We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kyle And Trista Knudson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kyle and Trista, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?
Our heroes, without a doubt, are our grandparents and parents who dedicated time and effort to teach us the skills we’re disseminating to the public through our social media channels. In fact, in my perspective it feels a bit like my paternal grandparents dedicated their lives to passing down precious skills to their children and grandchildren. From agriculture to horticulture, fishing to canning, and building to sewing, Grandpa Fred and Grandma Sally left a strong legacy to their children and grandchildren. I can remember using a paring knife to peel apples for canning, operating a sewing machine to patch coveralls, and measuring out the ingredients for homemade cookies from a very young age. I noticed more and more of my friends and acquaintances reaching out with questions about gardening and canning. I also noticed others on social media share their desire for a slower and older way of life. As such, I was driven to teach.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
We became beekeepers and small-scale poultry farmers in 2023 and 2024, respectively. As such, we created a business entity, Midwest Homestead LLC, which is a registered corporate farm. Kyle, a community bank president and business banker by day, works the beehives and manages most of the poultry chores by night and weekend. I left my clinical consulting job as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst to be a homemaker and I lead the marketing, content creation, and bookkeeping side of the business. I also instruct college classes at a local university.
Our business primarily sells raw honey and pasture-raised chicken in Central Minnesota. We also produce short form video content on gardening, food preservation, and other sustainability-focused topics. After learning of the high demand for video creation, we started a division of the business in which businesses hire us to create videos of their products and services.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Our main revenue source as an agricultural business is not from farm product sales. As you might imagine, farm product sales do not have a great margin but there are quite a few funding sources available to farmers (e.g., grants, loans, tax benefits, etc.). As such, we knew we need to diversify or scale up. While we’re working on both, our main goal of diversification was in the realm of social media as we are grossly aware of the market forecast in social media networking. We’re glad we did because the skills we learned through creating short form videos has turned into fairly reliable (yet small) income. This started by shooting footage on my iPhone and using a free editing service called CapCut to edit. Over time, I naturally refined this skill through trial and error and by watching videos produced by others. After about a year of sharing mostly gardening, baking, and canning tutorial videos on TikTok and Meta, I created a portfolio presentation on Canva and applied to various platforms where businesses find people like me to create videos for them. On those platforms, I apply for jobs, called briefs, where businesses can decide whether they want to hire me. We project rapid growth in that area of our business in FY 2025–we’ve even made purchases for better filming equipment such as lens attachments, lighting, and microphones. My advice to other small businesses would be to start a social media presence if you don’t already have one, but have a strategic plan and goal for posting with a focus on consistent but high quality short form videos (e.g., reels). A great recipe for videos is to share something valuable AND entertaining. Focusing on videos rather than static posts is important because videos get pushed out to users with an algorithm and that is how your channel will grow.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Kyle is a business banker, so we are lucky to have his expertise in this area. However, our goal was, and continues to be, finding a niche that has a solid return without requiring much capital expenses over overhead costs. After all, interest rates are high right now and, trust us, we’re keenly aware of that. Additionally, we’ve prioritized business that allows for tax benefits as well. We have actively searched and applied for grants as well. In summary, we’ve avoided capital expenses that require bank funding, focused on business areas that have low to no overhead costs and provide passive income, and applied for grants. We are actively exploring other options regularly and feel great about having a solid foundation to move on an opportunity given that we have an established business entity, a great accountant, great bookkeeping practices, and an in-house business expert ready to pencil out projections.
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Image Credits
Jenna Danielle Photography