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In a quiet valley, framed by old hills and brushed by seasonal winds, a man named Paul Lee farmed apples.
He wasn’t new to it. For thirteen years, he had worked at the most successful apple orchards in the region. He’d learned from masters of the craft, including one who built the world’s most celebrated orchard. The operation ran with such precision and care that it eventually caught the attention of an industrial farming giant and was acquired.
That company focused on maximizing output, stripping the orchard of its natural balance. Over time, the soil thinned, the workers left, and the apples lost their shine.
The master, after witnessing what became of his life’s work, quietly invested some capital to help Paul get started. “Build it the way it should be built,” he had told him. “No shortcuts.”
Paul remembered that. He carried the lesson with him.
His farm was modest. A handful of trees already bore fruit. The apples weren’t abundant, but they were good, crisp, complex, and memorable. The kind of apple you didn’t forget.
Paul didn’t run the farm by himself. He had a team: talented, thoughtful, and committed. They earned less than their peers on other farms, but they weren’t just laborers. They were co-owners. A cooperative. Some had joined in the early days, others more recently. All of them believed in what they were building.
Their methods were slow by design. They worked with the land, not against it. They used organic compost, companion planting, and techniques passed down from growers who understood the rhythm of apple trees. Their philosophy focused on using what nature already provided and making only minimal changes to the ecosystem. It was a different approach. Less mechanical. More in tune with the land. The orchard grew according to the trees’ own timing. Paul often said, “You can’t ask a tree to rush. But you can make sure it has everything it needs to thrive, so that these apple trees could stand the test of time.”
His friends saw Paul working tirelessly through early mornings and late evenings to produce a quality product and bring his vision to life. They believed in what he was building. Many helped in small but meaningful ways: sharing introductions, making quiet endorsements, and offering personal references. That early trust helped Paul secure his first customers without relying on salespeople or paid advertising.
Some of those references came from large businesses, including national grocery chains. They couldn’t work with Paul directly yet. His operation was still too small to meet their volume needs, and onboarding a young supplier would create unnecessary supply chain risk. But they stayed in touch and closely followed his progress. Many made it clear that once he reached the scale they needed, they would be ready to partner with him.
His customers understood. They hadn’t come for volume or flash. They saw how the apples were grown, the integrity behind the process. None had left. These customers used Paul’s apples to make things that demanded consistency and trust: cider sold across the region, baby food that had to meet strict standards, and health products that couldn’t afford surprises. For them, quality and reliability weren’t negotiable.
To the west, out of sight but not out of conversation, was a farmer known only by reputation. A tobacco grower. Word was, his fields were exploding with cash. Every month brought another tale of record profits. He had investors lining up, crops turning over in weeks, glossy reports on margins and scale.
Paul had no problem with tobacco. In fact, some of his customers said it helped them focus, helped them get more done. He and his team even used it now and then to keep energy up during long harvests.
But Paul had concerns.
“Tobacco’s fine,” he’d say. “But people keep talking about it like it’s magic. Like just growing it makes you a better farmer. I’m not sure that’s true.” He’d seen the same thing happen with Glimmerfruit, an exotic crop that had once taken the valley by storm. Its cultivation used a tremendous amount of energy, and thousands of strains were engineered in hopes of finding the perfect one. One big-time farmer—Solomon B. Fairwick, who went by SBF—even ended up in jail after defrauding his investors in his Glimmerfruit scheme.
His neighbor Tom dropped by from time to time, always with a new plan. Tom had grown Glimmerfruit back when it was hot, too. Sold early, moved on, and kept moving, luckily pivoting quickly while he still had some capital left.
“I’m doing tobacco now,” Tom said one morning, leaning over the fence. “Got a line on this new process, Moisture-Cured Priming, or MCP. Supposed to speed up the whole curing cycle. Big bump in output.”
Paul nodded. “Interesting stuff. I’m excited to see if MCP works. I just want to see it really working first. Proven, at a few farms.”
“You should just grow your apples using MCP,” Tom said. “That way you can tell investors you’re doing something modern. They’ll love it.”
Not long after, the first investor of the month arrived.
He wore all black, carried a tablet full of charts, and had a very serious look on his face.
“I’ve modeled 18-month yield curves,” he said. “Tobacco outperforms apples 6 to 1 in early-stage scenarios. You should also mix in some tobacco in your fields…”
Paul led him down the orchard path, pointing to the first few trees that had begun producing. “These took time to grow. I started with a few, and learned how to nurture them. Now that we know what works, we’ve planted many more.”
The investor barely looked up from his graphs.
“Your team’s too small. You need farmhands. You need scale. You should subscribe to Growtnar Research, they specialize in agricultural trend analysis. They’ll show you how to promote your orchard to a better class of backers.”
Another came with a glossy presentation and a slide deck, charts and all. “You’re doing this too organically,” he said. “You need to industrialize. Bring in external GTM consultants. Hire someone who’s scaled orchards before and that knows lots of the top apple buyers in the region. We can help you buy the right machinery”
Most investors stayed about 30 to 60 minutes. Just long enough to feel like they had seen enough.
One investor lingered longer than most, walked the orchard slowly, and whispered to Paul before leaving, “This is an impressive start, most don’t get this far. But reach out when your quarterly apple production is more consistent and scaling at 50%.”
Paul nodded, then replied gently, “Yes, but don’t you see? The value isn’t just in the apples already picked. The value is in the trees. The trees are the system, the capability, the plant. The apples are just the output. So you have to measure what we’ve built based on the health and quality of the trees we’ve grown, and how well they produce, because that’s what determines everything going forward. And we’ve already planted many more that will follow the same path.”
The investor furrowed his brow, glanced back at the younger trees, and shook his head slightly. “Yeah… but that all takes time. It’s just too early for us.”
Others came. Each with their own thesis, each with a different theory about what Paul should do. Some were kind, others smug. Some appreciated the care and thought behind the orchard, but left afraid.
“Honestly,” one said, “I love what you’re doing. But trees take so long. What if they don’t produce? What if the apples never scale? We’re more fans of seasonal crops that can be harvested and sold this year, SaeS, we call them Sold At End of Season. Yours are more like PaeS, Produced After End of Season. That works for some, but it’s not our model.”
Paul did get offers. But they were based only on the apples that had already been harvested, sold, and shipped. Little to no value was assigned to the apples still on the trees, let alone the fact that his current crop of fruit-bearing trees would continue to produce more apples, year after year, with relatively little additional effort. These weren’t one-time producers. These were perennial assets, getting stronger and more fruitful over time.
And when it came to the younger saplings, the offers treated them like liabilities. Not because they were weak or poorly planted, but because the investors didn’t believe Paul, or his team, could mature all of them. They never bothered to meet the team. If they had, they’d have seen a group of doers, 10x-ers, co-owners, people who worked sunup to sundown in the field. They stayed focused, even when the work was grueling, some chewing tobacco to stay focused and productive. Paul had instilled a system that made it clear what mattered each day, and the team executed with discipline. These weren’t hired hands, they were builders.
Still, none of that showed up in the spreadsheets. And Paul knew that to win customer trust, especially from those introducing his apples into their supply chains—he had to demonstrate not just quality, but sustainability and maturity. These customers weren’t hobbyists. They needed to know Paul’s farm had a long runway. They couldn’t afford to bet on a supplier who might vanish in two seasons. So Paul needed to be over-capitalized, on purpose.
He couldn’t afford to do what Tom or the tobaccoman were doing, spending fast and assuming the next round of funding would come easily. Paul knew better. He knew that the lag between planting an apple tree and harvesting enough fruit to sell was long. And if he spent aggressively and prematurely, all he’d end up with was rows of small, non-productive trees and a dwindling bank account. Investors would see only what was already sold—and overlook the momentum building just beneath the surface.
So every dollar had to count. His operation had to be leaner, smarter, and far more efficient than the neighbors growing seasonal crops. Those neighbors could point to fast revenue and flashy yields. Paul was building something that grew stronger with time, but required patience, resilience, and capital discipline.
But the few who did invest tasted the apples. They talked to the customers. They saw the health of the trees and the soil. They understood that the customers were buying not just because apples were available, but because they believed in how they were grown. These investors recognized the customers as average apple eaters, the kind you’d find in every city and town. And they knew there were millions more just like them. They believed in Paul’s vision and his approach to farming, even if they hadn’t yet learned all the intricate details involved.
And still, unphased, Paul worked.
Long days. Before the sun was up, until the last of the light faded and the workday ended. He didn’t put up signs. He didn’t host conferences. He didn’t chase attention. He walked the rows, reviewed the soil, swapped notes with his team. They tracked sapling health, tested root strength, fine-tuned irrigation, and nurtured the trees that were almost ready to bear.
He kept inviting people to try the apples. Some did. Some didn’t. The ones who did almost always bought and kept buying.
Tom swung by again one evening, shaking his head.
“You’re still doing it the hard way,” he said.
“Maybe,” Paul replied. “But it’s the right way.”
Tom bit into an apple. He looked at Paul with amazement. He didn’t say anything after that.
And then, a car with license plates from far away pulled up…
To be continued.