Market Validation Report — Harvestly (local-farm marketplace)

Venture / idea: Harvestly — an app that lets households buy a weekly box direct from nearby small farms Owner: Priya Okonkwo Date: 9 February 2026 Decision review date: 16 February 2026

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1. Problem hypothesis

We believe busy households who care about fresh, local food find it hard to buy direct from small farms — farmers' markets clash with work hours, CSA box schemes are rigid and pre-paid for a whole season, and supermarket "local" produce is rarely from named nearby farms. Today they default to the supermarket and feel they're compromising.

Target segment: Dual-income households, ages 30–50, within 25 km of a cluster of small farms, who already buy organic or shop at a farmers' market when they can. Current alternative: Supermarket organic aisle; occasional farmers' market; one rigid seasonal CSA.

2. Riskiest assumptions

#	Assumption	Why it's risky	Confidence now
1	The "can't buy local conveniently" pain is real and frequent	If false, there is no demand to capture	Low
2	Households will pay a small premium for a flexible weekly local box	If false, there is no margin and no business	Low
3	Enough small farms want a new sales channel and can fulfil weekly	If false, supply collapses	Medium

3. Experiments

#	Assumption tested	Method	Metric	Pass threshold
1	Assumption 1	12 problem interviews with target households	Name "buying local conveniently" as a top-3 frustration	7 of 12
2	Assumption 2	Landing-page test ("Notify me" + price shown) to cold local ads	Visitor → email sign-up	≥ 7%
3	Assumption 2	Concierge pilot: hand-pack and deliver real boxes for 3 weeks	Households that re-order at least twice	5 paying households

4. Results

#	Method	Result	Met threshold?
1	12 interviews	9 of 12 named convenience of buying local as a top-3 frustration; 6 had abandoned a CSA because it was too rigid	Yes
2	Landing page (411 visitors over 10 days)	38 email sign-ups = 9.2%; sign-ups jumped when the page showed "skip any week, no season lock-in"	Yes
3	Concierge pilot, 8 households	6 re-ordered twice or more; 2 dropped after week 1 citing delivery time windows; all 6 stayers asked for a wider veg selection	Yes

5. Learnings

• The strongest pull was flexibility, not "local" alone — "skip any week" out-converted every other line in the ad and on the page. The real enemy is the rigid CSA, not the supermarket.
• Households happily paid a ~12% premium over the supermarket for the convenience-plus-flexibility combination.
• The biggest objection wasn't price — it was delivery time windows. Two of eight churned over it.
• On supply: 4 of 5 farms we spoke to wanted the channel but couldn't commit to a fixed weekly volume — fulfilment reliability is now the assumption to watch.

6. Decision

Verdict: Persevere (with a sharpened message)

The problem and willingness to pay both cleared the bar, so we proceed — but we pivot the positioning from "buy local" to "flexible weekly local box, skip any week." We're keeping the validated demand and changing the one variable the evidence pointed at: the message. Assumption 3 (reliable weekly supply) is now the riskiest open question and the focus of the next round.

Next action: Priya runs a 6-farm supply-commitment test and a wider 50-household paid pilot, starting 2 March 2026, with a hard threshold of 30 households retained through week 4.