Context: Sunnyside Farms began as a collaboration: a friend brought land, tools, and seeds — including 36 varieties of heirloom tomatoes — and the agricultural know-how to grow them. What was missing was a way to get that harvest into the world and turn it into a viable business.

Challenge: Neither the tomatoes nor the farm existed as a business yet. There was no customer base, no brand, no sales channel, and no established relationships with restaurants or the local community — just raw growing capacity that needed a go-to-market strategy built from scratch.

Approach: I took on the business development and marketing side end-to-end, and treated most of it as a series of experiments to see what actually worked. I built a tomato catalogue and went restaurant to restaurant to build relationships, eventually landing 10+ restaurant partnerships buying tomatoes and other vegetables. To grow visibility beyond direct sales, I tried different tactics: going door-to-door looking for collaborators, and donating surplus cucumbers to a local food bank as a way of testing community-based visibility strategies. On the revenue side, I experimented with seasonal offers like a Mother's Day flower sale to see what could boost sales beyond the core tomato business. I also built the farm's entire public presence from nothing — creating the social media channels, developing the brand voice, and managing all digital communication — plus organized farm stands and set open hours. In year two, I helped launch a CSA program to diversify revenue further.

Outcome: $30,000+ in revenue in year one, 10+ ongoing restaurant partnerships, a CSA program launched in year two, and a farm that went from a friend's backyard growing project to a functioning small business with a public brand and multiple sales channels.