
Ask HN: Olive Oil startup? - maybeAFarmer
I&#x27;m a software developer. I work in Europe, but just found out that I will be inheriting some olive land in my home country.<p>I was wandering if there is an international market for extra virgin olive oil, with provable &quot;cruelty-free&quot; production process and zero pesticides.<p>Would you buy a regular subscription to deliveries when you can just buy olive oil from your local market?<p>I&#x27;m thinking of dropping my 9 to 5 job, to build the web platform, but i&#x27;m not sure if there is a market for this? How would one proceed ?
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contingencies
There is a market. However, just last week here in China I had someone
approach me who had shipped a large quantity in to China and was looking for
someone with the appropriate import license (they hadn't thought that far
ahead). Cross-border everything is pretty painful. Easier at postal scale,
hassle at container scale. China will pay top dollar for organic. However,
proving that may be hard if your home country is not in Europe and is
perceived as having pliable/unreliable regulators.

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maybeAFarmer
I was thinking postal-scale, with a "soylent-like" subscription/delivery model

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grizzles
I usually buy extra virgin from the grocery store. I look for the CAAE mark. I
personally can't see myself buying a subscription for a one grocery item from
a single vendor.

You might have more luck with another product that's not a commodity, like
lemon flavoured oil or something. Is that a thing?

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maybeAFarmer
There are flavored olive oils, like spicy for pizza and stuff like that. I
have no idea about the market for it, I will look into it, thanks.

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adrianN
Don't quit your job until you've proven that your business idea can work (for
example by building a MVP on the weekends and becoming at least Ramen
profitable).

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maybeAFarmer
Absolutely agree with you, problem is that this is not a SaaS, for an MVP I
have actually to produce, store, package, label and ship a product.

This requires a number of man-hours and some expenses.

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adrianN
Sure, you could start by reselling artisanal olive oil over the internet. That
way you don't have to start producing yourself. Shipping and handling and so
on you'd have to do though.

