It is hot. Actually, hot is an insult to the actual temperatures this summer. My wife, who just started her 8th month of pregnancy, starts her day sitting on the ground, weeding or picking vegetables! Sounds odd? Sounds bizarre?
It all started when we first moved to California. My wife, a straight-A student with scholarships out of the wazoo, was trained as a psychologist and practiced with the mentally ill. She decided she was sick of the mainstream and even more than that, she wanted a job where she wouldn’t need to talk all day. She checked her options and found an organic gardening course and a carpentry course. I, in a last attempt to stick to productivity and something useful, pushed towards carpentry, but lost the battle as she missed the registration’s close date, so she went to study organic gardening in San Francisco. Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
She was hooked. She found her destiny! Before I knew it, she became an organic advocate, what you may call tree hugger, earth eater, and I became the enemy of the world representing the corporate capitalism in all the “interesting“ gatherings and new friends she attended and made. What’s life without some excitement?
She graduated her course and started working on different farms and CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) and even completed her Master’s degree in community agriculture. In 2003, she had her mind set – she wanted to open her own community supported agriculture farm. We sat down and wrote a business plan, invested some money, got some ground and started. In less than a year the business was profitable. No aggressive marketing and promotion, just word of mouth and reputation.
Today, my wife, her business partner and their employees supply fresh vegetables once a week to 400 families, from the field straight to the house. Organic vegetables are usually 3-4 times the cost of conventional produce, but my wife was not willing to charge that much – she agreed to a maximum of 30% on top of conventional market price. Agriculture workers get paid minimum wage if they are lucky. My wife insisted on paying way above minimum wage even at the cost of hurting margins, just because that is what’s right in her mind! A lady with core values.
I saw this business will catch wind and told my wife that after we succeed with this one, we will open a franchise and open a network of 200 of these farms worldwide based on our expertise. She looked at me and smiled gently as if forgiving a little child and said, “keep your capitalist colonial aspirations to your business, I don’t want to grow beyond the point where I know personally and talk once a month with each one of my customers.”
And so it was. Despite growing demand and a waiting list double the amount of customers she has, my wife is not willing to grow the business. She believes in small and personal and that’s it, end of story. In the meantime, to address the demand that my wife is not willing to fulfill, she helps some of her employees and other farming entrepreneurs open similar CSA’s , coaching and mentoring them. When I ask about competition and what if they end up cannibalizing the business, she smiles again, saying competition is good and there is enough for all of us. Interesting concept .
I can go on and on about this business that operates in a whole different approach and set of values than what we know from the high-tech industry. I can go on and on with stories about happy customers and missed business opportunities. It won’t change the basic fact that it is an amazing business, ran by amazing people who do good to lots of families.
This post is dedicated to all the folks out there who believe that business is about the creation of good products and services, and doing good to employees, customers, partners and the communities we live in.
Happy birthday my dear wife.
