College Entrepreneurs Find a Green Niche in an Online Farmers MarketThe young environmentalists with a passion for sustainable agriculture won $10,000 in a business contest to launch the farm-to-front-door venture.
ByJodi Helmer•
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When the entrepreneurship club at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, challenged students to come up with ideas to stimulate the state's small-business economy, Danny Garin, an economics and government major, envisioned a virtual farmers market stocked with local produce and artisanal products.
"There are a lot of high-end markets [here], but nothing that replaces the farmers market experience," Garin, 21, explains.
With classmates Marcus Josefsson, an economics and math major, and Noah VanValkenburg, a government major, Garin developed a business plan for My Fresh Company. The idea was to create partnerships with farmers and producers in Maine and sell their locally grown and produced products through an online market. "Farmers want to focus on what they know best and do best, which is growing their crops, not managing an e-commerce site," Garin says.
