Why Barn2Door? Software for Farmers
In this week’s episode, Alex of Chucktown Acres interviews Janelle, CEO and Founder of Barn2Door, to discuss the history, mission and future of the business. Built to put the power back into Independent Farmers' hands, learn how Barn2Door has expanded its software and services tailored specifically for Farm operations.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
Alex Russell: Hello, welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. My name is Alex Russell, and I am so excited to interview Janelle, the CEO of Barn2Door today. But, before we do, let me give you a quick rundown of what Barn2Door is, [00:01:00] who I am, and what my relationship is with the Barn2Door team. First off, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman.
They're selling directly into local markets under their own farm brand, from an online store and a website to in-person sales, to managing all the parts of the business. From inventory tracking to managing daily deliveries, Barn2Door's software and resources help farmers be successful. Okay. A little bit about me first before we get started.
I'm Alex Russell, today's podcast host, and I am the owner of Chucktown Acres, a regenerative farm in South Carolina. My farming life started years ago when I interned at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms in 2016. Not long after that, my wife and I, we started a farm [00:02:00] right outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
We grow forest raised hogs, pastured poultry, and grass fed beef. We offer subscriptions and deliveries to our local community, and we also set up at a couple local farmer's markets. We've leased land, we've built a pretty well known farm brand in our area. We've launched a brick and mortar farm store, and we've partnered with a lot of other local farms.
It's been a amazing journey, and it's one that I love to share with other independent farmers across the country. I'm also a member of the Farm Advisory Network with Barn2Door. Basically that means that I get to give Barn2Door feedback as one of their users. I get to give them feedback based off of my experience with the software, and I get to host office hours where other farmers get to ask me any kind of questions they want.
That program is called Connect. And [00:03:00] then I also have the privilege of teaching Barn2Door's Grassroots Marketing Academy every month. I've been working with Barn2Door for five years now, and I've had the privilege of knowing Janelle for four-ish years. We actually had the pleasure of finally meeting in person at the Sustainability conference in North Carolina.
I think it was 2022. Janelle.
Janelle Maiocco: I am trying to remember.
Alex Russell: Yeah, I...
Janelle Maiocco: Was that the... yeah, probably when Lucy and I were hanging out talking Spanish words.
Alex Russell: Yes. That...
Janelle Maiocco: Yes.
Alex Russell: That's it. And um, we think it was 2022. Not totally certain on that. But I've been using the Barn2Door software since we started our farming operation.
So, it's helped me with everything from sales to fulfillments, to my brand, to my social presence. Every aspect of my business has been affected by Barn2Door. They've connected me to [00:04:00] a community of farmers that I would never have met, had I not been part of the community aspect on the platform. They also helped me make my farm website, my farm store.
I literally don't know what farming life is like without them. So, I am very grateful to Janelle's work with the software and how it's deeply impacted our farming, our business, and then my personal life as a farmer has been made sustainable, as an option that I can keep going on because Barn2Door has helped me so much.
So, I'm a huge fan and I'm so happy to do anything I can as a farmer to support these guys 'cause they just have made a world of difference for us. And yeah, I've got in here three years ago I got to do a couple conference presentations with Janelle. We did one in Dallas. We did one in North Carolina and [00:05:00] I'm so happy to be a part of this team and so happy to do the podcast today.
Janelle Maiocco: I love it. We need to put you back on the speaking circuit. You're so good at that. It's just amazing. And also, it's funny, you're gonna ask me why Barn2Door? And I'm like, I think you literally just described why Barn2Door.
Alex Russell: And that's the end of the podcast. Thanks for joining.
Janelle Maiocco: Um, yeah. If we help you and other farmers like you, be successful and crush it out there.
Amen.
Alex Russell: Yeah, I've done a lot of conference calls with other farmers and if they're brand new and they're wondering if it's worth it, you know, I gotta sign up. I do have to pay for this software. I don't know. And I'm just like, dude, you have no idea. Like, I still pay for the software, but I don't even think about paying for the software like...
This program has helped me so much. It's not even a second thought about is it willing, is it worth it to pay for it? It's obviously worth it to pay for it, and it's gonna [00:06:00] help you weigh more than what they charge you. So, last piece of the intro, Janelle, I have a thousand questions for you.
I want to dig into your backstory. I want to know why you started Barn2Door. I wanna know why you want to help farmers. What keeps you motivated? What have the hurdles been, and what advice do you have for farmers on and off the platform? Welcome, Janelle. I just did your job.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, yup.
Alex Russell: Of the intro. So how did I do?
Janelle Maiocco: You did awesome. Well, you know, it's great because, people wanna know who the heck you are when we're having this conversation and I've been asked by folks to do a podcast on why Barn2Door, including other farmers saying, Hey, can you please do that? So, really sweet and it's good to dig in.
Alex Russell: Alright, let's get into this. I wanna know just more about your story. I know a little bit, but I bet there's a bunch I don't know. Few simple questions right off the bat. So, [00:07:00] if people have never met you, have never listened to you speak before, tell us, where'd you grow up? What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Did you study software? Did you have a career in software before? All of that stuff. How did you get to this point and what was life like for you before Barn2Door?
Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness. That was like four or five questions in a row, Alex.
Alex Russell: Yeah, I've got 'em written down, so if you need help, I can...
Janelle Maiocco: You can circle back.
Okay. I was raised in the Pacific Northwest. I have roots from OG, from Montana, primarily some Nebraska, et cetera. But, ended up in the Pacific Northwest where my grandfather helped found a city and it was all farming and agriculture. So I grew up in this lovely pocket of a ton of dairy farmers and then berries.
So, if you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, it's seafood, a lot of salmon. A lot of berries, a lot of dairy. And so, my grandfather had a dairy farm and a chicken farm. So spent tons of time in the milk parlor and, you know, [00:08:00] most of my friends had farms and their families had farms and people milked before school and after school.
My summer jobs were very farm ish. I picked more berries then anybody would care to know. Probably ate that many too. But yes, we used to pick berries all day, every day as our summer jobs. Riding tractor is very normal. My father had a hobby farm then. So, we always had huge gardens, animals, chickens, cows, everything else, out back.
So, a lot of wonderful exposure. Loved farmers for all of those reasons. Backbone of the country, lovely people, salt of the earth. So, that's where my affection and exposure grew for farming in particular. You asked about food, and what I'm trying to think what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I'm trying to remember if I have an answer for that. I think it was an evolution, but, I was the kid when little kids played house, I played restaurant. So, I think I always had a great affection for food. Early, early, early on. And I was classic, worked tons of years in restaurants, front and back of house, all through the years [00:09:00] and I dunno if you wanna know beyond that, I actually got my MBA in the Seattle area, so if anybody knows, that's a very thick tech ecosystem.
So, I got great exposure to technology, to business, to food tech, to all of the above. Also got to know the restaurant community there very well. So, a lot of good exposure to all of the above in terms of tech, in terms of restaurateurs. I also did an OG food blog for years and years. So, a lot of things circling around that ultimately did come together.
Alex Russell: Okay. That's beautiful. So, did you have a career in tech and software before you started this or was this like, I know people who do software. I think I could do it. Like, walk me through that scenario.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. When I was getting my MBA in Seattle, it was all the.com, everything, right?
So there was a lot I learned, and I did, I consulted for quite a few years for a number of [00:10:00] businesses. Often food tech related, sometimes just tech. Where I do various kinds of consulting. I also consulted for some really large statewide food commissions, like Northwest Cherry Growers, Texas Grapefruit, California Raisin.
Just really interesting, and honestly piggybacked on that with my food blog. Before anybody knew what influencers were, they called them blog ambassadors.
Alex Russell: Bloggers. Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, exactly. So, I got great exposure from that to just a litany of food brands across the country as well. So, a really great mix.
I think the fun twist to the story is after about 10 years being in food at, well, I should say tech and business, I actually bowed out and went back to culinary school to become a trained chef. I don't know if you knew that or not, but anyway, it was very soon after that that I looked around on, my chef friends were trying to source local food from farmers.
I was on a consumer like personal level, always trying to source local food directly from farmers. And it was sort of in that pocket of people and it was [00:11:00] so obvious that it was, it needed to be fixed because, all of us were trying to source direct and it was like Google, it was like, Facebook groups, list serves, long, complicated email threads to try to figure out which Farm was gonna maybe come to town.
And so, it's like pen, paper, cash, check, you know, many touches of email, text, everything just to try to procure food. Anyway, net net of it is, most buyers won't go through all of those hurdles, but the demand was there, and I knew that because nine in 10 people prefer local food. So I'm like, it's not a demand issue.
And so, everybody wants local food, but at the time, you know, farmers were really struggling. And so, that was really, you know, 10 plus years ago was the light bulb moment of we have to solve, like we have to solve this. It's not even an option. Because these farmers shouldn't be failing. We don't want them to fail.
We want them to be wildly successful and then to support and grow these farmers where there's all this demand for local food, ensure their success as farms, and then ultimately continue to [00:12:00] grow that as a great option and a viable option from a career perspective. And make it turnkey and easy for farmers to move their product, engage their communities, and sell consistently.
Alex Russell: Yeah, it's, an unbelievable resource. I still remember when I was in Virginia, working at PolyFace, I decided to start my own duck business. So, I would raise and process meat ducks for like French restaurants.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, awesome.
Alex Russell: And the agony of having to try to sell those ducks to restaurants. I still have PTSD from it because I would set aside six hours a week to make cold calls directly to restaurants. And, oh, my personality is not the, like, barge in and be the center of attention kind of guy. I'm a quiet, you know, slipping through the back door kind of guy. And so, I'd have to call these restaurants and try to get through the walls and walls of fireproofing that they had to block people from [00:13:00] getting to the chef.
But I had to talk to the chef and I remember I would just be in agony. I would force myself for two hours every Tuesday and Thursday. I, and Wednesday, I'd have to call these restaurants and it was so awful.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: And I think I like still remember that innately, whenever I get an email that's like a confirmation email that I sold another $200 on Barn2Door and I never even talked to that person and I don't even know who they are and they're buying my stuff.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Like, oh, what a relief. 'Cause I used to have to make every single sale through phone calls, writing down orders, promising I'll be there at this time. I don't even have the chef's phone number yet, and I mean, what a terrible, terrible...
Janelle Maiocco: It's horrible.
Alex Russell: Way to do it.
Janelle Maiocco: And to be honest, the buyers have PTSD too. They don't, that's not how buyers buy. Buyers love farmers, but they don't wanna talk to them every single time they wanna buy something. [00:14:00] And I know that's a rough reality, but buyers today, so the missing link, and you, you've just touched on it, is convenience.
Like buyers, they wanna go through as few clicks and as little friction as possible to purchase the food. And then have it fulfilled in a convenient way. And if you can build up a group of buyers buying directly from a farm where it's easy to buy, they can just go online, drop it in their cart, hit purchase, you know, choose the pickup or delivery that works best for them, whatever that farm might offer.
And it's easy? Game over because now all of a sudden, I like to say if you have a hundred customers and you require phone calls and emails, maybe you'll be lucky to get one out of a hundred that are willing to jump through all those hoops. It's probably more like one in 10,000.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: But, you get the point.
But, if it's easy and all I have to do is go online, drop it in my cart, either hit subscribe or purchase, and I've chosen Wednesday because that's what the farmer offers for either delivery or local pickup, I will do that all day every day because I am the [00:15:00] 99 out of a hundred people who prefer local food.
But it's the convenience of shopping and fulfillment. That's the game changer. And as you know, a lot of farms will come to us, like, wow, I first have to build up my customer list. It's like, great. We know how to help you do that. Once you have your customer list, you just have to regularly remind them to buy from you.
And they will, if it's easy.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: If it's easy. If it's easy.
Alex Russell: Exactly. And farmers like me know how strenuous it is to try to sell to someone who won't just go on your website and buy it. They're like, your buddy or someone close, close by. They're like, can I just text you my order and then just meet you at this unspecific time when you're probably really busy and you don't have time.
And like anytime someone comes to the farm and you talk to them, that's 30 minutes to an hour. Guaranteed. That's for one sale.
Janelle Maiocco: No.
Alex Russell: And so when people do that, I'm like, please just go on the website or just, we have a farm store. So I'm like, just come [00:16:00] during the farm store hours because I don't have just a floppy free hour on a Thursday just to give to you, you know, because you want to spend a hundred dollars on some whatever, some brisket or something.
Janelle Maiocco: Well, and the reverse is true. The buyers typically don't have time either. Especially those who are like, Hey, I'll pay you 10, 15 bucks to drop it on my front door step. Right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And everybody will because they're busy. But they want the food and so they will pay for convenience. I have to say one thing that's really, really important to Alex before we move on, and it's the mission and the passion and the grit behind growing Barn2Door because we know and love that when we help farmers remove the middleman and sell direct, we give the power back to farmers, right? Like you get to set your own prices. Now, you know your own end buyer, you're calling the shots. Versus, you know, when you start to get into that aggregation distribution model and all of a sudden somebody else owns the buyer, somebody else is setting the pricing.
And that's very risky for [00:17:00] business. And so, nothing makes us happier. I literally had a call this morning with somebody who was talking to me about some precision ag, you know, whatever for some big ag commodity mono drop. You know, I tried not to go off on them. I, I admit, but...
Alex Russell: You have no idea who you're dealing with here.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm like, I have, do you want the ethical issues I have with that or do you want anyway? But, but the net net of it is, is that's actually very risky. The reason they, those monocrop farms have to be so massive and have all the subsidies is because they have no pricing control, and they literally put all their eggs in one basket with one crop.
Like, you know, one thing goes wrong and you're toast. And so it's just, it's funny, but we actually help independent farmers all across the country, de-risk, de-risk their business because now they can sell to wholesale, to retail. They can build up local buyers, many, many, many buyers in their local communities.
And they can, in many cases offer subscriptions to their [00:18:00] product. Now all of a sudden they have 20, 30, 60, 80% of their sales are recurring revenue every week or month. So, this is a game changer, including when you remove the middleman and remove the supply chain, you can maximize your profit.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Right? And so for us, nothing truly makes us happier than so many success stories of farmers taking their business by the horns, if you will. And really leaning in and saying, I'm gonna do this, and then having wild success.
Alex Russell: Yeah. And we have to keep in mind that the margins are so tiny for anyone in the food industry, whether it's restaurants...
Janelle Maiocco: Fair.
Alex Russell: Farmers in this case.
And, you know, I've got a couple of people that I do a little bit of wholesale work with. But if you're gonna give a food co-op or a grocery store, somebody that you're gonna work with on a wholesale basis, a restaurant, and you're gonna give them a wholesale discount, you just have to be really careful with that because, you [00:19:00] gotta know your margins ahead of time before you go ahead and say, yeah, I'll give you 30% off if you take 200 pounds of ground beef.
Sure. Because your margin might be 30%. Guess what? You just gave that 30% away to a restaurant and you're farming for free and you're not getting anywhere. And it's one of the most amazing things to be able to sell the full price direct to the consumer. When we cut out that middleman, that's 30% more or whatever your number is, it could be 50% more.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Many times higher.
Alex Russell: Income that you're getting to hold onto as a business as profit, to then be able to grow your business. Because it seems like a lot of farmers get into this and we have to have the heart to heart price conversation with them. ' Cause they want their steaks to be the same price as Whole Foods or their ground beef to be the same price as Walmart or something.
And it's like, guys, you have to understand. You're gonna lose money. That food is artificially [00:20:00] subsidized to be made cheaper than it actually is. Don't match those prices. You're not getting government subsidies as a little farm, right? So, you have got to make sure that you are running your numbers, charging your real price, giving yourself profit to be able to grow your farm and stuff like Barn2Door, farmer's markets, farm stores.
All of these things allow us to be able to go direct to the customer and make that difference and be able to charge a full retail price, rather than going through someone else and basically giving away all of our profit to someone else to make.
Janelle Maiocco: I know it's like we're on our double soap boxes again, on, you know, giving the talk.
It's good stuff. There's a lot of passion. There's a lot of passion.
Alex Russell: Alright, so my next question for you is, why did you choose technology to help farmers instead of other ways?
I'm sure being in the food [00:21:00] industry yourself, there was probably a hundred different ways, you could have started your own co-op. You could have started your own grocery store, you could have started a business that helps farmers connect with restaurants only. What was the thing? What, like, what happened?
Was there a conversation you had with somebody where you, you were like, I don't know, I just wanna help these farmers out. And then the idea sparked to have a software. I mean, this is a very specific idea. That is working. When did the spark happen and did this happen as a progression where you tried a few things and then adjusted it?
Or, like, tell us the story behind building Barn2Door.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both. I understood food hubs and saw a lot of incredible groups trying to be supportive of farms. Many of 'em actually had grants and I also talked to a lot of those same food hubs and groups that would say, Hey, it's great, but then if you don't get the grant, the bottom falls out and, you know, if you don't get the grant [00:22:00] again, I should say, then the bottom falls out. And that impacts farmers who then again, are left holding the bag, they don't have that end buyer relationship, 'cause again, somebody else was doing that aggregation and distribution.
I played a little in that space enough to figure out that when farmers use an aggregator and distributor of any kind, whether it's a food hub or a small marketplace online or offline, et cetera, that for a farmer, it was good because it moved product like, okay, they could count on, hey, X number of whatever from this large contract would get moved.
But, as I said earlier, that can be very risky when all of a sudden, the contract falls through. Or in the case of aggregation distribution, they might deliver what was purchased through that aggregator distributor, but they always would continue on and keep selling direct to chefs and friends and family and consumers, because they would make more money.
So while it was useful, it still counts as a sales [00:23:00] channel to use a grocery store marketplace or food hub or any of those, but it eats away at the profit margin. So, it ends up being expensive channels better than the, I always say it's better than the compost pile, right? 'Cause you wanna move product, but...
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: But, that's fine.
That's neither here nor there. There's a lot of use and value in that. But I saw the value, the brute force effort farmers were making to manually manage direct sales through phone, text, email, pen, paper, cash, check, setting aside to your point hours to try to do cold calls and do all of this manual non-farm effort, you know, to do the marketing and sales, which again, you have to do if you wanna maximize your profit and have the most control over your business. And so, it was very clear to me, and there was certainly light bulb moment. And through that evolution of these farmers prefer to sell direct and or if we give them an opportunity for that to be really turnkey and as easy as possible, even though at the end of the day [00:24:00] they're still the ones that have to do the marketing, 'cause it's your own brand and you have to actually build up your own loyal customers to your farm brand, not any aggregator or distributor. That if we could empower that model, it would change the lives of all those farmers and encourage farming even more so, and basically save the future of, well, provide an incredible option for the future of food in so much as there's actually nutrient dense options and variety. If you can decentralize food essentially and give the power back to the farmers. I mean, if there's anything else that's the mission and the power and the passion, which is to give the business back to the farmers, to give the decisions back to them, to give the farmers the option and the optionality and the information and data to make good decisions about their business and to maximize their profits.
And of course, if you're growing a business as a farmer, it takes effort upfront. Like you said, you can't not pay for a software, you know, you have to actually invest.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And I saw them doing all this manually and I'm like, okay, software can solve the [00:25:00] manual minutiae and administrative overhang of farmers trying to sell direct brute force with nothing, with no software helping.
But the second punch, and this is a one two punch, it has to be convenient for buyers. Or they will not buy.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Again, you can do all the right things, even use the software, everything else, but unless you make it easy for them, for the buyer to order and get the food, including without talking to anybody, and with a few clicks of a button and with a credit card, then all of a sudden, now the masses will buy from you.
You just opened up your whole world. That's why you can say you woke up the next day and you sold a couple hundred more dollars of food to somebody you never met, because it was so easy. They saw a quick description of what you're doing. They love it. They want it, it's done. They make quick decisions.
Alex Russell: Yes. Yeah. This is all making me remember when we started our farm, it was June of 2020.
Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.
Alex Russell: And the COVID pandemic was like, [00:26:00] we were still in the early stages, but everyone was so freaked out that no one was going anywhere. The farmer's markets were shut down. I knew farming friends that were shutting down their operations like they were closing their businesses while I was opening mine.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: And it was crazy because I saw these people, they were like, he raises pigs and chickens and cows. He's shutting his business down. But, those people were all going through distributors.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep. Risky.
Alex Russell: No one, no distributing companies were doing anything. The grocery store shelves were empty. The supply chain got totally screwed up.
And so, that was one of the main things that I saw that gave me this huge, like, aha moment where I said, we have to be able to sell direct to these people. And if we can't go anywhere, if we can't go to this farmer's [00:27:00] market, we'll never meet anyone. So, we have to have an online thing like this. This is this whole thing.
Let's go online. Let's do it. And so, that's when we started looking for a, we were like, Hmm, we need like an online service where they'll build us a website, they'll build us an online store. They'll help us learn how to get in front of customers. People can go on our website, they can like order stuff.
It'll be really easy and amazing for people. That probably doesn't exist, but let's go, let's Google it anyway. And so we start searching for what Barn2Door is, and we found out there are a couple of options, none of them even close to what Barn2Door offers. And so, even before we launched our own business, we knew we needed this.
So, we signed up for Barn2Door before we even launched our LLC as a business.
Janelle Maiocco: Amazing.
Alex Russell: And we were like, we have to do this [00:28:00] because I'm seeing all these other farmers closing their doors and they're good farmers. Like they're...
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: They're regenerative, they're sustainable, they have great products, but they all went from probably 90% wholesale through distributors and middlemen.
And then, covid hits.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: And they tried to switch to like, Hey, I'm gonna post on Instagram that you can come to my farm on Tuesdays and we'll just set up a cooler at the farm. It did not work like that was not nearly convenient enough for people and it was this huge drastic change that these businesses had to make.
And unfortunately a lot of 'em closed down. And I was able to learn by observing that and be like, we have to have an easy online store, and now I just tell people, if you go to my website, go to the online store and it's basically [00:29:00] the Amazon of meat. Like everything is super easy to click on. We have subscriptions on there, we have bundles, we have some a la carte options.
You just select what you want. Pick whether you want us to bring it to your house or you wanna meet us at a pickup location, and that's it. And people are like, that's it?
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Yeah. That's it.
Janelle Maiocco: No friction.
Alex Russell: They're like, oh, we already do that for like our...
Janelle Maiocco: Everything.
Alex Russell: Whatever. If I don't have a tool, I'm gonna go buy it online.
I'm not gonna go to a store anymore. I'm gonna go online. And so it's such a, I'm just so grateful that you did this because it's such a massive resource for us. And I think that having Barn2Door helped launch our business and we're way further past where we would've been without it, guaranteed.
For sure. And so, I just love what you did. And is there anything else you wanna tell us about the, the beginnings?
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, [00:30:00] the beginnings? The stories of people, like you said, because they were selling with distributors and they were these amazing regenerative farms because they didn't have their own list of, you know, their own loyal customers.
That's really motivating to us, to what we do here at Barn2Door. We don't want any of those farms to struggle, that's the motivating factor, right? And for us here, that just means we keep making our platform better, more robust. Obviously talking, that's why we have a program with farmers like yourself, of like, tell us what you need, what can we improve?
You know, we're investing in building what you need from a software and resources perspective. Tons of resources.
Alex Russell: Business owners, we need feedback, you know, from the people that use our products. I'm always asking the people on our meat CSA, is this good? Are you liking what you're, because it's a farmer's choice, I literally pick what they get every week.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Like, did you like that? Was that okay?
Janelle Maiocco: Streamline it. They don't care.
Alex Russell: And most of the people are just like, yeah, [00:31:00] just bring me food. It'll be fine. And then every now and then I'll get someone who's like, I didn't really love that sausage or that cut of meat. I've never used it before and I'm scared of it.
And so, any kind of feedback we can get is awesome. And that's why I love being part of the Farm Advisor Network because I see how valuable that is to my business. So, if I can offer that to another business that I use and love, like Barn2Door, I'm all in. I love that. Okay. I got another question.
Can you, I don't wanna put any other software platforms under the bus, but I want you to be able to highlight what makes Barn2Door so special, and what makes Barn2Door different than other platforms. And you know, your favorite special features that Barn2Door has, 'cause there's a lot going on here that you guys do.
I mean, there's tons of different things. So, I wanna know what sets you guys apart and what are your favorite features that really make you guys [00:32:00] special?
Janelle Maiocco: What sets us apart is that we're purpose built for farmers. I mean, at the end of the day other options out there tend to be what we call horizontal platforms, not vertical platforms.
What that means is they, if you wanna throw up an online store, there's a lot of different places you can go to do that, but it's not built for farmers. It's not built to ensure that a farmer can offer wholesale and retail pricing for the same item or different unit sizes for the same item.
Or be able to readily put in offer different, like specific cutoff times in order to place your order by. Sometimes farmers need that to be two or three days before, 'cause they're gonna go do a big loop over the weekend. So, every little thing that we're building outside of just the basic, like, hey, people can shop, they can put in their credit card pay, like the basics of commerce.
You know, we're always considering what does a farmer need across the categories of farms from, you know, dairy, protein, produce, microgreens, like you [00:33:00] name it. What do they need to be successful in selling? How do they sell today? And so, we build for that, which is if a farmer's selling eggs, they can sell a dozen eggs.
They can sell a case of eggs. They can put different prices, they can have obviously those different unit sizes. And with Barn2Door system, those eggs will actually, the inventory will subtract in real time, including if somebody's buying the farmer market and somebody else is buying online at the same time.
So, we have a really robust inventory tracking system that considers, or I should say, is agnostic to different prices and unit sizes, because that's what farmers need. So, we look across those farms businesses and we're like, Hey, how do we make sure that we cover all the bases in terms of their needs, selling, and the other one, I mean, I already mentioned different prices. The other one that's a big deal is sell by weight. So, the other systems are not going to build for sell by weight. And the farmers need the ability to do not only that, sell by weight, both online and in person, but make sure that when they do sell [00:34:00] by weight, inventory is still tracked accurately.
So, there's a lot of those type of nuances that are really critical. Another one we like to mention is subscriptions. So, it's really lovely because it's been a game changer for so many farms using Barn2Door in particular to offer subscriptions to their food. Because it's recurring revenue, like how great to go into the next month and 80% is already pre-sold, like, it's just miraculous.
And then you can begin to think about growth or what else you want to do with your business. But, farmers might want to offer year round subscriptions to say, grass fed beef or eggs or dairy. But, there's other farmers who offer seasonal subscriptions. Literally it might be May three to October 24.
And so, with Barn2Door, again, same thing. We built natively, like built it from scratch for farmers to be able to offer seasonal subscriptions or time-based subscriptions according to what they want to offer by the dates you can pre-sell months and months ahead of [00:35:00] time. So, a lot of those considerations, you know, I could go on and on, but we just get really enthusiastic about, this is purpose built for farmers.
It is why we win, it's why it's turnkey for farmers. They don't have to literally try to duct tape, zip tie and Velcro together, multiple things online and offline to manually do all of this. We want to be essentially the barn or the home for farmers in terms of their business. Like, this is my business system, done.
I can manage customers, marketing, inventory, orders, finances, logistics, delivery day, with Barn2Door, and it's easy. I think I said all my favorites, but what I think comes across a lot when our success team is talking to farmers is their love of time savings, especially managing delivery day.
The ease of having a pick list, a pack list, one button, and you're printing your labels one button and you can populate a routing app if that is of interest. So, I think it depends who you talk to, what their favorite piece is, [00:36:00] but we, again, are incredibly enthusiastic and bullish on being purpose built for farmers from our POS to online and to everything in between.
Alex Russell: Yeah. I think there's so much in there that you mentioned that can be taken for granted that we don't realize, as someone who's been using the software for five years, sometimes I catch myself taking that stuff for granted. Like, I can set a cutoff date, like my cutoff date was yesterday at noon.
I know the exact time that I can send my delivery list over to my driver and tell him, all right, there's no more orders are gonna come in. I know for a fact that's gonna happen. I can set all this stuff that's really specific fulfillments for if people are gonna be picking up at this pickup location, or if people are ordering Thanksgiving turkeys, or, you know, I have all these things on my store.
So, my customers just see the items. But on the back end of this thing, I have all these specifics [00:37:00] of when you can order this, when I want you to order that, where this can go, the cutoff for this. And then like you said, those pick and pack lists are an extreme lifesaver. Once you get past like, I don't know, 10 orders a week that you're packing, 10 to 15, think about trying to track every item.
Like we did 65 deliveries this Wednesday. Like today we had 65 orders go out. If I had to track every single item off of 65 orders that are all anywhere between 75 to $200 each, what a nightmare if I had to actually go in there and physically figure that list out. But, I think the subscriptions have been a financial lifesaver for us.
And the pick and pack list is an organizational, time saving thing that I literally just click one button and it prints this whole thing out. If you don't have the software, you know [00:38:00] how laborious it is to have to figure those logistics out. So, I just want to give major props to you guys for that because I mean, I can be eating a burrito and the guy that's gonna load my orders for me, his name's Andrew.
Andrew can text me and say, hi, I need the pick list. I can eat a burrito and print the pick list at the same time and have it to them in a minute and 30 seconds.
Janelle Maiocco: And then show up on a podcast, 'cause your deliveries are all handled right?
Alex Russell: Yeah. It, it's like the time saving aspect of just that one feature alone is like so crazy and you guys have so many features that you've really, really thought through.
What are the struggles that farmers are having with their sales, their online presence, their fulfillments, and how can we, and there's so many little things that can pop up that can be so annoying that cost you 20 minutes here and hour and a half there. And you guys have literally gone [00:39:00] through and thankfully, because we can give you advice, you're like, we can let you guys know as farm advisors, Hey, I was doing this and I got a little hiccup here, and you guys fix it.
Bam. And we're back to smooth sailing with fulfillments and sales. It's so awesome. I just, I'm a fan boy. So on the subscriptions thing. I mean, we didn't do subscriptions for the first two years, and I sure wish we had because the recurring revenue that you get from those, the guaranteed funds that, you know, literally help you plan out for years to come because you know you're gonna have guaranteed orders if you're just selling bulk beef and you only want people to buy whole cows, you don't know when you're gonna have three orders come in, and then you might not have anything for three months. And then it's so inconsistent and scary. You don't really know exactly what to plan for for the future. So, you're probably gonna play it on the safe side. [00:40:00] And then under order your feeder steers or your piglets or your broiler chicks for the year.
And because you don't have that recurring revenue set up, you're gonna be a little bit more inconsistent in how you order, what you prepare for, and then you're gonna be insecure about, well, I don't know what next year's gonna look like, but I already know what next year's gonna look like for us, because we have these amazing people that are signed up for our program that don't even think about it anymore.
Like they put their credit card in one time and for the next, every Wednesday from here on until the future, they just already know they're going to get an amazing package of meat and eggs delivered to their door, and they only had to do it one time.
Janelle Maiocco: They're so fortunate.
Alex Russell: I know.
Janelle Maiocco: And they're healthier.
I know they're healthier. Exactly.
Alex Russell: Exactly. Because when we only have one day a week, or some farmers only do once a month or something like that. Let's say your [00:41:00] customer runs out of food. They're not gonna drive up to your farm for the meat for dinner that night because they're super busy and they forgot to order from you.
So, they're gonna go to the closest grocery store and they're gonna buy from them instead, unless you are constantly getting in front of them, making yourself known, this is stuff we talk about in the grassroots marketing class and then getting them on subscriptions so they don't have to think about it anymore.
Their freezer is always full and you are supplying them with this great stuff, and they don't have to go to a grocery store in a pinch. They've already got you loading up their freezer.
Janelle Maiocco: Match their eating cycle. How often do they eat? You know? Right.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And you just keep showing every time they need to buy pork or chicken or eggs, just have that be your subscription offer once a week, every other week, once a month. Whatever makes sense, but so that you're literally the choice or delivering, [00:42:00] you know, that product as often as to match their eating, to match their eating of that product, is pretty exciting. I will say it's interesting, I'm, I think next week I'm scheduled to do a podcast with another of our fans who has, she does subscription chickens, so she constantly has that recurring order, but then as another sort of sales item, you know, product line, she offers pork, but she doesn't do too many of them, so she sells those half and whole hogs.
But, the beauty of that is she has the recurring sales with subscriptions and then the half, whole hogs, with Barn2Door and you know, this, but was one of the first things we actually built on the platform was the ability for farmers to take deposits on their half, whole hogs, on their quarter, half, whole cow.
And if you've ever talked to a farmer who offers, you know, sells the product that way, getting a genuine like a hundred, 200, 300, $400 deposit is a lot more meaningful than some verbal 'Sure, I'll buy from you six months from now', and then all of a sudden you're bringing your product to the [00:43:00] butcher and the customer isn't showing up.
So like, how do we solve that? Well, we help farmers, we built this. So farmers can take actual deposits, they can even make 'em non-refundable. A hundred, 200, $400, whatever on any of those half, whole hogs, half, whole cows, whatever. And then, line them up to the butcher date and then when they bring, I loved it 'cause she, I think she had a newsletter out.
She's like, I've sold, you know, 62.5 hog or something like that. Right. She knew exactly because a Barn2Door, on the inventory, will show you down to the quarter, half what you've sold. But the beauty of it is, is when those hogs go to market and they're weighed, she can go back to the back end of her system, enter in either the final weight or final price.
It's up to her, and it will auto charge the customer less deposit and send that customer an invoice. So, you're not having that awkward, I'm hunting them down for the check conversation with your customers, which is not what you want. You wanna be saying, Hey, isn't that pork awesome? Like, you know, change the conversation even [00:44:00] because you're letting technology solve a problem. And that's what we're here to do, right, is solve those problems. Remove the friction from a farmer selling to a buyer locally. Make it easy for the farmer, make it easy for the buyer, and create that win-win. And everybody's the better for it.
Alex Russell: Yeah, and especially if those farmers are getting to the dollar, what they deserve for the weight of the animal that they put on.
I mean, this is something as farmers that we think about constantly is how much do my animals weigh? And so, if you can have the confidence of knowing I'm gonna get a hanging weight from my butcher, and then I can price my product based off of that exact animal that they're gonna be getting, and I'm gonna get every dollar for that animal that I put the sweat and hard work into, that's just an amazing feature, that they're gonna know, I'm not just gonna charge a flat price and hope that I win [00:45:00] or don't lose that much. You get to actually charge exactly what that animal really weighs. And when you're selling those.
Janelle Maiocco: Especially the big animals, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: There's a lot of Farms, and we actually have some farmers that are accountants in their other life and they're like, you know, three to four pound bird charged, 25 bucks, four to five pound bird charged 30 bucks because by the law of averages is if you sell a hundred birds, you're fine. Right? Like you're net even in terms of how that passes through. And again, that's easier, especially just with birds. But yes, when you're talking like whole half hogs, holy smokes, or cows or lamb or sheep or goat, whatever, yeah. You're gonna care a lot more about just making sure and that's fine.
That's great. People know that going into that purchase.
Alex Russell: These are live beings and, and..
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Even if you have a scale on your farm that you're gonna weigh in beforehand, or even if you can just, eyeball it like me, I, I have hanging weights for steers that could be anywhere from 400 to 600 pounds.
Janelle Maiocco: [00:46:00] Yeah.
Alex Russell: And that's thousands of dollars of difference there.
Janelle Maiocco: I know.
Alex Russell: Yeah. It's a drastic difference. Mm-hmm.
Janelle Maiocco: Can we do a game show where farmers guess the weight of items. You guys would, you would crush that, wouldn't you?
Alex Russell: Oh, well, sometimes I've been very wrong.
Janelle Maiocco: Uh, that's good.
Alex Russell: I have a lot of practice on being wrong, so maybe I could have a decent guess.
Janelle Maiocco: Maybe we'll do it when we do an onsite farm conference one day. We'll have some fun with that.
Alex Russell: Yeah, that would be fun. Okay. Is there a underutilized gem on the Barn2Door platform that a lot of farmers should be using more so that they can get the most out of Barn2Door?
I have an idea for one.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, I wanna hear, I actually wanna hear your idea.
Alex Russell: Well, it's email marketing.
Janelle Maiocco: Automate. Yeah. Order the automated order reminders.
Alex Russell: And automated connecting MailChimp to Barn2Door and, we've talked about the spiel with email [00:47:00] marketing a hundred times. I don't wanna belabor the point.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Listen to any former podcast with Alex from Chucktown Acres.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Including attend his Grassroots Marketing Academy on Barn2Door, and you will learn the importance of email marketing. Yes.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: We have a direct integration with MailChimp. We actually have a pretty high usage rate of that, Alex. But I do think anytime you use something, there's always more there.
Right? And so, there's a lot of, like, we talk about how important it's to collect emails and grow your email list. And what's cool is once you get your customer list to a threshold where you know, you can consistently sell products, sell out, et cetera, that's awesome. You still have to babysit your customer list.
Kind of always be adding to it, because there will naturally be attrition or people that, you know, move or do the next thing, but...
Alex Russell: Get annoyed at your emails and quit.
Janelle Maiocco: You must keep engaging them, right? You have to keep engaging that list then. And there's a lot of ways to help yourself get that done efficiently.
And as you know, with the MailChimp integration, you can automate emails, you [00:48:00] can automate welcome emails, you can automate an email to go after six months if somebody hasn't made a purchase. Through Barn2Door, you can actually set up, I'd have to look at the exact percentages, but automated order reminders, which is not a fancy newsletter.
All it is, and you can do it separately for wholesale versus retail. I love this feature where you can just set up, hey, once a week at this time, or once a month or once every other week to my wholesale or whatever, you just say, Hey, on a Thursday, 'cause you know, that's when they like to order, every Thursday, just be like, ping, don't forget to order. Here's a big, huge button to click through to my online store. Because that can just go on in the background, like you're doing your touches, your regular order reminders, which everybody expects now, if you've ever seen your email, that just goes on in the background.
And then any newsletters you're pushing out are just, you know, this beautiful frosting on the cake. Right? Because they're tend to be a little more tuned into like what's happening on the farm now, or what just showed up in the store. They can be a little more real time. But [00:49:00] I would say, that's kind of a fun feature.
I secretly hope that more and more farms use subscriptions because nothing makes me happier than when a farmer gets recurring revenue. I also love when farmers offer single bundle boxes so people can try it and then subscribe.
Alex Russell: So like the same box, just to like a...
Janelle Maiocco: Same box.
Alex Russell: Trial?
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.
We're the only POS built for farmers. And so, what happens is the things that we have built that are purpose built for farmers get pulled through to the POS experience. So, the sell by weight, the tracking of inventory across both online in a person, the ability to toggle between wholesale and retail pricing in person. And we added automatic email capture on POS. So on and on and on. In terms of that being unique and yes, so those are all platform, like the investments we've made in the software itself. When you start to unpack the resources and the information and data we have for farms to be successful, it gets really fun and interesting, and you're part of that, [00:50:00] right?
With the Connect program, which is Farmer-to-farmer Office Hours hosted every single week, multiple times a week. We actually also have office hours hosted by our success team for Farmers to show up literally any day of the week. We have special ones dedicated to POS showcases and Marketing Toolkit, et cetera.
So, academy classes, I could go on, but there's so many, the Independent Farmer podcasts, what we're doing right now, literally. I recently have been interviewing our account managers because they literally talk to farms all day, every day about best practices.
Alex Russell: I love those episodes.
Janelle Maiocco: I just did another one on building your customer list, you'll have to let me know what you think, but they're just like, go crush it. Here's what to do. I talked to hundreds of other Farms. We have the data, we have millions of transactions going through Barn2Door. Let me tell you what works. Like we don't, this is not like we're not charging for this information.
People, we just want these farmers to be wildly successful in their respective businesses. And to be honest, Alex, we're fans of farmers. We feel so fortunate to be [00:51:00] able to be in a position to help farmers. It's just, it's such a joy to watch farmers be successful and to be a part of that journey.
Alex Russell: Yeah. It reminds me a lot of when I get calls from farmers who are not on Barn2Door yet, but they're interested.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, thank you for fielding those calls.
Alex Russell: They're like, checking you guys out, right? And they're like, I see that Chucktowns on there. Let me give those guys a call.
Janelle Maiocco: They can, they can search you.
Alex Russell: It's just a Tuesday at noon and I'm packing eggs and I get a call and they're like, Hey, I'm Bill, I'm a farmer and wanna sign up with Barn2Door, but I wanna get your perspective first. And I'll tell them about every, I'm like, you got the online store, they'll build you a website, they'll make you a logo.
They'll do this, they'll do that. The fulfillments, the pick and pack list. And then I get to the very last point and I'll say, they are building this community of farmers that we do academy classes together. We do these [00:52:00] open hours where we can meet with each other and just literally ask any, like wide open q and a.
Ask me any question. Imagine how much money it would cost to just call a farmer who is a consultant for 30 minutes, and that's just a feature.
Janelle Maiocco: I agree with you. There's so much value that we don't charge for. And you're right. In fact, it's so cool. We just are about to open up office hours for our farmers once a month with the farmer to consumer legal defense fund, which means free legal for an hour.
Like.
Alex Russell: I'm signing up for that.
Janelle Maiocco: I know. But it's like, go ask about the raw milk, talk about, you know, commerce across state lines and every state's different too, which is just crazy.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: But again, and you're right, a lot of value. A lot of value to be found. Absolutely.
Alex Russell: Yeah. I just saw North Carolina did something weird with raw milk, where they were like, it's like, happened yesterday.
Janelle Maiocco: What? Pet food only or something silly? Oh, no. What did they do?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Like you can do herd shares, but you can't sell pet milk anymore.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, no.
Alex Russell: Raw milk for pets. [00:53:00] No longer legal. But now you can do herd shares.
Janelle Maiocco: You can't make heads and tails of some of this illogical legislation. Anyway.
Alex Russell: So, we can still buy cigarettes and soda, and Twinkies.
All right, great. You guys make a lot of sense. Okay.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: Okay. Let's not get too derailed or...
Janelle Maiocco: Okay.
Alex Russell: Else I'm gonna go on another soapbox. All right. What advice do you have for farmers in these three categories? I have three categories of farmers that I think are using Barn2Door and I tried to put them in these categories kind of based off of annual revenue. Small hobby farmers, the growing, grinding farmers, which I would put myself in.
Janelle Maiocco: Yes.
Alex Russell: And then seven figure farms. The farms that are big time, they're still family owned, but they're crushing it.
Just a couple, like a tip or two for each one.
Janelle Maiocco: We have all of those using [00:54:00] the platform, where we stop serving farms is when they go, the seven figures keeps going up and up and they, if they fall into the monocrop world, like if they, you know, if they are only doing corn or soy or cows, like if they're only doing one product, it's just an entirely different seller and buyer.
It's a different system essentially. Right. But, you absolutely have seven figures farmers using Barn2Door that again, are just multi generation like, large family farms, if you will, who are again, still selling, huge amounts of vegetables or mixed proteins or they're still very, you know, God bless 'em.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And we love participating in that because you, we help farmers scale and honestly, that's true of all these. So, it's interesting, we have one farm in particular that comes to mind when I'm looking at your list of farms. And she came to us and her farm is just massive CSA produce farm.
And they had about 600 customers and I think her mother was spending like five, six hours a day doing all the manual email back and forth, organizing all the [00:55:00] orders. They had two delivery days, like it was a cluster, a nightmare. And they came to us and ultimately she's like, out of the gate, you're saving us 15 hours a week, 'cause they could just click buttons and print things out. They more than doubled. More than doubled and more than doubled the size of their farm. So they went from 600 up to 1400 subscribers and she increased the value of her per ticket. Like every time somebody purchased, they were purchasing more, because she used the add-on feature, the private store where you purchase and then unlocks your Barn2Door.
That's one feature we should have mentioned.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Like you purchase and you give extra special access to a whole group of items or products, is a really fun feature on Barn2Door meant to create some FOMO and loyal customer opportunities, so.
Alex Russell: Yeah, if you want bacon, sign up for my subscription first.
Janelle Maiocco: Exactly. And then.
Alex Russell: And then I'll show you the bacon.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Backdoor bacon, right? It's like hooch bacon off the back. So, we love that, but ultimately, I like to say, because they are farmers are running a business and so that means you're an independent business [00:56:00] owner, which has a lot of responsibility, but if you do it well and right, and are efficient and effective, you can make great money and be very successful, but you are in charge of managing your finances, orders, inventory, marketing, sales, you know, that's just part of it.
We just try to make that as turnkey as possible. And because we provide a software that helps farmers automatically, thank you technology, stay organized, inventory is accurate, orders are right in front of you. You can print out a pick list. You can set your order reminders, you can do all these things.
We help farmers go from feeling like they're drowning to putting their head above water, to looking around and actually starting to swim.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: And so, just to use an analogy, because now you can actually, like you're having a burrito, sending your list to your driver. You have time to think about your business instead of doing kind of the least important part of the business, which is administrative back and forth email, when you don't like it and neither does the buyer.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: So, take your time [00:57:00] back and get to the point where you're organized and can actually think about scaling and growing. So, we have stories of, your story's the best 'cause you didn't even hardly get started.
Oftentimes, we'll have farms come to us. I have another story of a farmer who came to us. They were making about a thousand dollars a month or a thousand dollars a week, I can't even remember. But it doesn't matter because today they're making quarter a million a year.
Alex Russell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: So, they were able to scale up. Another farmer that comes to mind where it took them, I think two or three years to get organized and now they both quit their off-farm jobs and their full-time farming. So.
Alex Russell: Come on, somebody.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. So, if you're a hobby farmer wanting to go to full-time farmer, if you're growing, grinding, and wanna become more efficient because you can't duplicate yourself, so you actually have to take the same amount of time and get better with it.
So, we can help you do that so that you can truly scale and grow. And then those seven figure farms often are pretty well into their business and we, again, just come in and enable them to save time sometimes, in some cases a couple of headcount. And also give them the ability to try [00:58:00] new and different things with their farms, including learning all the best practices, right, like subscriptions or order cutoffs, or maybe they wanna start delivering it in a new area, et cetera.
So again, it's just to your point, these different farms, you know, often it comes back to best practices, time savings, getting organized and being able to actually think about your business to take it to the next level.
Alex Russell: Yeah, that was beautiful. That was so great. I'm thinking about those seven figure farms and they... probably the main goal for them now that they're a really, really well established business, tons of revenue coming in and out, they're probably thinking, how can we save time?
That's probably. Their number one goal. How can we work on our margins and how can we save time? And that was a great example that you had there. Okay. I know this is my last question, I promise. And I know this one can be kind of tough for me, because when people ask me like, [00:59:00] what's the future for Chucktown?
It's like, I'm in the future right now because I'm growing my business right now.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: And so it's hard to, it's hard to predict. It's hard to say like, well, we're gonna have whatever, 300 subscribers by whatever year or whatever. But, I do want to ask your vision for Barn2Door. Like, where do you see this going?
Is it just reaching out to more farmers? Connecting with more farmers? If so, that's an amazing answer. But is there anything else you wanted to add to let people know what's coming on? Anything like that?
Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. Well, without giving away everything that we're planning, right?
Alex Russell: Yeah. Don't give away the secrets.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm not gonna give away the secrets, but what I'm gonna tell you that is, have you ever heard of Airbnb?
Alex Russell: I have heard of it once or twice.
Janelle Maiocco: Have you ever heard of Uber?
Alex Russell: I have.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. So, the goal for Barn2Door is to become a household name.
Alex Russell: Yeah. Love it.
Janelle Maiocco: And recognizable by everybody. [01:00:00] And the reason I say that is because when nine in 10 people want to buy food, the local food demand is palpable. It's beautiful, it's incredible. And increasingly so, I think people are waking up. When I watch your social media feeds, I'm like, go, Alex, keep telling, you know, keep preaching it to your buyers because they need to know that they don't have to be part of the big ag commodity system of centralized agriculture.
They can choose with their dollars and their health, to be buying directly from local farms. And I want that to be normal. I want anyone, anywhere, any buyer, anywhere, to have ready access to farms, no matter where they live all over in the country. Our first piece with Barn2Door, when we've been building it now for a decade is farmers are our customers.
So, our goal is to make a turnkey for a farmer to run their business. By giving them all the tools to run their business effectively, but also at the same time getting in front of buyers. The way buyers [01:01:00] buy today, want to buy, expect convenience. So, it's just full circle. So, the sales just literally quote unquote fly off the shelf.
And so, that's funnier when I'm talking about poultry, by the way. And so ul ultimately, ultimately, I can't help it. There's so many puns in this world, but.
Alex Russell: Yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Ultimately, the first item of business for Barn2Door is to make it easy for farmers to be successful and to grow and scale in this most profitable model.
And then the second order of business as we continue to build that out. And by the way, there's. You know, over half a million farmers that we're aiming at in terms of helping be successful. So, that will never stop, that hunger to get in front of all those farms will never stop here. But, the next order of business, Alex, is to make sure all those buyers are aware of and ready and readily buying from, regularly buying from, and knowledgeable that that's an easy option for any buyer anywhere all across the country, no matter where they live, that they can always [01:02:00] just go buy from a local farmer instead of, you know.
Alex Russell: Yes.
Janelle Maiocco: And, and preferred.
Alex Russell: Ah!
Janelle Maiocco: You know, preferred instead, and like it becomes a no-brainer. And so we want that to be normal in the same way everybody considers hotel or Airbnb.
Right? Or, you know, that's just an example, but you understand what I'm saying in terms of household name and just making this just not only normal, but awesome and, continue to grow the success of farmers and local food and local eaters.
Alex Russell: I love that. I, I ended up coming across a very popular Facebook post that some farm to table think group had done.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: You know, if you ever see something that has like 10,000 comments on it, you, you, what is this?
Janelle Maiocco: What is it?
Alex Russell: It's just a post, right? It's just a question. The question on the post was, what is keeping you from buying from your local farmer? And it had 10,000 comments on it. From all these people across the globe, and I was like glued, I was scrolling the answers forever was like, [01:03:00] what is it?
What is it? And the number one thing by far was they don't know where they are.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: And they're too hard to find and like too hard to get to. Like I have to go to their farm to get the stuff and it's just too difficult for me as a busy mom.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Alex Russell: Or busy dad to get there and physically do it. I was like..
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Alex Russell: These people need to know Barn2Door, what are they doing?
Janelle Maiocco: And Alex, you literally just came full circle because that is why I started Barn2Door. I was trying to be that person. You know, 999 out of a thousand won't bother if it's not easy. Nobody knows who the farmers are, where they are, how to get the food, and how do I not just order it, but how do I get it, get it right, does it come to me?
But as soon as you fix that by helping the farmers be successful, first and foremost, and giving them the tools for it to be efficient and effective, but then also convenient to the buyers, game over all of those people with the 10,000 comments all in, clearly passionate enough to leave a comment.
[01:04:00] And like hoping that somebody somewhere will see it, right? And fix it.
Alex Russell: Yes. Yep. Absolutely. All right. You nailed it. Let's wrap it up.
Great. Thank you. Thank you Janelle, so much for doing this, this.
Janelle Maiocco: Thank you always.
Alex Russell: I know it's probably weird to give me your seat at the table and let me interview you.
Janelle Maiocco: It's great.
Alex Russell: It's so much fun for me. I wanna extend my thanks to Janelle for joining us on today's podcast, her podcast. Barn2Door supports thousands of independent farmers across the country. My farm and other farms across the country benefit from partnering with Barn2Door, not only for the software to run our business without a middleman and make it easy for local buyers to shop, but because of the many farmer specific resources from one-on-one coaching to best practices, and even this podcast. If you're an independent farmer who is just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or you simply wanna [01:05:00] streamline your business management, you can check out Barn2Door.com/learn-more. Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on The Independent Farmer Podcast.
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [01:06:00] time.