So I have a lot to update this week, but most of it is the back-end theory and mechanics that are going to allow me to run this new farm the way that I have currently as a vision in my mind.
First off, I have actually been delayed a few days in writing this, because I am actually still on vacation in Costa Rica. To be honest, the weather is amazing, the views are perfect, and as much as I am really excited to work on building this farm concept - I have to say that I am a bit distracted.
Also, since I am not at home, I obviously cannot start building anything or doing the physical construction tasks. That means that I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about the best way to actually run this farm model.
So let me bring you up to speed on my current thoughts:
Farm Name: last week I called this “the next iteration of Green Phoenix Farms”. After rolling that around in my head for a while, I realized that it just didn’t feel right. So I started the brainstorming process around finding a new name. I have currently settled on “Next Door Farms”, and I would love some feedback from y’all about that. My thought is that since the purpose of this model will be to serve individuals and families within a very small radius (like 5-10 miles), then that is a great descriptive name.
Did you know that the USDA and Texas Department of Agriculture legally define Local Food as any food grown (or produced) within 150 MILES of where it is consumed? Personally, I think of Local as in my community or down the road from me. So I am currently thinking that a name like “Next Door Farms” could help to convey that.
Online Presence: This is actually where most of my mental work has been this week. I have been trying to think of a way to actually make the marketing, sales, and backend of the business simpler and easier. So here is what my current plan is:
No website. I am going to try to run this entire business through my email newsletter and social media. My reasoning for this is that I am only looking for 50-100 customers. TOTAL. And to start, I will only be looking for about 20… There is no need for me to invest time and money in maintaining a digital footprint that does not add value to the business.
Marketing: My marketing plan is this - using public Groups on Facebook to target potential individuals in my community, then asking interested individuals to sign-up for a weekly Newsletter, this email list will be sent a weekly update about the farm and when harvests begin it will also contain the sales link to buy the boxes. Additional interest and release will be done through a dedicated Farm Facebook Page and possibly an Instagram account.
Email - I am going to be using the platform, Mailer Lite. While there are a number of free email platforms available, I personally think that the automation abilities are best with Mailer Lite. So far, I have created a simple email capture landing page that can be shared on Social Media, and I have also created a one-step automation to welcome all new subscribers to the Newsletter. (Probably next week I will start to expand this into a 3 or 4 email formal Welcome Sequence. We will see, I am not sure that this is a super priority at the moment.)
Sales: I plan to use Square as my online sales portal for the farm. I have used it before and always had great experiences, but this time I will be using the provided Online Sales portal. This is an aspect of their product that I have not really used prior, but effectively they provide an online sales page where I can list products and allow customers to shop with a web cart. Each week, I will have one location where I can list the number of available Harvest Boxes, as well as any additional products that may be available. The link to the sales page will be sent each week through the newsletter on Monday morning and then will be posted to the Facebook Page and Local Community page Wednesday morning.
Process: Initial marketing was done on Social Media to target the individuals and families living locally around me. To do this, I used Facebook primarily to target individuals in my ideal niche. Nearly every city/community has a Community group on Facebook, these are the people that are most local to you. I simply joined my local group and shared a post with my vision and goals for the farm. Within 48hrs I had responses from over 50 individuals saying that they were interested. The next step was to create an email capture form so I could add these individuals to my email list.
In the week that has passed, I have had 9 people sign up for the newsletter. That is nearly a 19% conversion for a product that is more than three months from launch…. I am not too worried, in fact, I am pleased. When I launch my harvests in October, I am planning to harvest only ~20 weekly Harvest Boxes. I actually do not want to have 200 people on my email list at that point… My hope is to have 25-30 people on my email list by the time I start offering my harvest for sale. This would allow me to sell all harvest, and work out the inevitable issues that will arise.
Well, I think that is about it for this week. Now I need to start the process of designing the specific systems that I want to have in my greenhouse, and how I will separate those into stages of construction. I would love to just toss down a pile of money and build everything all at once. But, I just don’t have the capital. In fact, everything that I have done to this point has involved $0 of capital expense. So, next week I will start sharing how I plan to bootstrap this farm on about $750 per month and get to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) by the first week of October.
Thanks for following along, please leave any thoughts/comments/concerns/criticisms below. I would love any feedback that you would like to offer.