article The Farm Market Unlocked the Internet

Last Sunday I woke up, rolled over, and grabbed my phone.

It was blowing up.

The video I posted the day before had over 200k views. But what caught my attention wasn’t the views. It was the comments. Hundreds of them.

“Are you open today?”

At first I brushed it off. I replied to a few people and told them we’d be open next Saturday. But the comments kept coming. People weren’t just watching. They were planning.

I nudged MariKate.

“Hey babe… I think we have to open the market today.”

So we did.

A couple hours later, it was shoulder-to-shoulder in our little garage-turned-market.

When the Farm Became the Story

Earlier this year I told myself I was going to post more short videos. Reels. TikToks. Just document what we’re building.

When I showed the online side of Kakadoodle, it barely moved the needle. Smooth ordering. Packed boxes. Delivery routes. It all made sense to me, but it didn’t spark much reaction. Even showing the farm itself.

Then we started showing the Farm Market.

Everything changed.

Shares. Comments. Tags. Traffic.

In person, the energy has been hard to describe. Kids taking pictures with the chickens. Neighbors meeting each other in the parking lot. Conversations about feed, about health, about where food comes from. There’s a common thread in so many of those conversations. People are trying to make better choices for their families.

And they want to see it for themselves.

The Farm Market started as a simple self-serve stand. Eggs. Honey. A way to generate some revenue after bird flu forced us to pause. Then we remodeled an old detached garage and turned it into a real market with many of the same products we sell online.

It wasn’t a grand strategy.

It was practical.

But when we started showing it online, specifically with short videos, something clicked.

The Ignition Source

For years I’ve said the farm is core to what we’re building. We say “Farmers First.” We are farmers ourselves. Customers can come see the land. See the chickens. Understand what chemical-free farming actually means in real life.

The Farm Market felt like a natural extension of that belief.

What I didn’t expect was this:

The physical farm would unlock the internet.

I’ve struggled to intentionally scale the online side of the business. We’ve tried direct mail. Paid social. Plenty of experiments. Lots of darts at the wall. Nothing really stuck.

Most of our growth has come from two things:

1. Word of mouth
2. Farmers markets

Neither are easy to scale.

But the Farm Market might be different.

When people see a real place. Real land. Real animals. Real families shopping shoulder to shoulder. Something shifts. It feels grounded. Tangible. Trustworthy.

I noticed many of the comments weren’t even questions. They were invitations.

“Hey Sam, want to check this place out?”

That’s not passive engagement. That’s social coordination. A reason to gather.

The Farm Market gives people something to invite others into.

And here’s the interesting part: the attention doesn’t stay offline. We’ve seen a bump in new online customers as well. The in-person experience reinforces the digital one.

Rethinking Grocery

For a long time, I assumed the internet would bring people to the farm.

Now I’m starting to wonder if it works the other way around.

Maybe the farm is the ignition source.

Maybe a real, physical place is what makes a digital system believable.

Maybe grocery, at its best, isn’t just about convenience. Maybe it’s about connection.

We’re still learning.

But for now, we’re paying attention to what’s clearly resonating: a real farm, a real market, and short videos that simply show it as it is.