My Uphill Battle With Entrepreneurship

Hey there! I’m Jenny.

My Flower Farming Journey

I own a small (~1 acre) cut flower farm in upstate NY, where I am doing my best to grow my business, succeed at life, and focus on the essential things that I love and make me feel like a super-human.

I’ve gone from working a job I really hated, to being my own boss and living a life of freedom, joy, satisfaction, and ever-increasing ease on my small farm.

I want to you to experience how amazing that feels, too.

Throughout my journey I’ve felt like I’ve struggled to find the business resources I needed to grow my business. There is such a need for it, but no one seemed to be talking about it.

How can you grow your side-hustle flower-garden gig to a full-time job? Should you? How do you know what’s making money and what’s not? How do you build your client base? How do you figure out the financials, sales, marketing, projections, business plan and everything else?

Those are all questions I’ve asked myself in the past. I’ve decided it’s time for someone to step up and create resources to help farmers get where they want to go - and that someone, apparently, is me.

In the past three years, I have managed to double my revenue and profits each year using simple tools & techniques that often get overlooked by farmers of all experience levels. I work completely full time on my farm and I earn over six-figures in gross revenue.

I’m not saying any of this to brag- I want you to know that I for a long time, I thought it was impossible to accomplish…turns out, it’s not.

I can’t say these things without feeling like I am misleading you though - it’s been a LONG, HARD road to get here.

Like most people, I’ve had a lot of hang-ups I’ve had to work through, the top 3 doozies being: my relationship with money, finding my “thang” in my career, and figuring out how to be legitimately satisfied with life. I am just a regular “30-something” trying to figure things out, but I really love the path I am on and the thing’s I’ve learned along the way. It’s my hope that I can help bring more freedom, clarity, abundance, and satisfaction into your life by sharing some of the things I’ve found useful here.

Firstly, farming is DIFFICULT - but it is also the most rewarding career on earth (I may be a bit biased though). I couldn’t imagine spending my days doing anything else, but it’s certainly not for everyone. The exercises/tools/ideas that I’ll be sharing here have really helped scale up my business from a “hobby-farm” to a full time career. They shaped my life into the awesomeness it is today, and I hope they’ll help you out, too.

I know there’s a lot of folks out there like me, who would love to do something meaningful with their days (like grow fresh food or flowers), but aren’t taking the leap or don’t feel like it’s possible. Farming is notorious for lots of hard work with little or no pay in return. But I am living proof that it IS possible- however, it is certainly not easy. I don’t really want to use this post to write all about me, but I think it’s important to share my story because I know it will resonate with some of you out there.

I started about 5 different businesses that all failed before my successful flower farm. I felt so disempowered, helpless, and desperate each time. Even my first couple years in my flower farm business I didn’t make ANY money. But I also didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and didn’t take it very seriously. At the time, I worked a full time job for the government and started my flower farming business on the side. I was super dissatisfied with my off-farm job, my daily routine, health habits, and my general happiness. Finally, I became so disheartened with the work I was doing, I made the no-nonsense decision that I WAS GONNA MAKE THIS FLOWER FARMING THING WORK, GOSH-DARNNIT … and proceeded to work my tail off until I did just that.

From that moment, I grew my business from 0 dollars to multiple 6 figures in just a few short years.  Which, for me, is darn incredible (for some folks that’s probably just a “drop in the bucket” as my husband likes to say, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished so far). I’ve doubled my sales every year for the past three years, and I finally was able to quit my off-farm job (to farm full-time).

Sharing my financials and my story on the internet feels super scary, but I feel a pull to share it because I want people to know that it is possible to achieve a wonderful life on a small farm (a very small farm) I also want people to know that they will likely have to sacrifice to achieve that…for me, it was worth it. But it may not be for everyone.

I grew up in a farming community and I was told my whole life that it wasn’t possible to make a living farming, it was better left a hobby, and that it was too hard physically and financially to make a good living at it.  

I loved farming and it was the only thing I knew. I grew up on dairy farms and threw hay every summer while working for my dad. My parents and I started tomatoes in our basement under grow lights and sold them every spring. I went to college to earn a degree in agriculture.

I had major battles with those limiting beliefs- because everywhere I looked all I saw were failing farm businesses. Until one day I decided to look even deeper and found a few gems among the rock: a handful of farmers absolutely killing it. These farmers inspired me, and I obsessed over their successes, failures, techniques, and advice.

Fast forward many years, and here I am proving my family limiting beliefs wrong: I am making more money than I did at my off-farm job (and currently re-investing it back into my business), with more freedom and control over my time and my life. I love how I spend my days and how I am improving my life constantly. But that being said -again, it was a long, hard road to get here.  I put every cent I made back into my business for the first 5 years.

The reason I started this blog is because I feel really passionate about business and farming. Frankly, I feel uneasy about how “small farm life” and entrepreneurship is portrayed on the internet. Small scale farming is generally overly-romanticized, and is viewed as all “pretty flowers, blue skies, rainbows and butterflies.”  YES, farming is all of those things sometimes, but you actually have to work really damn hard and be a super badass to succeed at it.  It requires grit, perseverance, and a ridiculous amount of various skills. I want to share what I feel like the journey/experience of entrepreneurship has really been like, and the skills it’s taken me to get to “the other side” (make a good living farming full time).

I want to give you the straight up truth about business and farm life, along with actionable tools & systems to hopefully succeed at it. The reality is farming is extremely difficult alone- with the added complexity of running a business, it can be a serious uphill battle.  

In order to succeed at farming, you must not only be a talented grower- but you also must acquire the many skills required to run and grow a successful business. You must make flawless financial decisions. You must be absolutely obsessed with the lifestyle of being a farmer - and if you are not… well, keeping a small flower garden may be a better fit.

There seems to be tons of great resources for gardeners and beginning market gardeners/farmers in the “growing” department, but hardly any in terms of “business sense.” I am hoping to provide more information on the business side of things. I want to make it clear that I am by no means an expert - I am just sharing what I’ve found to be useful, helpful, and inspiring.

Secondly, I wanted to start a conversation between a community of dedicated people who live this type of lifestyle- I think being an entrepreneur, and ESPECIALLY a farm entrepreneur is very isolating and it’s really easy to feel alone (because let’s be honest: your friends in town don’t understand what it’s like). I’m really hoping to create some kind of retreat or event in the future where we can connect and form REAL LIFE relationships (not just fake ones on the internet).

If you are just starting out on your farm business journey, or are maybe just a few years into it, and feeling like you are working SO hard for SO little, that you are meant for so much more, and that you really want to tap into your full potential - I hope the articles I write help you. That was me, and to be honest, I am still figuring a lot out- but I feel compelled to share what I’ve learned in hopes it will help you, too.

I have an incredible life- I have forged my own schedule, and I feel like I am 100% in control of my time.  I do work that is meaningful to me, and I end most of my days feeling satisfied and proud of myself.  I work extremely hard, and have had a lot of luck on my side (mostly in the form of my super-helpful husband who is a builder extraordinaire). Living a farm lifestyle is anything but easy, but it feels incredibly rewarding to do so (seems like so much of the world has forgotten what this feels like). I make decisions based on my core values and feel more-and-more purpose driven as I explore the world of self-introspection and entrepreneurship.

If you have the desire to be your own boss, do work that feels satisfying to you, be 100% in control of your time, and really make an impact on the world, then I hope the things I share here help you on your own farm entrepreneurship journey. 

I can’t make any promises. I certainly don’t know it all, but I DO know that I can try to help other people with the stuff I wish I knew when I got started. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading & for being here!

I’d love to know what you need help with most. Please comment on this article below with your biggest struggle in growing your farm business, and let me know if you have ideas on how I can best help you along your journey!

Talk soon!

- Jenny