Eric Barnard

I'm out here trying to make grain marketing as simple as possible. If we can get rid of steering a tractor, we can make contracts, hedging, and insurance more straightforward. Advice is not my game - I build great tools. DMs are open. #AgTwitter

@sanegrain Pretty similar. Dad was millwright at local seed plant. Ive got 3 boys and basically lay awake at night thinking how I can actually instill this before they become teenagers…

🥴

I support this

Thats probably the nicest grain barge Ive ever seen

@BenjaminNething twitter.com/midwestern_ope…

I have never driven across KS easy to wear but I have driven across Kansas north to south. On the west side and on the east side.

@NickHorob @carllippert

@ericmbarnard @carllippert I get that and pushed the boundaries for sure! Case-in-point, one of my favorite tweets👇. Although, I don’t think I’d tweet that today.

Businesses have a right size. People waste years of their life trying to defy this reality. Learn how to align with it instead using these examples:

@carllippert @NickHorob While it burns my soul to say it, I would generally agree. I’ve learned the lessons and understand how the game has to be played now. While I never personally loved HPs marketing tactics it was totally fair and ultimately got results.

I remember thinking the first time we met you where going to have a rough time because you picked rails ( tech i didn't like ) and weren't technical. Then you taught me the lesson that none of that shit matters and built a business way better then myself through a process I very much admire. More people especially in similar spaces should look at Harvest Profit being about the perfect model. I have not seen it done better.

@blakealbers Whats the target customer? Local or a direct ship? I ask bc direct-ship fitness minded customers would be pretty focused on macros/fat %

Smokehouse install starts today, most of you following me here have a freezer full of hamburger…so what things would make a quick lunch or meal prep easier that interest you?

Nightmare fuel

@AgTechTed Whered you get cushions at? Amazon?

Wasn’t feeling paying $2500 for an outdoor sectional that wouldn’t last so I built my own. $550 all in. Most of that is in the cushions.

Made the 1000lb club today. 365 squat, 265 bench and 375 DL

This is literally me every night. I put the bed on the floor to make the roll off a little easier

@GoddessofGrain Just wow

does anyone smart want to give me the too long didn't read version of what the heck is happening in France?

@WheatTraderFCSt Signed up for a power lifting exhibition end of the month. Squat + Bench + DL … hoping my back doesn’t explode!

great day to do Antifragiles 5x3 265

@sanegrain ADM gave me a hard hat. I felt like a pretty cool dude that first day.

@boydmyers Whats the 30lbs as far as a %? Is this like 1% a week?

Approximately a 10 week difference in these pics (March 18th/June 1) Crazy thing is I am about 30lbs heavier in the first pic.

@carllippert Couldnt agree more. One thing Id add is to use a pwd manager from day one along with the admin log. Whether you have to shutdown or deal with the surprise bills … you need the peace of mind that you can always access those things too

I did such a bad job with paperwork for my last startup the IRS came to my dads house to find me. 💀 ( They ended up owing me money so I feel ok about it ) It scared me and wasn't fun at all but heres 6 things I'll do differently next time. 1. Don't get a Delaware C-Corp till you have lots of paying customers, are rich, or have an investment check in hand. Have a personal LLC to run all your experiments and spin them out if something works. C-Corps require A LOT more paperwork. Quarterly stuff. 2. Don't have people in lots of states. One if possible. Having people in lots of states makes you need a relationships with multiple organizations in each state all requiring their own paperwork. Find a work around or just be in one place. A lot of service companies say they can help make this easy for you. Foreign Qualifications, Registered agents etc but in the end its all pain worth avoiding till you HAVE to. Although @tryfirstbase looks promising. 3. Get a virtual mailbox, P.O. Box etc. Don't incorporate at your parents address even if your working from your childhood bedroom. You might need to pivot and your customers will be in another state so you go there and now you can't get mail and checks and it sucks. This also prevents people from knocking on your door and giving out unnecessary information to the public. There is nuance here because lots of governments say you can't do this but certain companies provide mailboxes you can do this with. Top of my list right now is @EarthClassMail & @iPostal1 Aim for old and boring for this IMO. You don't want this company to go out of business if your giving them this responsibility. 4. Put aside $50k for shut down costs even if you think your going to be a billionaire with this startup. You can probably get this done for less if you keep your business in good working order on the paperwork side but your probably going to defer some of these problems if your trying to make your company not die. Unless your rich I'd recommend having money on the side for this. Paying lawyers and accountants out of pocket if your startup never even makes you rich makes it tougher to get onto the next thing in your life. 5. Get a small / medium size accounting firm that knows startups to do your paperwork. Naval says he prefers to have a Law Firm of one person if he can because that person has skin in the game. Same goes for the service co's you work with. I had a so so experience with Pilot and an excellent one with @FoundersCPA who helped me clean things up. I attribute the quality difference mostly to the focus a medium co vs giant one can provide you. Im also keeping an eye on @betterbkg in the future. 6. Keep an "admin log". Whenever you make a bank account. Hire a service biz. Pay a bill. Create a new Saas account. Discover a new deadline. etc. Write it down in a single place with date, cost, important details ( but don't put your passwords here! ) This will help you keep sane and debug your business as things get messy. - Good luck all. 💪 p.s. Ok one more thing. Never ever ever sign up for AWS without a cancellable virtual card with limits on it and never ever ever use AWS without having spending alarms on everything possible. That said you probably don't even need AWS. Use something friendlier instead. ✌️

@Cornobbe @BenjaminNething @JahrausJoe This is a view of farming (for the last couple decades) that really makes sense. It would also IMO completely explain the struggles with getting good hired labor. You either need to bring them into the equity fold or pay competitively so that the investment is protected

@BenjaminNething @JahrausJoe Eventually the equity snowballs, but (the income/ROI/margin) usually sucks for 25 years until you're paying off significant debt and/or the appreciation allows you more leverage. You can view it as a long term equity investment with high maintenance requirements vs "a business"

So 500 ac of corn is gross about $350,000 of gross income. It’s pretty minimal labor to grow and harvest that corn when compared to other business ventures that you could accomplish with the same amount of labor?

@blakealbers I would concur on those numbers from when I left corporate to start our software company Also is interesting to see how folks comments telegraph their own risk comfort levels

@clintwfischer Is this a situation where the heir is named, or are you crafting language that would define a bar if a problem were to develop? Equally, is there a path back to good graces?

Unfortunately, some estate plans must deal with an adult child struggling with drug/alcohol abuse. Farm transition I'm working on is in that boat. One approach is leaving some amount of $$ to that child but distributed over time by a Trustee. Kind of like an allowance. This example, $2,000 per month over 7 yrs will be paid to that child. They don't want to disinherit him, but also don't want a windfall doing more harm than good. --> Operating entity goes to on-farm son & land is split between the three siblings not struggling with addiction. Also, land has ROFR to lease & buy to the on-farm son. This wouldn't be achieved without estate planning.