
His journey in a flash
2013: Starts Epic Gardening blog as a hobby and SEO playground.
2016: Goes full-time on the blog.
2019: Launches first product and it sells out in 4 days.
2020: Pandemic gardening boom takes Epic to 1M+ subscribers.
2021–2022: Raises Series A, acquires seed company, and builds a warehouse team.
Today: Runs 4 YouTube channels, sells hundreds of SKUs, and manages a media/e-commerce hybrid.
Top Quotes from Kevin
"You actually have to be better at creating than at the hobby."
"If I know something’s going to do well on TikTok, I republish it everywhere. Let the algorithms do their thing."
"We never claim to be experts. We just love gardening and we show what works."
Final thought
Kevin’s story proves that niche content + product thinking is a powerful combo.
Also the weirder your hobby, the better it is.
You don’t need a massive team or venture scale.
You just need to:
Teach what you love
Listen to your audience
Own the product
Leverage the platform
It’s not just a media brand.
Epic Gardening is a system that grows like the gardens it teaches.
If you want to dive into the full episode, click here.
Cheers,