So much of the business stuff we read now is bullshit. It is stupid people getting lucky and riding on VC money while making more stupid decisions but ultimately dumping enough investor money into it that it works enough to get sold.
At which point, that founder then goes around and tells the same stereotypical story of dropping out of college, running out of money and getting investment on the day they were planning on giving up, etc. We have all heard the bullshit before.
So I was genuinely grateful to read a real business story. The owner saw an opportunity, took it when other people probably wouldn't have, and just genuinely worked hard to get where he is.
This is inspiring because anyone here could do it too if they wanted to. I don't mean selling onions specifically, but I mean they could just go out there find a product, work hard towards selling it, team up with manufacturers/producers, etc and make the dream come to life.
[0]https://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching... | https://startupbook.net
It's funny and beautiful how a moment of whimsy ends up being a fulcrum point in his life.
It seems there's a lot of interest in gardening / food production among tech people. For me, one of the reasons I love gardening is because in many ways it's totally different from working inside with machines, but there are important and unexpected overlaps. For example if you have a solid understanding of the OSI model which informs your method of system design, you can easily move into gardening where knowledge of the layers of a forest plays a similar role. Having this experience in tech makes it easy to zero in on similar structural principles in gardening, learn about them, and apply that knowledge whereas many others clearly don't.
Just like a person who doesn't understand the value of a proper foundation in tech (hardware, lower protocols like DNS, etc.), a similar gardener won't first seek to build strong healthy soil, and they will constantly fight against nature rather than work with it, doing more work while getting fewer results.
As an aside, regarding onions: last year I cut off some green onion bottoms from the store and put them in the ground (including the little roots). They grew back and gave several more green onion harvests before winter set in, and now they're back on their own! Permanent green onion. You can do this with a number of plants, btw. Try it!
Meanwhile, his closest friends would finish school, go to colleges and universities and they would come back really proud for having a bachelor or masters degree.
One day they met at a crepe shop. He was making his orders along with the other folks that were behind their crepe pans.
"So...you work here mate?"
"Yep."
"Ah...shame. We make very good money, thanks to our degrees. Isn't a sad thing that you are forced to work in this shitty job?"
"First of all, I enjoy doing this job; and second of all, how much are you earning annually, if I may?"
"Around 35K euros".
He burst to hysterical laughter.
"I happen to make the least 1000 euros daily and this 'shitty job' happens to be mine; yep, I own the place. At my highest peak I earned 1 million euros and these guys you see working next to me are my employees which are getting paid more or less the same amount as you."
I happened to be there when this incident took place; it was the best day of my life! ^_^
I'll see myself out.
But seriously, this is the type of side projects I dream of. Not the next soul sucking social network, but rather something meaningful and real.
- Least expensive order is a 5-pound box for $34.95
- Runs on Shopify
- As they're seasonal, there are some built-in scarcity aspects I hadn't thought of (which is kind of neat business wise).
Two aspects I might try if this was my business:
1. Some kind of "Chef/Restaurant" option
2. An option to send 1 beautiful onion (ala the referenced Harry and David's)
I don't really like onions. But real Georgia Vidalias are something special.
The plan was I'd just run to the local grocery store and just fulfill online orders and if demand was there, purchase from local farmers. I didn't get any further than than just mentioning the business idea. Kudos to Peter for executing and meeting a need. Looks like he also owns onions.com, so they are making enough money to acquire that domain name.
My current business and startup take too much time, but some day..
Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless
For those that are looking to replicate the success of this Vidalia Onion business only have a $10 budget for a domain here are some other options:
onlyvidalias.com
vidalias.net
tryvidalias.com
yummyonions.com
ordervidalias.com
buyvidalias.com
organicvidalias.com
vidaliafarm.com
allvidalias.com
simplyvidalias.com
I’ve bought domains for years. Through that process, I’ve developed a specific routine to evaluate a name prior to purchasing.
I’ve been sketching out a plan to build a web app that largely automates this evaluation process, that I would hope to release as a small side project SaaS in the future.
Anyone here interested in such a thing?
(They’re real good)
https://www.business-opportunities.biz/2013/04/10/the-worlds...
I'm not downplaying what he did - it's really cool - what I'm trying is to get a better sense of the business dynamics here.
> [...] she interrupted me mid-sentence and hollered in exaltation to her husband: ” THE VIDALIA MAN! THE VIDALIA MAN! PICK UP THE PHONE!”
The happiness I feel reading that is so sublime. His work is needed and appreciated -- and what a humble trade with a beautiful simplicity to it. It is repeatable; others could do this too! Imagine what our communities would be like if most families had a little something like this. It reminds me of G.K. Chesterton's "Three Acres and a Cow" [1] slogan (implying that can be enough).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism#Economic_theory
Even more simple than that really, taking an existing industry and using a domain name to create a front end to that industry.
There is opportunity everywhere. Especially if you don't require creating a billion dollar company.
Thanks for sharing Vidalia Man.
1. crouch down and reach out your leg gently tapping the "invisible ground"
2. throw a pebble.
3. throw a bunch of sand to see exact available surface area.
Just curious, how were the first two farmers you met?
Some ideas of the stuff you could sell:
- Kombucha
- Specialty sodas
- Heirloom seeds
- Specialty light bulbs and/or batteries
- Spice packets
- Carpet cleaning powder
- Dice
- Specialty candles
- Prepared origami paper
- Specialty pens/pencils/crayons
- Funky hair accessories (someone recently asked me why there aren't many superhero themed ones because it would be a huge market)
Whole wheat bread, lightly toasted with a smear of mayo and a thick slice of Vidalia. Mmmm... So good.
These stories are good to tell, sometimes what can help a farmer the most is just someone who can help market and sell their crop.
Oh, and please downvote. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this!
I wonder what others think about this quote. Could he not have started the same exact business with another domain? Is owning the "right" domain that important that is should "come first" and be forgotten without it? naively I'd think Google@2019 gives more importance to content then to the domain name. No?
I copied the quote “take the path to Nothing, and go Nowhere until you reach it.” and got it turned into a canvas to hang above my desk.
Late April: Season Begins.
Because I'm a big fan of onions, but an even bigger fan of onion sites...
"I'm a web guy. I’m not a farmer."
I already knew that, because in just a couple paragraphs, I was already recognizing the style of writing as... SEO, "influencer", I don't know what to call it?
It's a personal first-person voice, which right off the start tries to establish that the author is a human being writing about their life -- but also that they are an expert in what they are going to tell you about, and very successful too.
The text includes many one or two sentence paragraphs, and has aggressively styled pull quotes and/or callouts. Short sentences too. Not entirely complete sentences. Interspersed.
It makes sure to open up with some kind of very short story that is only tangentially related to the content but is folksy and cute. (Smuggled vidalia's onto cruise ship).
The information is very cleverly structured to keep you reading, by dropping just enough of the actual info, page to page, to pique your attention and make you think there's an interesting story here, but not enough that you can leave having actually learned anything before you've read a pretty big chunk. And is written artfully for this purpose, it works, and keeps you reading. Sometimes at the end you feel rewarded, other times you feel like it was a shaggy dog story. The best authors leave you happy, of course.
It's got information to convey, but the goal is not to convey the information as effectively as possible, but to keep you reading as long as possible -- and, usually, to sell you something.
I don't know if I have a value judgement on it exactly -- okay, I'll admit it annoys me, perhaps because it all sounds the same while trying to convince you it's a folksy authentic voice. But either way, it's a thing, a genre even, that I'm not sure I've seen anyone comment on.
It's: "Content Marketing Voice".
(Also selling people onions on the internet is "purpose over profit", really? What the world needs now is frictionless access to vidalia onions shipped directly to your home?)
My brother and I started our company the moment after we bought our domain name: retreat.guru. We actually wanted a different domain but didn’t get it; retreat.guru was the runner up. Then we had a spontaneous 3 hour call where we mapped out the entire global wellness retreat marketplace we would build - all based off the domain name! 5 years later we are still going strong.
We are based out of a small mountain town in B.C. Nowhere near the buzz of Silicon Valley. We gradually took investment and grew from revenue as well. We are very vision driven.
‘I sell ayahuasca retreats on the internet’
:D
Who would have thought that content marketing would work to sell onions through hacker news!!
Edit: Looks like they have some competition: https://www.vidaliaonion.org
How can I possibly be the first person to get stuck on the fact that this fellow dropped $2200 on a niche domain without a business plan in mind?
Most people don't have that kind of whimsy cash, sadly.
Am I the only one here who has a problem with this kind of "business"? I see it as a very asshole thing to dedicate oneself to.
Not trying to be a killjoy, but everytime I hear about people reserving domains for fun or future, it just tells of so much privilege. Americans and other Westerners people have already reserved so many domains. Domain name squatting always is a rich-get-richer story.
I checked using the search box, and it appears this the 12th most voted post of all time (so far!).
You're now ranked #1 for "vidalia onions" in Google -- but, I'm really curious what the evolution was after buying the domain?
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