Happy Friday,

I can't believe how close I am to the first release of reko.day! It has both taken longer than I thought and snuck up on me at the same time. I'm working on how to handle refunds through the app now, and that'll be about it.

For those of you who want to check out this version that will be the final one before release, send me a message, and I'll get you set up (Totally free).

One of the things I've been doing this summer is heading to the local Farmer's Markets to hand out some business cards to farmers and talk to them about what reko.day is and gauge their interest. I thought it'd be interesting to share some of their reactions and feedback.

Overwhelmingly, these farms and farmers are tethered to a specific farmer's market. They don't have enough staff to be at multiple, and it's a lot of work for them to set up something like a CSA pickup. Even when they do set up a CSA pickup, there is a bit of a headache about the pickup time and location outside of farmer's market hours.

So when I show them that I'm building a mobile app that lets them list what they have for sale, and people can buy it and pay straight through the app, their eyes light up. They don't often have much for this, and the amount of technology they'd have to buy, build, and adopt to pull it off on their own is too much time and money.

When we talk about how they fulfill orders, admittedly, this is something I've struggled to explain myself, but I explain that there will be community-created meetups called rekos, and they can pick which of these rekos they can support and that will be their dropoff location.

We typically then talk through how that would exactly look, and overwhelmingly, they say, "That is so cool! It's really obvious when you think about it. How much will it cost me?"

Then I tell them that I won't charge farmers for the app. What they charge is what they get, aside from payment processing fees.

I've had several farmers ask me about a dozen more questions to see if I'm working an angle where I secretly do charge them because they're used to that. One even told me they pay the local farmer's market a commission.

In general, my suspicions about what farmers have available to support them in getting their food out to local communities is primitive, and they're excited for what reko.day promises.

It's not all positive feedback, though. There are a few farmers, maybe 1 in 30, that is doing this more as a hobby and lifestyle and aren't worried about any of these things or making their produce available outside of the farmer's market. That's fine, too.

The biggest surprise was when I talked to the farmer's market organizers. They've all seen the potential in reko.day as replacing the software they buy to maintain their markets off-season. This is a turn of events I was not anticipating, but if I'm going to take my mission of making local food more accessible, then I'll look into it further.

I'm excited about the potential of reko.day brings to farmers and shoppers alike. Enough writing, though. I need to get this app done!

Sincerely,

Ryan