Million Dollar Per Year Watering Cans and a $30 Million Dollar Newsletter

Hello!

We’re back with another edition!

If you’re new here, this is the up-next newsletter where we bring you the latest data, trends and biz ideas to help you launch businesses that actually make money.

Continuing down the rabbit hole of “weird businesses” - this week we’ll be featuring fast growing companies in the world of… gardening and farming.

The businesses and brand stories in this one are epic and feature tools, apparel and media companies doing $30 million+ per year.

But Before we jump into today’s report, do me a favor and answer the poll below..

Today’s newsletter we’ll be looking at: 

• 8 figure apparel brands in the gardening niche

• The story telling and marketing strategies outdoor companies are using to grow large audiences and find product market fit

• A few ideas you can implement to start a business and ride this wave. Lets jump in 👇👇

💰Gardening Brands Making Big Profits Through Story Telling and Audience Building

Gardening is a USD 257 billion opportunity in 2024 and is expected to reach reach USD 359 billion by 2029. What does this tell us other than it’s obviously a huge market?

To start, there’s many micro opportunities that exist in the space. Let’s look at a few of the brands taking advantage. We’ll start with Niwaki.

Niwaki's story is one of discovery, passion, and the bridging of cultures through the art of gardening.

It started with their founder Jake's initial fascination with Japanese gardens, to growing a real brand and business in the space. Niwaki offers a range of high-quality gardening tools that cater to both the aesthetic and practical needs of gardeners and embodies a blend of functionality, artistry, and cultural heritage.

After teaching and working at a nursery in Osaka, Japan, Jake recognized that specialized Japanese tools were highly effective in Western gardens, bridging cultural and geographical divides in gardening practices. When he returned back to his home of Sussex he began crafting Niwaki.

Niwaki offers a variety of products including Pruning Tools, Topiary Clippers, Tripod Ladders Saws, Garden Scissors and Other Accessories. Their sales come from both ecommerce and retail and over time they’ve built an impressive audience

What stands out most about Niwaki is their commitment to functional, stylish and minimalistic design. This is a company that is clearly building a foundation to stay around for a long time.

With showrooms, a retail presence and an ecommerce store, it’s clear Niwaki has mastered distribution and brand without the cheap “ecommerce” feel so many companies give off today.

Our next brand feature is GardenHeir. A brand that originates from the founders' personal experiences in the visual arts and fashion industry. Their love for gardening led them to creating a garden on their upstate New York property and turning it into a full fledged Gardening apparel and supplies company.

Through their gardening journey, Christopher and Alan immersed themselves in learning about gardening techniques from reading books, watching UK gardening programs, visiting established gardens, and connecting with fellow gardeners.

Gardenheir uses visual storytelling to connect with their growing audience, showing off both their work in progress garden along with their uniquely designed supplies. The brand’s aesthetic is extremely high quality and let’s the imagery introduce you to their apparel and products.

One thing we love about Gardenheir is their functional apparel and workwear. And while brand is important it’s clear they’ve found functional product market fit with outerwear that’s suited for the outdoor enthusiast.

Collaborations with companies like Haws Watering cans have further separated them from a standard “gardening supplies” company, merging products with another like-minded and design first company. Haws has been established since 1886 and is the premier Watering Cans company in this space.

These brands are a far cry from the standard gardening tools you’ll see on amazon and other ecom shops. The thread that connects them is the story telling and attention to detail with their products, allowing for premium pricing and a more satisfied customer.

This is the “longer path” to building a business but creates a much more sustainable company in the long term.

Let’s take a look at the media brands in the gardening and farming space. It’s a unique business model, that shows us how to build media first brands and sell products to that audience.

On a side note, you’ll notice audience first businesses are a recurring theme in this newsletter. The brand, story telling and connection with audience and customers is the real path to longevity.

While most founders rely on I.P. and patents for MOAT protection, smart builders understand they need to carve out and pre-select a customer base to sell to.

A 30+ Million Dollar Per Year Farming Newsletter?

The Van Trump report is a daily newsletter by Kevin Van Trump, and he’s built a behemoth media empire by simply writing a daily newsletter.

Kevin was a commodities trader and over time he began writing about the business of agriculture and farming. He’s been writing the newsletter himself, everyday, for over 20 years. What started out as a passion project turned into a multiple 8 figure per year company..

Some interesting facts and takeaways:

1. The business reportedly does over 30 million per year with 80%+ profit margins
   

2. It’s extremely low tech, nothing fancy and has a very basic format. I believe he uses sales force to send it out
   

3. He’s built it into an entire line of products and services, including an annual event called FarmCon

We couldn’t believe the numbers when we first heard about the newsletter, however, there’s massive audiences in just about every market we’ve looked into at this point.

How you go about building a business really depends on your skills and the type of brand you're looking to create.

Visual story telling works wonders when it comes to selling physical products. In fact, customers can run to a local Walmart or home goods store for their gardening needs. Quality, brand and how the product resonates is what will have them clicking an ad to purchase online.

A services and digital business such as the Van Trump report packages decades of expertise into a daily newsletter. Nothing fancy, just a nose to the grindstone work ethic to produce a daily product people are willing to pay for and subscribe to.

Acquire a Customer Once, Sell to them for Life

In both of these scenarios the goal is to build an audience and produce multiple products and services on the backend to further increase LTV (lifetime value) and profit margin.

When building out any brand, it’s important to give yourself runway in terms of new skus you can release that will resonate with your customer base. Gardening and the brands featured today are a perfect example of this (especially the creative collabs with other established brands).

When using an acquisition source such as Meta, Google, TikTok or any other paid ads, you control very little. The price of ads can jump at any moment (especially during a political campaign year such as 2024), so you need to keep an open line of communication and constantly be launching new products without the ads.

With that said, I think there’s some interesting opportunities for more functional, clothing first gardening brands. Sustainable clothing designed for both performance and style (there’s probably even some weather tech you could toss in the mix that customers would really appreciate).

In addition, it seems like the media space is wide open when it comes to gardening and outdoors. From what we’ve seen there seems to be a desire for more outdoor publications, for not just vegetables but the * ahem herb growing space.

Slop Magazine is one more cool media company we came across, doing some interesting drops in the media and physical product space. A very unique approach to modern content

That’s it for this week’s report. Grab a few ideas and run with’em. Someone will, why not you?

See ya next week!

-Ken

P.S. Let me know how you liked today’s newsletter in the polls below..