99 Counties Chapter 3 - Celebrate July 4th with Wallace Farms and 99 Counties!
It's grilling season!
It’s been almost 3 months since I’ve written anything here. I am finding that all the cliches about startups are true. The highs are high and the lows are low. But at least in our case the food is always tasty ;-).
What have we been up to?
Signing up great farmers. Nick and his Farm Ambassador team (Ryan and Wendy) have been canvassing Iowa with Farmer Town Halls and have already signed up 18 regenerative beef, pork and poultry farms! That far exceeds our goal of 15 for this year. This summer we will be traveling to each of these farms to gather videos, photos and interview notes so that we can share the inspiring stories of these farmers who are providing nutrient dense foods to their communities and restoring the land through their farming practices
Adding new team members: One of the biggest cliches about startups is that a secret to success is hiring great people. Well we are finding that cliche to be true. We hired an incredible new Director of Sales and Marketing, Nicole Moore. Nicole joined us after 6 years at Sitka Salmon Shares where she helped grow a similar triple-bottom line business from hundreds of customers to tens of thousands of customers supporting sustainable, local fisherman in Alaska. We were also lucky enough to add a number of former Wallace Farms team members to the 99 Counties squad: Steph Humiston who leads customer service is a personification of the attitude “the customer is always right” and Bruce Heishman in our warehouse ensures that customer orders are always packed quickly and without any error.
Joined forces with Wallace Farms: As you likely remember from previous posts, my co-founder Nick Wallace, has been direct marketing meat from his farm to families in Iowa and Chicago since 2003. 99 Counties is in many ways an evolution of his initial dream and business Wallace Farms. In February Wallace Farms formally joined the 99 Counties family and for the last several months we’ve been doing business as Wallace Farms. We will be launching the new brand “99 Counties” this fall. You will see that the story and authenticity very much echoes that of Wallace Farms. In the meantime we continue to serve the Wallace Farms customers and are excited for you to learn more about it.
So what are we working on right now?
Building a kick-ass new eCommerce website. The new website will have a membership portal with special offerings for members and rich stories about the farms we work with. We’re working with some incredible product managers, designers and engineers on this new website and can’t wait to show you the results this fall. In the meantime we have been making some tweaks to our existing eCommerce platforms to make it easier for customers to try our delicious products.
For our Illinois and Iowa based customers: We recently rolled out a test of doorstep delivery via Fedex. Historically customers based in Iowa and Chicago always had to plan in advance to meet Nick at a drop-off point. Now through July 4th we’re letting customers in Iowa and Illinois make purchases and have it shipped directly to their home - all orders over $150 ship free.
For all non Illinois and Iowa based customers: You can head over to our Shopify website where we have some great sales on July 4th essentials like hot dogs and ground beef.
How you can support us:
Order our product and share it with your friends. Use the above links to place an order, follow us on instagram (link) and facebook (link) and encourage your friends to support us if they’re looking for a tasty grilling option this Independence Day!
Try out our website(s): while we build our new customer platform any feedback (good or bad) on the current platforms is incredibly helpful. So if you’re in Illinois/Iowa please check us out here. And if you are anywhere else in the lower 48 states you can give us a try here. Send me a note (christian@99counties) with your feedback.
One of the highlights of my job is I get to try our product regularly. I’ve been grilling up a storm now that summer has finally arrived. And while I hate to play favorites, I must say I just can’t get enough of our skirt steak!