Follow along, and on your own notepad, copy everything in bold and then write your own answer next to it.  I fill in my own with what it would look like for Veg2Bowl (now Craven Local Food Market) as an example in italics.

Interests

Building a business and life around your interests is a good starting point. If you’re starting from scratch, begin by listing your actual interests.  I say actual because you don’t have to be good at it yet, but it helps to have demonstrated a willingness and desire to improve on those things in the past.

Sounds basic, but if you haven’t yet started practicing a skill you will be required to have, consider why is it that you haven’t started already?  

Begin by listing the aspects of food and agriculture that interest you the most. What parts of the food culture have dabbling in throughout your life?

Growing for health and energy, cooking w/ global cuisines; sustainable living, building a homestead

Mission

What impact are you trying to have? What change would you like to create?

Use these questions help define your mission. Having a guiding light behind your business and beyond will help keep you focused on your WHY as you inundate yourself with possibilities.

To be a part in building a more resilient & sustainable food future through a replicable & exponential framework called Farm Fusion

Lifestyle Design

What do you require for your sanity? Start with the ideal and walk it back a bit later if you have to.

Simplified systems, diversity of projects, flexibility in schedule allowing the ability to run businesses outside of Veg2Bowl

Interests + Mission + Lifestyle Design

Add these 3 together to form a cohesive statement.

Like to grow, cook, create and connect with others while playing in different parts of the food culture in ways that moves toward a system that is designed around a preservation of resources.

Local Leverage

Now consider what can be leveraged that is available to you locally to make an even better product, system or service. This could be a sales channel, raw ingredients, consumables or even networks and relationships.  When amplifying others, start by making your “ask” from them fit into their existing modes (aka don’t be a pain in the ass) with your untested ideas.

What do others do locally that I am able to leverage?

Saturday Farmers Market with coffee, chicken, seafood, sausage, mushrooms, zone 8a seasonal crops

Market Opportunity

What market opportunity is within all of this so far?   

Locally grown & locally made food delivered to peoples homes.  ingredients could be harvested and purchased Saturday, prepared Sunday, delivered Monday

(Recommended book on timing market opportunities: Surge by Mike Micalowicz)

A Balanced Farm Fusion Business Formula

Interest x Mission x Lifestyle Design x Market Opportunity x Growing Zone x  What’s Locally Available to Amplify = Potential Overall Upside of Your Farm Fusion Product Offering

Ranking each of these buckets on a scale from 1-10 (which is obviously subjective), can help you give you a sense of how well this new product or business will meet the goal of a mission driven product that provides value and fits within the lifestyle you designed it for.

As you generate ideas, see which ones make the overall number as high as possible. If you don’t have any worthwhile idea’s yet, that’s OK.  M.A.P. will help you as well. Idea generation and frameworks are all we’re after right now.

Veg2Bowl Example – Maximizing Our Score:

Mission – 10

Our mission farm fusion mission is important, something people can understand and get behind.

Interest – 10

Farming, cooking while building a homestead is what I was day dreaming of.

Market Opportunity – 9

Meal plan using locally produced products

Lifestyle Design – 9

Diversity of work – Cook & grow Anything and everything I wanted

Maximizing efficiency, simplicity & flexibility : Weekly delivery with pre-order

Growing Zone – 8(a)

Good growing season and climate allows us to grow & locally source a wide variety.

Locally Available to Amplify – 8

Subscription Meal plans to have option to add on goodies via a non-subscription grocery sister brand (Craven local Food Market) starting with eggs, coffee, mushrooms, honey, pesto, snack packs & kombucha