Love Thy Neighbor (And Their Lawn)

While I was evaluating a property for robotic mowing just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin my wheels in my head started turning.  This is a newer subdivision just off Highway 29 and a mix of some light retail but majority residential.  There is a significant amount of grass to mow in single family housing yards and there was some apartments/condos and common space that required mowing as well.  When I was looking at the plot map for the owner of this house it was obvious nearly every lot in this subdivision was very similar in area - between .2 and .25 acres.  The houses were newer and very nice but also had similar footprints and design.

Discussing the situation with him and his wife was pretty easy.  Any model of Mammotion robotic lawn mower we carry could sufficiently and timely mow their entire lawn.  The mini line would work fine but me personally I like the little wider striping that full size offers from a visual perspective.  He could spend around $1,000 for the smallest mower or a little over $2,000 for a full size version.  Standing in his back yard after seeing the plot map made one thing very obvious - a single full size mower could easily handle his yard and several of his neighbors yards as well.  Very few houses had fenced in portions and when you back out the footprint of the house itself, landscaping, sidewalks, and driveways the amount of mowing on each property is closer to .1 acres than .2 acres.  

Whether I’m a home owner in that community, a lawn mowing contractor, or a lawn enhancement company provider who doesn’t really mow but provides aeration, fertilization, and weed killer I’m thinking one thing only, and that thing is I can have a single robotic mower mow somewhere between 5 and 15 lawns with ease.  This would still be providing mowing every 2-3 days so all the yards look great.  The mower could traverse easily between yards on both the front and the back.  Now this is starting to sound really good and really efficient.   A mower with this capacity will run from a little over $2,000 to around $4,000.  It is very easy to break up each person’s lawn into its own zone/s so it can be mowed on the same regular schedule.  Sure one person (hopefully in the middle of the houses) needs to have the charging station plugged in and located on their property and maybe everyone buys him a beer for paying the small annual charge for powering it, but it only gets better from there.

Looking at the math on this - if 5 people get together with yards this size and buy a .75 acre model they are looking at less than $500 each as a one time investment to share this machine and take care of their mowing completely.  This is a machine with a 3 year warranty and something that can be completely set up and operational in a short time frame.  If there are 15 people sharing a unit with more capacity that $500 each investment may be $300 or less.  Now that is a deal - for less than the price of a cheap push lawn mower they could have their mowing autonomously done - quietly, efficiently, and without any pollution.

Now look at this from the contractor perspective.  Sure you’ve got that awesome $15,000 or $20,000 mower but in these smaller yards it isn’t really saving much time over a push mower between the limited area to cover and working around trees and irregular edges.  The traditional mower still takes a person to operate while needing fuel, lubrication, and maintenance.  If you can implement this strategy of having a dedicated autonomous unit to cover multiple residential yards it makes complete sense for everyone involved.  Your customers can have their lawn mowed at least twice as often as you’d provide the service so it always looks great and freshly cut, you can remotely monitor the machine to make sure there are no problems, you can set up and take down machine, and you can focus on the more technical aspects of making a property look great like edging, trim, fertilization, aeration, and weed/pest control.  Spending $2,000 - $4,000 and it being able to handle 5-15 lawns in a similar area just makes a world of sense.  The payback time for the unit is mere months.  We know a lot of lawn contractors focus on commercial and ignore or limit residential but this model completely turns the tables.  It can be much more profitable and better for the customer.  All our units from Mammotion have a 3 year warranty and we carry parts and perform most service locally as well as offer loaner/demo units to minimize any downtime.  Replacing blades 2 or 3 times a summer is the only planned servicing for the first several years.

Robotics and automation when it comes to lawn care are not the enemy and not here to take your job.  However if you ignore them either your customers or competitors will eventually take advantage of the efficiency and quality they provide.