To Farm or Not to Farm? Food is the question. A startup’s journey est. 2020.
I like food, I really do. But I’m not a good cook, I’m really a big beginner. I love plants. I love gardens. I love recycling crafts and diy decor. These are a few of my many favourite things.
‘Many favourite things’ has been my problem for a long time now, but at the moment I’m promising that the more I keep at it and enjoy myself and let it be, the sooner I will figure out a way to get it all up and running in a sustainable way.
Ultimately the idea is to earn enough from each category of interests to make them sustain themselves. The question with this is still wether they all need to make money or not, but that answer still seems to be a pretty obvious — yes.
So here’s the story of how we’ve been trying to set our food interest up as a self sustaining business & brand.
What is Manna Farm Kenya?
The story of Manna Farm Kenya — a farming startup of ours that ended up in limbo, yes another one.
There’s just so much to write about with regards to the story of Manna Farm. But today I want to write about what I’ve learned from it and why I’m still using the name and brand of the startup name even though it’s in limbo.
So the place we’ve been staying at since 2020 March, its a big place. It has a house and it has a chicken barn area and it also has a tiny farming area and then a much bigger farming area further away to the bottom of the compound. *See the pic above
What we started with in the lockdown in 2020 was a chicken business and a farm (cabbage, kale, spinach, leeks, onions, tomatoes, coriander and some other veg).
This is another long story within the story I want to tell today. So let me cut this one short and just say it was a very good learning experience.
The point where we pivoted to limbo was a long story too.
Having products without already having secured customers for them is not the best of ways to start a business.
Okay so the veggies didn’t do well, we realized once again that having products without already having secured customers for them is not the best of ways to start a business (actually a very difficult and somewhat impossible way).
Chickens, same story.
It’s not like we didn’t sell any, but when push came to shove we couldn’t bring in enough over the long run so we had to stop investing.
Okay that was the end of 2020 somewhere if I remember correctly.
What happened from there was another story again, which I will briefly touch on.
So we have this other startup, a bike park, bike company something something (Check @twigatrails on Youtube and Instagram)
This one ended up tweaking our interest more at that point and we figured, well since the idea with Manna Farm was to grow food, why don’t we try make food for the bike company customers.
We did, it went well, for a while.
Until we realised that making food full time was also not our ‘thing’.
This pivot was a bit different to the produce farming one from earlier.
This time we stopped, because we were just not that into it.
The amount of time and interest needed to push the restaurant thing was too much for our side-line interest.
The amount of time and interest needed to push the restaurant thing was too much for our side-line interest.
That’s how Manna Farm ended up where it is now. Something more like a personal journal of the homestead life I dream of. I mean we are kindof quite the homestead already, but that’s another topic.
Let’s stick to the hustle vibes topic for now.
So why am I still using the brand? Is it still a startup?
I still consider Manna Farm a side-line hustle — actually, we are on the brink of starting to sell fresh bread to our immediate neighbourhood.
But at the same time it’s also a passion project of some sort.
I seriously want to grow it, however what I’ve learned through all the startup stuff so far is that it needs to be something that I am wholly interested in, obsessed with and spend all my time on. At least until it can stand on it’s own two feet (and who knows how long that might take).
It needs to be something that I am wholly interested in, obsessed with and spend all my time on. At least until it can stand on it’s own two feet
Right now I am working and focusing on enjoying this category of interest of mine and yes, I will always look for places to make some money on the side, but only if it’s something that is clearly in demand.
Like the bread for example, if the bread can cost customers cheaper than supermarket bread, then we are good to go on that side of things.
Then on the other hand we still need to make sure that the price that we are selling it at actually makes us profit (and of course covers the costs). So there’s all of that that we will still have to deal with.
But you know, all stories and side-stories aside, I really do enjoy farming.
We still have a farm, just a smaller one than before.
Right now we are so lucky to have Ali, an employee of ours since 2020, and avid farmer and gardener.
He has showed us that he can feed us with his handy work and that as long as we support him he will keep planting more and more food for us.
He has showed us that he can feed us with his handy work and that as long as we support him he will keep planting more and more food for us.
Then there is Edna and Thomas. A brother and sister team who joined us recently.
It is their passion for learning how to cook and bake new recipes and dishes that has led to this new bread idea.
This promising future brings me to the retrospective topic that I started with on all the business stuff.
So what have I learned?
There’s many ways of doing business. There’s even more ways of facilitating business.
People are the centre of all of it.
Communication is the key then that bridges the gap between me, my interests & ideas, those with the long-term passion to see it through and the customers who will bring this all to reality.
- thinking about facilitating business is a good way forward perhaps
- practice and focus on working with people more
- practice and perfect clear and frequent communication
- build a network between me, my interests & ideas, those with the long-term passion to see it through and the customers
I’m excited but don’t want to force it.
Never force it…
I’ll stop here then. I will let it be for now and see where the wind takes us.
As long as I enjoy the interest and celebrate those that want to master the skills that I will benefit from, I’m happy.
As long as I enjoy the interest and celebrate those that want to master the skills that I will benefit from, I’m happy.
The money is a whole other story.
Thanks for reading!
