Rancho Gordo: https://www.ranchogordo.com/

Today’s episode is a real treat for me. Some of you know that I grew up on a small farm in Northern California that sold livestock, poultry and pumpkins directly to consumers. Then most of my career has been spent in large scale commodity agriculture. Which is why I’ve always been interested in how e-commerce can be used to scale direct to consumer business models.

Admittedly there aren’t a ton of great examples of this. But we definitely have one for you today in Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo. Twenty five years ago Steve started growing heirloom beans and selling them at a local farmers market. That led to conversations and the realization that he could build a business by as he says “imposing his taste” for heirloom beans on other people. That has grown by leaps and bounds and I think you’re going to be blown away by the success of his company, Rancho Gordo. This episode also offers a ton of lessons about finding and creating true fans, beanfreaks as Steve calls them, and building a thriving business by surprising and delighting them time and time again.

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"33 Mental Models For The Modern Agribusiness Leader"

Upstream Ag Insights YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@upstreamaginsights2821

This is probably long overdue to host Shane Thomas on the show. Shane, as many of you already know, writes the very popular newsletter Upstream Ag Insights. He has been providing extremely detailed analysis to subscribers for several years now, and I have been lucky to know Shane since I believe before he started the newsletter. We met at a seed conference in Chicago I think back in maybe 2019.

For the past couple of years Shane has been able to go full time on writing his newsletter, and I highly suggest you subscribe if you haven’t already and take it a step further to become a paid subscriber to support the incredible work Shane does every single week.

In addition to Upstream, Shane has a background in agronomy, ag retail, sales, marketing, strategy and precision agriculture. This allows him to bring together all the latest news in agricultural technology and business to articulate how it impacts the industry. He’s based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

This episode came about around the first of the year when I revisited his 2025 post titled “33 Mental Models for the Modern Agribusiness Leader”. I think all 33 of these are important for every listener of this show to be aware of. I didn’t think listing all 33 would make for a very good podcast episode, so I choose a handful of them. I think we get to six or seven today.

Most of these ideas, Shane dug up in his extensive research that he does, and found really clear ways to apply them to agribusiness contexts. Some are combinations of ideas, and there are probably a few Shane originals in there as well.

Follow Josh on X: https://x.com/JLinvilleFert

StoneX website: https://www.stonex.com

YouTube Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLseYUvaoguNifbmL84zX3plTPt4HGt-MF

Josh Linville is the vice president of fertilizer at StoneX Group Inc. Growing up in northwestern Missouri on a family farm growing tobacco crops and cattle, Josh brings a unique perspective to the fertilizer markets. With over 20 years of experience in this industry, Josh has operated in roles that have given him market perspective as a North American Logistics Specialist, US-based Nitrogen Producer, and General Manager of Commerce in Melbourne, Australia. Josh and his team, which spans the globe, have worked hard to educate the market on how to use the fertilizer futures markets to not only offset price risk, but also to be able to sell produce to farmers much sooner. for fertilizer producers to start their physical sales programs.