Seeds of Growth

Why my business is like tomatoes

When I was a kid, I hated tomatoes. They made me barf.

Maybe it was because my mom bought lousy supermarket tomatoes with gooey pockets of seeds and then just tossed them on a pile of iceberg lettuce and called it a salad. Whatever it was, to me, tomatoes sucked.

Then one day, I moved to California. Then another day, I went to the Farmer’s Market and my hot, new girlfriend (who is now my hot, no-so-new wife). She said, “Oh you’ve got to try heirlooms tomatoes!” so I tried one cause that’s what guys do when a hot new girlfriend asks them to try something new.

And I loved it.

Now, I grow my own tomatoes. See this background picture? I grew these babies. I grow awesome tomatoes.

But I didn’t always. This is my 5th year of growing tomatoes.

Year One I grew cherry tomatoes in a bucket. They were no Purple Cherokee’s from the Farmer’s Market, but they were edible.

Year Two I built a planter box and put in a plant—I didn’t know when to plant them, so I got them in late. The plants grew, but the tomatoes never came.

Year Three I got them in early, but planted 8 plants in the box. They were a crammed, sickly mess. Had a few gems, but more than a few with big brown spots that went straight into the compost.

Year Four I went down to 5 plants. These fared better, but I didn’t really look at what I planted and my best plant was spitting out yellow tomatoes. Ever have yellow tomatoes? They’re pretty good. Ever had yellow tomatoes all summer long? Not so much.

Which brings us to Year Five. My Japanese Treifle tomato plant is the envy of the neighborhood. The fruit is so beautfiul I’m writing a blog post on Medium just so I can use it as a background picture. This Jewish tomato-hater from New York grew up to become an awesome tomato grower.

Surprisingly, my business is just like this. I never thought I’d be an entrepreneur. But every year we’ve had spurts of growth, followed by setbacks. We’ve learned each time. We’ve come out better. We’ve observed the mistakes that separate good from great.

Our tomatoes keep getting better and better.

If you’re an entrepreneur (or an amateur farmer), have patience. Accept your setbacks. If you learn from your mistakes, you turn failure into success.

It’s a recipe you can count on.