Bootstrap the turkey with the turkey

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips on November 22, 2007

Here's a little holiday story about a man who did something extraordinary.

A friend of mine runs a family turkey farm raising the same old ordinary turkeys his father had before him.

One day he read a newspaper article about the dangers of feeding animal byproducts to livestock and immediately switched his birds to a vegetarian diet.

People thought he was nuts.

However, when a customer asked him to also stop giving his birds antibiotics except when they actually got sick he tried that too. The result was a more lucrative market for more natural turkeys.

Then another customer asked him if he could let his turkeys run free in a meadow the way nature intended foraging for food instead of cooped up inside and he gave it a try.

People thought he was nuts.

The result? More money for each "free range" bird and more exposure for his product in a whole new market.

Finally the man decided to switch some of his turkeys over to a completely organic diet (no pesticides used even to grow the food the turkeys eat.) The cost was almost twice as much as he paid for the ordinary food he fed his turkeys.

People thought he was nuts.

The result? Again, more money for each turkey labeled organic.

At each step along the way, the man used revenue from his existing turkey business to bootstrap the new one launching his small family run farm into a whole new market without the financial muscle of a huge corporation.

He also benefited from the viral marketing inherent in creating a product that people feel passionate about. (See this short film for more on how viral marketing works):

There are some important bootstrapping ideas here:
• Market the turkey with the turkey-An expensive advertising and branding campaign cannot take the place of a product that people find remarkable and will tell others about themselves
• Listen to your customers-Marketing research can cost a lot. Listening to your customers doesn't. Try hearing what they have to say and simply responding.
• Start small-Finding a small passionate group interested in your product and scaling up slowly not only aides with viral marketing it can help you bootstrap your startup with limited resources as well. You probably couldn't afford to fill two million orders if you got them tomorrow anyway!
• Find a passionate constituency-Seth Godin calls this an otaku. You need someone interested in buying your product so they can tell others. No customers equals no cash flow regardless of how great you think your product is.

Happy Thanksgiving!