Building a Farm

Maude working on increasing milk production.


Starting from scratch and clearing land is an inexpensive way to get into the farm business. Farming is the fun part, but making it into some type of profitable business is the tricky part. We have a myriad of possibilities and may have to do several. There are certain budget constraints to keep in mind. Whatever we decide to do, will have a zero development budget which makes it challenging.

We are currently looking at digging a cheese cave/root cellar. Despite having never made a wheel of cheese, or having sufficient dairy goats to supply the milk to support a cheese making operation, we are intrigued by the fact the cave, at least, could be done on our budget by our excavator and our raw materials (i.e. rocks and lumber from our sawmill). When starting any business, there are some things you simply cannot know before you start--in this case almost everything. How fun is this going to be!

I am sure this sounds like the idle ramblings of a wishful thinker. I like to view myself as a visionary that can see what's there before it actually appears. I subscribe to the theory, that if it were hard, no-one could do it. Ergo, I have done all sorts of things successfully using a combination of determination, blissful and massive ignorance of the possible pitfalls, and when all else fails, finally resorting to bone crushing, mind numbing hard work. Most ideas work to some extent once a gargantuan amount of effort is applied.

First things first, the first cheese cave (and probably the only cheese cave, let's be serious) is just for our entertainment and experimentation. If we can't make good cheese, there is no reason to make lots of it. Also, there are those pesky projects that I have going this winter (the sawmill roof and new outhouse/shower room--a small concession to creature comforts) and the house I should build before I am too decrepit to do it.

So, a business that will take years to develop of which we have almost total ignorance is just to juicy to resist. Hence the cheese cave. In the mean time to make a quicker business, one that might make money in my life time and requires much less equipment, work, raw materials, buildings, money and effort, we are going to make designer goat milk soap. If we are lucky, this will make as much money as Bert's Bee's does for Roxanne Quimby and will allow us to develop the cheese business and to buy the north Maine woods out from under her, and then, gamble it all to build a large cheese cave, a large dairy goat herd, a large pasture, etc. etc.

Kris has been doing the development of the soap business. She is much less experienced in business development and is doing market analysis, product testing, cost analysis, and other unfun things to make sure it will work. Being more experienced in business start ups, I am encouraging her to skip all this boring stuff and bet the farm and everything we own on the idea of the moment just like I would do.

I know this sounds crazy, but there is a method to my madness. (Pay attention now, if you have been daydreaming. This explains the kernel of apparent craziness that bubbles up in me from time to time.) Those who have started a business will recognize it as the essential ingredient to success. COMMITMENT IS EVERYTHING. All else is just a way of trying to calm your nerves before you start.

For commitment, I like to bet everything. Betting everything is a sure way to be totally committed. When success is the only option for survival, the success rate goes way up. Ninety percent of most business start ups fail because there is always plan B to fall back on. Get rid of plan B and with starvation as a real possibility, then plan A is MADE to work. Genius, huh?

Let me tell you a short story to illustrate just how well this works and how my business acumen was developed.

In my formative years, I worked for Hannaford Bros as a young produce specialist. Hannaford was building a new store in Machias. I was at a monthly store operations meeting where the main topic was the soon to be opened store. Usually, only store operations people were at these meetings, but this meeting had a broader attendance and the head of the store engineering department, a competent, distinguished fellow was there to discuss progress. Roger was the Senior Vice President in charge of Store Operations. His nickname was "the Bullet" for reasons soon to be obvious.

All store operations people live by the creed of "whatever it takes to get the job done." In Roger's case this was actually tweeked to "WHATEVER IT TAKES!!!" The unsuspecting engineer mistakenly thought when Roger asked if there were any snags, he actually wanted to know if there were any, so he said conversationally, "the lights for the poles in the parking lot are probably not going to be up in time for the opening because they are back ordered". Roger looked down the table and told him in all sincerity "if those lights aren't on the poles and working when that store opens, you will be sitting on one of them with a flashlight." None of the regular attendees doubted that at all. The point of this story is the commitment level. The engineer needed his raised for a successful outcome. Roger was a genius at that.

Applying this simple tactic to our situation, I have guided our income and bank account to near zero, and thus have raised our commitment level sufficiently to guarantee success in the new business. We will now do "WHATEVER IT TAKES!!!"

Before reading how carefully this business was set up for success, you might have thought betting the farm on a nonexistent soap business resting on the spindly legs of one unassuming (and unsuspecting) dairy goat was a bit crazy. Now, can you see the genius of it? Well, keep trying, it may come to you.

What do you think of "Maude's Milk Soap" with a line drawing of Maude's head on the label? She is, after all, providing the milk for this adventure and deserves something more than an extra flake of hay.