Self-Milking Cow? Getting on the dang bicycle! How can I make this more Ronin? Can't decide the headline! :)

Josh Singer

Oct 23 (edited) • General discussion

I decided to say "What the heck" and follow

@Travis Sago

's advice about just having fun.

So...

I love raw milk.

As in unpasteurized, straight from the cow (once cooled in a professional milk cooling tank of course), not homogenized, pure raw milk.

It's super healthy, delicious, and a totally different experience from the stuff you get in the Krogers.

For a couple of years now, my family and I have been going to an Amish farm nearby to get our own milk from the farm.

And we formed a little group of family and friends who also learned to love it and the health benefits.

So, as I was reading some old posts of Travis's about a self-milking cow paying for itself, a little idea popped into my head.

"I wonder how many other people out there love raw milk and are passionate about it and if there's a pent up demand?"

Turns out a whole TON!

So I decided to have a little fun and start with distribution. I found two already moving parades of websites where people can find directories of places and direct farm to table people can get the milk.

I created the name of a farm, set up a simple google form for a waitlist, got an AI logo done, and had a placeholder for a website.

Then, I created these listings on these sites, and holy cow Batman, within 2.5 months, I had a list of 155 people who were frothing at the mouth (without milk mustaches yet) to get their hands on this raw milk from the Amish farm.

And every day I get about 2-3 more.

So I began reaching to onesy-twosy (I know, bad) to each person saying we have a spot for you in our herdshare.

I now have 30 gallons spoken for for a weekly delivery. :)

My current supply isn't the first farmer I've bought from. So I then went to the farmer that I was previously buying milk from (Farmer A), and he gave me the name of his delivery driver who was going that direction anyways.

Turns out he indeed has extra capacity and is going that direction anyways! (underutilized asset, and leveraging off someone else's energy and efforts already in the works).

He would just charge me a nominal fee per gallon (baked into my price)

And I found one potential member who already has a full size fridge and two chest freezers that can be utilized to keep the milk cold enough without freezing and people can come in and pick up their milk self-service (more utilizing other people's assets) and is willing to host the milk drop off.

Driver is willing to unload the milk into the guy's fridge and freezers.

So I turn to my current farmer (Farmer B) and tell him I've 30 gallons that people are ready to start a weekly delivery, and he's all grins.

And that's just from reaching out ONCE to 50 out of those 155 people - just 1 email!

I collect the $$ from the end user (either from a cookie jar at the drop or zelle) and pay the farmer each week.

So I think that I've got the start of a nice little vending machine. And even though my margin is about $5 a gallon, at 30 gallons right now, that's a nice little $600/month in not expending much energy at all.

Sending a few emails and clicking a few buttons.

Covers almost a third of kids' private school monthly tuition payments - not bad!

Question is, how can I make this even MORE Ronin.

Each day I get more inquiries of people wanting milk than I have supply of milk.

My previous farmer (Farmer A) said he has room for almost 50 more gallons in the totally opposite direction of another dropoff that HE has, so I could do the same thing for that, but I don't own those customers like the first group.

That farmer is a little smarter and he insists on talking with the customers (locking down control) first to be a good fit for his group of customers.

I'm not really wanting to get into the milk business, and I'm not sure if managing 30-50 customers is my game and doesn't seem like "Serve no Master", but I think that I've removed most of the complicated moving parts.

@Travis Sago

, now that I've gotten on the bicycle, what would be a good direction to steer from here?

I can get tons of focused, local inquiries of people interested in raw milk. But don't where to go from there.

I also have another farmer (Farmer C) that is very hungry, but doesn't have the setup or cooling tanks or cows or pieces in place, (lot of $$ investment), so I'm trying to figure out what to do there without investing a bunch of time, energy and $$.

At least, I hope this post inspired someone to see how a lot of the moving pieces that Travis talks about fit into play here.

I'm getting on the dang bike! :)

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