Farm-Produce Business:
Leapfrogged Embryonic Stage: Starting Business Formalism
The one who carefully and consistently read the publications on Farm Produce Business would observe that, in fact, right up this point, the venture development stages of Embryonic Stage and Venture Startup Stage have been occasionally observed but nothing of the Farm Produce Business in its Embryonic Stage was ever really presented. In effect, the presentation has been consistent with the pattern by which many small business owners launch many small businesses into operations: The Embryonic Stage is usually leapfrogged as has been in the presentation. As observed already, small businesses exist frozen-in-state at the end of the post- Embryonic Stage transition phase also the threshold of the Venture Startup Stage, and so never grow into the Growth Stage of their evolution as a venture. Admittedly, it is also for this reason that many small businesses which never really keep evolving into the Growth Stage fail. Generally the venture development of any business entity passes through three stages: Embryonic Stage, Venture Startup Stage and Growth Stage; and a Transition Phase between the first two stages. So developing from and through the Embryonic Stage, however, is very critical to the survival of small businesses, as such approach enables the continual firming up of the foundation of the business; and owner-entrepreneurs ought to always consider doing that.
Adopting and adapting to this well-proven success vesting path of venture development is particularly imperative for the aggregator-entrepreneur of Farm Produce Business, being without the support of the farm, at all. Indeed, an entrepreneur of a Farm Produce Business need not be a subsistence farmer, and any well heeled entrepreneur may consider developing a Farm Produce Business, but preferably by establishing a memorandum of understanding with a collection of subsistence farmers to supply all produce harvests in excess of requirement for subsistence. Such an entrepreneur, an aggregator-entrepreneur, would need to follow the success-laden path of venture development previously delineated. So then, there is the need to understand the nature, features, challenges and activities that span Embryonic Stage based on recasting the path small businesses frequently follow into aligning with the venture development path.
To boot, an aggregator-entrepreneur would have to discover a market gap to target for participation. This may seem trivial but is actually not. Tastes of lifestyle vary with communities and the discovery of the tastes of the community both at large and at refinement defines the market segment. From this segment then a need but unserved taste is crafted and selected for targeting. This unserved taste to be satisfied with the produce becomes the market gap for which the farm-produce becomes the raw material for the Farm-Produce Business product. Following this determination, the entrepreneur carefully engages in ReThinking Business in the context of the market gap, and subsequently embarks on the Product-Offered Product Design. Quite often the product design tend to be iterative with the considerations of Market Participation Planning, which becomes center of focus towards developing competitive advantages for participating in the market. Besides some preliminary evaluation of the market size and the capacity to support the business operations over the traditional lifespan of entities in the Farm-Produce Business industry is critical towards being informed of the potential of the entity to attain Enduring Existence.
Next the procedures for packaging the produce into the product offered product design are developed, and then improvisational means discovered and documented so as to be cobbled together for use in production of the samples/prototypes for testing. The sources from which to acquire the production means are then discovered and possibly accessed for procurement information, with respect to initial capital investment requirement. Such assessments are reasonable and imperative in light of the ever looming possibility that these devices and facilities could be simply abandoned.
In any event, assuming the capital investment costs are acceptable, then the founding moves to evaluating the type of the Entity Legal Personality that is best suited to the founding vision of the entrepreneur. Invariably, the venture development moves into the implementation of the Embryonic Stage proper.
The aggregator-entrepreneur next finds and prepares to leases a facility for housing the business while in the Embryonic Stage. Also the entrepreneur prepares all the documents needed to create the non-natural entity of the choice Entity Legal Personality. On the day of signing the lease of the facility the entity is also created: The entity filing uses the address of the facility and the lease uses the entity name. Of course, this raises the issue of the age-old question of the "chicken or the egg" but that is a different matter. The facility is subsequently occupied, the prototype/samples production means are acquired and installed in the facility, thereby cobbled together; and the active staff consisting of the founder, co-founders and per diem helper hands form the workforce for making the samples of the products.
Samples of the products as produced by the workforce are then presented to buyers for testing; feed-backs are solicited and used to improve the product design as well as ask of the disposition to buy as the suggested changes are being made. From amongst these disposition responses are selected target initial buyers to whom sales calls are made to try to get enough sales with repeat purchases of such amount as to support the operations, and is followed with signing contract with supplier-farmers to supply for the demand of the elicited niche market. Subsequent to the sales, Launching Entity Operations gets kick-off and the operations get launched with the minimal Embryonic Stage context
First initiative in launching the operations is the trunking of the operations core with the set-up of an IT Network. A System Admin is hired to either build this Network personally, or contract out and oversee the building of the IT Network, according to the specifications for the IT network which should include at the core a setup of a domain controller to which office productivity machines such as the printers, scan machines, and etc are attached as to permit common use by the would-be staffs. Further, the Network would include, at least, one database. Moreover, the office machines, domain controller computer and the database would all be Ethernet wired, while the staffs are connected by Wi-Fi so that each staff can by volition be connected and disconnected from the Network with a log -on and -off. In addition, a private SaaS system may be setup on the same machine as the database or on a separate machine but allow remote yet in-office access so that certain critical data as being generated remotely from the staff computer get to be better secured in the data storage computer.
Further, the System Administrator works on the corporate image promotional tasks related to marketing and other corporate operations related matters by creating an Internet presence of the Farm Produce Business entity. More specifically, the Systems Administrator develops hosted Website and Mail-Server, and any other form of Internet data exchange systems appropriate to the ends of the business. Indeed while there are many website and email hosting companies, the hosting should be made on a Dedicated Managed Server either in-house or on a hosting platform. This plan, though somewhat more expensive, provides all the comfort and preservation of the business history. The company's website and email records are then directly managed by the System Administrator ensuring a regular backup and storage of the data. Indeed there are many an unscrupulous hosting company that holds clients history hostage in various ways and end up squeezing the company.
Subsequently, the production means are acquired and installed in the facility such that Implementing Production Operations is undertaken to the end of establishing production operations. Naturally the workforce that performed the production of the sample products are entrenched into forming the production group, with specific assigned job duties to each member of the workforce, thereby establishing division of labour within the group.
Finally at last task of the Embryonic Stage, the Entity Enterprise Design is performed. Appropriate levels of Management Layers are decided upon to create the Reporting Formalism based on the Organization Chart as defined from the operations.
Launching the Transition Phase starts off and correspondingly, Starting Small Business. The aggregator-entrepreneur now positioned as the Chairman/CEO/President hires an Office/Operations Manager, assigns all the Administration duties including the hiring of the rest of the staff, and most importantly the financial accounting duties, as well as invoicing and general book-keeping but with the authority to delegate or reassign to junior staffs. Accordingly, Office Manager undertakes hires: Sales staff, Marketing staff and Administration staff.
At this stage though, the first staff, Sales staff, is brought in to keep securing more sales for revenue growth. The staff is tasked to produce a sort of broad outlines of a Sales Cycle applicable for each of the company products, so that the sales person does not expend inordinate amount of time on any one potential customer. However, each sales staff operates at a somewhat personal level and skill-set to secure sales. Sales are made on personal relationships between the buyer and the Sales staff. Optimally, three staffs are preferably hired at this stage to cover for inside sales, direct sales and sales order entry; but the actual number may be less depending on the size of the company.
Subsequently, marketing staffs are hired, numbering about two staffs. The first marketing staff is brought onboard and then charged with developing a plan for starting off the marketing, keeping in mind that the business, after all, is usually local, though at levels and sizes mostly regional. Meanwhile, the supposedly junior staff and the second marketing staff to be brought onboard is given the duties of Advertisement and Promotions. The marketing plan as developed often include preparations of brochures to support the sales process including mailing and hand-delivery cloaking unplanned sales visit to buyers. Promotional plans are often inclusive of sponsorships of local events, involving games, community gatherings and some activism of community support. Local Newspapers advertisements are also often made either to inform on the products and the conveniences offered by the business, or to advocate the business image through advertising the Promotional Activities.
Having by this time got a sense of the scope of the business operations and the consequential the Administrative workload that obtains, the Office Manager then hires for the Administration department. First, the general administration staff is brought onboard. Preferably the staff is positioned as an operations staff in a general float to support all operations, thereby learn to understand the activities of the other staffs though not positioned to replace them. Next, two Administrative staffs are hired, with one assigned the task of reception and general secretarial works and record keeping, while the other is assigned the accounting activities consisting of book-keeping, invoicing, banking and bank reconciliations. The Office or Operations Manager continues to hold on the duties of Human Resources Administrator, Personnel Management and Business Development.
Optionally, additional staffs may be hired at this stage of the development either to increase the efficiency of the different departments or even to create new groups and departments. However, generally, the advised approach is to hold the line until the business attains critical mass before hiring more people.
Consequential of all the activities is the forming of the Small Business. The structured didactic presentations leading to the forming of, at least, a self-sustaining small business of Farm Produce Business have drawn, in various ways, from the contents of the Green Subsistence Farming publications also on this platform, and hence much deeper insight into the interactive affectation is gained from keeping apprised on the Green Subsistence Farming, by continuing to keep abreast of the presentations.