What's the biggest scaling hurdle?
Hey all!
I remember the microgreens hype from a few years back (especially around Covid) where people were touting microgreens as an easy-peasy way to make gobs of money. I was tempted to try something and build a small business but limited myself to just growing occasionally for personal use.
I've recently "re-discovered" the concept and looked around to see the state of the industry. I'm not gonna lie, I'm thinking about giving it a try this time around. But I've seen the major companies which invested small fortunes go bankrupt and a lot of smaller cottage business discontinue after a few years. Why is that?
From what I've read online:
Competition and customer density
Expensive overhead (rent, electricity, seed, soil)
Time management (no real days off)
It's a niche, arguably luxury, niche product (lost revenue in economic downturns)
Freshness (Preservation and delivery issues)
It's primarily a sales job
For my specific situation:
I live in Western Queens in NYC so I'd have access to 4 boroughs with plenty of higher-end restaurants not to mention culinary schools, catering halls, bars, etc and from what I've seen, most producers are actually outside the city.
I have a large space I can use rent-free that would also allow me to also expand if I ever needed to (that I can't really use for anything else).
My days are already jam-packed with work so having two or three long days harvesting, packaging, and delivering sounds better than the non-stop that I'm doing now. Not to mention some things can also potentially be automated or semi-automated.
Nothing I can do about that.
Everything is nearby to each other but obviously one of the larger time-related, especially if you want to smooze and get to know your customers.
I've got some experience in sales so I have no issues hitting the strip and shameless soliciting customers.
Basically, I'm looking for someone to try to change my mind. I love my current job and make decent money but can't see myself doing it for another 20-25 years.
I want to build something for myself that is also scaleable and could grow substantially more if handled properly.