reko.day is my start up. I hope it is used by millions of folks as the easiest way to buy and sell locally. While it was conceived as like a virtual farmer's market that catered to farmers, it became obvious that just about every local farmer, maker, and baker wants this.
This page is where I will be working in public.
Current Focus
Segment Pivot to Cottage Food Producers (Updated 2026-05-26)
Diagnosis (from 5/23 market visit + 5/26 strategy session): Established farmers market vendors behave like late-majority adopters for novel business-model concepts. They get excited in person but don't convert. The marketplace promise is future-tense; their adoption threshold requires present-tense payback (the way Square and Venmo cleared it). Building more product for that audience hasn't worked and won't work — they are the worst audience for an MVP.
New strategy: find early adopters in a different segment. Working hypothesis: value-added cottage food producers (home bakers, sourdough, jam-makers, fermenters, hot sauce, etc.) are the early-adopter segment for a local-food marketplace because:
- They already manage pre-orders manually (IG DMs + Google Forms + Venmo + spreadsheets) — Reko Day collapses this into one tool
- Castiron (the dominant platform) shut down late 2025 — vendors are actively shopping for alternatives RIGHT NOW
- Arkansas's Food Freedom Act is permissive (no permit, no revenue cap, online + delivery allowed)
- They're already on Instagram for marketing — discoverable and not tech-averse
- A "Reko" maps perfectly to a baker's weekly drop schedule
Active plan: See reko.day/Segment Pivot Plan.md. Week-of-5/26 execution: 30 prospects → DM Wed 5/27 → 10-min discovery calls Thu/Fri → Rogers market Sat 5/30 → synthesize Sun 5/31.
Falsification thresholds (set BEFORE outreach):
- < 3 substantive responses out of 30 DMs → channel or message is wrong
-
40% Android among interested qualified leads → platform constraint is capping growth
- 5 calls with zero willingness to list a product within 2 weeks → value prop not landing
POS MVP — Deprioritized to Plan B
Plan exists at reko.day/POS MVP Plan.md but NOT being built this week. Why deferred:
- Built for the wrong audience (late-majority established farmers who already use Square; switching costs are real; "$1 cheaper on $500" doesn't clear the bar)
- The Venmo consolidation play (the most promising element) requires technical validation — Venmo merchant APIs are effectively dead; only sanctioned path is Braintree
- Cheapest-information-first principle: outreach costs zero engineering hours and tells us more than a Venmo spike would
Plan B trigger: If segment outreach fails (<3 responses), revisit POS — specifically the Venmo deep-link/QR consolidation play as a possible wedge.
Rogers / Shelly — Continued Nurture (Tier 2, nOt Tier 1)
- Saturday 5/30: show up at Rogers Local Food & Art Market with corrected sales mechanics (take THEIR info, commit to specific follow-up, do not wait for them to call). Find the two farmers from 5/23. Walk every vendor stall for cottage-food producer leads.
- Keep Shelly relationship warm but DO NOT measure segment-pivot success against whether Rogers moves. Different experiments, different timelines.
- Cottage producers to look for at Rogers Saturday: Cookie Slinger, Rise With Margarita, Corazon de Maiz, Hey Sugar NWA, Bee Barn & Co (verified stall presence).
- Status:
reko.day/CRM/Shelly - Rogers Farmers Market.md
Constraints (Unchanged)
- iOS only. Deliberate choice — multiplatform before product-market fit is premature optimization. Track Android prospect rate as falsification signal.
- Reko Day can't handle taxes (market requirement for some organizers).
- Buyers pay $4.99/mo subscription (free to browse, pay to purchase). 2-month free promo active.
App Improvements
Smoothing out onboarding, better and more robust notifications and adding some QOL things throughout the app.