Growth Without Scale: Lessons From a Little Farm
Most entrepreneurs talk about the day they “made it” like it’s a movie scene.
You know the ones: landing that impossible client, finally hiring someone because the work is too much for one set of hands, watching customers actually line up to hand over cash for something you built out of thin air. Those are champagne-pop moments, glowing in memory like a highlight reel.
Mine? Not quite.
More like: “Oh, f##k.”
See, my business partner could sell ice to a polar bear. I, on the other hand, was still learning which end of a seed to plant. So the day she came sprinting into the room shouting, “WE GOT THEM!” This meant she’d just signed a local restaurant chain, and my stomach dropped. I smiled and nodded, but inside I was thinking: We’re not ready for this. I’m not ready for this.
Which was ironic, because the whole reason I started the farm was to escape the burnout of ten years as a digital product designer. I wanted dirt under my fingernails. Something tangible. Something that fed people. Something quiet. I didn’t have any actual farming experience, really, but I had the dream. A couple of trays. A grow light. Some dirt. And now, apparently, a sales partner moving a whole lot faster than my baby operation could keep up.
Outgunning the Big Guys
The reason we landed the restaurant in the first place was because their old supplier, the biggest microgreen operation in the country, was shipping sad, limp greens that turned yellow and slimy in under a week. Basically garnish with an expiration date shorter than a carton of milk.
That became my benchmark: just grow something better than the flavorless, colorless stuff the giants were cranking out.
So I dove in headfirst. Tried every soil blend, every humidity setup, every tray, every grow light angle. Bought filters, fans, timers. Failed constantly. Adjusted constantly. Like Groundhog Day, except with more mold. Copy. Paste. Tweak. Pray. Repeat.
Eventually, miracle of miracles, I cracked it. I started growing these vibrant little forests: crunchy, flavorful, glowing with color. And they lasted two full weeks after delivery. The client was over the moon. Word spread. Suddenly we had restaurants, grocers, and chefs all across L.A. calling us.
And then the fun part: the big guys noticed.
They even put out counter-marketing to explain why their way of farming was still better. Which, of course, made me grin like a fool. Because that’s the best compliment you can get in business; when the giant turns its head and suddenly you’re on their radar.
Chasing the Impossible
By this point I wasn’t just a farmer, I was starting to feel like a scientist. So naturally, I set myself a ridiculous goal: to become the first USDA + CDFA certified organic, non-GMO indoor farm in Southern California.
This meant everything had to change. I swapped in sterile, food-grade tables, bins, and trays. I tracked down non-GMO seed suppliers. I had crates of organic coconut husk soil shipped straight from the Philippines. Fertilizer made from volcanic ash out of Utah. Redesigned the farm for more biodiversity. Set up compost rows to recycle old soil into edible flower beds outside.
It was obsessive and every single detail mattered. I wanted the farm to feel less like a factory and more like an ecosystem that happened to live inside a warehouse.
And somehow, after endless inspections and hoops to jump through, we did it. We became the first certified indoor farm of its kind in Southern California. Another milestone and another “we made it” moment.
The Mack Truck Realization
Business boomed. We hired staff and outgrew our space. We started scouting bigger facilities. That’s when the realization hit me like a Mack truck.
Scaling up meant becoming the very thing I set out to fight.
The whole reason microgreens mattered in the first place was because grocery store produce had been strip-mined of its flavor and nutrients by massive single-crop farms feeding massive grocery chains. People came to us because they wanted real nutrition, real taste, real freshness. But to keep up with demand, I was about to slide right into that same system. Mass-produced, shipped everywhere, flavorless in the end.
It dawned on me: the problem isn’t the farmer. It’s the system. Grocery chains want strawberries in January, so farms bend to supply them, no matter the cost to soil or flavor or health. And suddenly, if I wasn’t careful, I’d be the one playing that same game.
The Designer in Me
The obvious metaphor between farming and design, is cultivation. Environment equals culture. Ingredients equal people and process. Organic equals human-centered. You’ve heard it before. They’re good reminders, sure. I had plenty of them myself, usually around 5 a.m., headlamp strapped on, mixing fertilizer into soil with my bare hands.
But honestly, that’s not the biggest design lesson I took from farming. The real one, the one I want you to walk away with, is simpler: what you design for is your objective.
If your goal is “scale and profit,” then you’ll design a farm that churns out cheap greens and grows fast.
If the goal is “ethical, sustainable, good for people,” you’ll design something entirely different. And maybe it doesn’t look like a farm at all. Maybe it’s a course teaching others how to get certified. Maybe it’s a YouTube channel. Maybe it’s a community garden.
That’s the trick: the design problem isn’t “How do I grow more microgreens?” It’s “What’s the reason to grow them in the first place?”
And that lesson stretches way past farming. Whatever you’re asked to design — an app, a company, a team, an experience — pause and check the problem statement — focus really hard on the actual objective. Because yes, profit and scale will always matter. But they’re not the only objectives worth chasing.
Ethical. Sustainable. Human-centered. Those matter more. They last longer. They actually make humanity better.
So, know your objective. Challenge it. Make sure it’s pointed at the right side of history. And, no matter what it is you’re designing — design from the heart.
Best of luck.