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Saving the World With Fertilizer BeeSafe Organic Lawn Care is scaling up organic fertilizer for commercial and institutional use.

By Jason Daley

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Tom Kelly knew it was time to change his ways when he inadvertently lied to his sister. For almost two decades he'd worked in the lawn-care industry, first for a company bought out by TruGreen, and later with his own business, Lawn Dawg, which grew to seven branches that maintained 25,000 lawns throughout his home base of New Hampshire.

In 2005 customers began to demand alternatives to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and Kelly and his business partner faced a tough decision. "I remember the day specifically," he says. "We decided that instead of making product changes, we would just change our messaging." They turned their logo green and rebranded their service as EarthCare, but continued to spray the same chemical compounds on customers' lawns.

The Disruptors: 2013

Disrupter: Tom Kelly
Company: Natural Technologies
Big idea: Scaling up organic fertilizer for commercial and institutional use