We were lucky to catch up with Jessie Jarvis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Being the third-generation on my family’s Southern Idaho cattle operation, I have always been connected and involved with agriculture and the western way of life. After college, I worked in agriculture marketing and communications, and then a few years later moved back to the ranch to work alongside my parents. After marrying my husband, he too began working on the ranch, which gave me the opportunity to do some freelancing and contract work in marketing, communications, and journalism. Those experiences allowed me to have a very unique perspective. In less than ten years, I had been a college-aged student, looking for her first internship. I had been a college graduate, looking for her first job out of college. I sat in as part of the hiring team when adding new employees to the company I worked for. I worked for my parents in a family business, and I also worked alongside our other employees. I had also spend time as a freelancer, looking for those project-based, or temporary opportunities. One thing I knew to be true is that it always felt “hard”. It was “hard” to find the right job I knew I’d be passionate about. It was “hard” to find other really awesome candidates to add to our team who were passionate about our industries. It was “hard” to find freelancers and contractors who understood the vision, who could help bring projects to life. And as a freelancer, it was “hard” to find the type of industry opportunity I knew I was skilled at. How can all of those things be so “hard”?!

And it wasn’t just me. My husband and I have built really strong relationships across sectors of the agriculture and western industries, and we’d often get calls or texts from people looking for a new job, or looking for a new employee. In one week, we got 4 calls from people looking for a new hire, or a new opportunity, which made me ask myself, “If this is a problem in my own network, I wonder if this is a problem on a larger scale”. And it was.

I sat with the idea of creating a job platform for agriculture and western industries for a couple of months, mainly becuase I knew what a large undertaking a site of that size would be. At the time we had a two year old, I was pregnant with our second child, I had a part-time remote position, owned a magazine, and we also owned our ranching operation. There was no shortage of work we already had…did we really have time to add something else on our plates? But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. So in June 2020, I reached out to an acquaintance who was a web designer/developer, and we got to work building the first version of Of The West.

It took us about six months, from start to finish, which allowed us to launch in January 2021.

While I’ve always ben a user of the internet, I knew nothing about building a website, let alone a job platform that could function as it needed to, for job seekers and employers alike. It took a lot of research, trial and error, and plain old grit to build our initial version of Of The West, but we made it happen!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Jessie Jarvis—Founder and CEO of Of The West, a platform built specifically for the agriculture and western industries. My background is in ranching, as well as ag communications and media, with over 15 years of experience working with brands, businesses, and publications that support this space. But even with that background, I kept running into the same issue: people in this industry had a hard time finding the right jobs, and businesses had a hard time finding the right people.

So I created Of The West to solve that. We started as a job board and have since grown into a full-scale hiring and talent platform. Today, we connect employers with job seekers, freelancers, contractors, and soon, students exploring ag careers through our newest initiative—Schools Of The West, a directory of ag colleges, trade programs, and continuing education opportunities. We also have a podcast, called Leaders Of The West, where we highlight leaders in the industry; as well as a robust library of free online resources for job seekers, employers, and entrepreneurs.

Here’s what we offer:

A job board for full-time, part-time, seasonal, and internship roles.

A freelancer + contractor directory for creative and professional services.

And launching soon, Schools Of The West, to help guide the next generation into skilled, relevant careers in ag and western industries.

We work with businesses that want to hire better and faster, and with individuals who want to find meaningful work without leaving the industry they love. What sets us apart is that we’re actually from this world. We understand the people we’re building for, and we’re focused on making things simpler, more effective, and more connected.

I’m most proud that what started as a niche job board has turned into a growing ecosystem of tools, talent, and opportunities that are helping real people get ahead. This industry is evolving, and we’re doing the work to evolve with it.

At the end of the day, Of The West isn’t just about jobs—it’s about keeping talent in the industry, building sustainable careers, and making sure the future of agriculture and western culture has strong roots and staying power.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Building trust. The agriculture and western industries are founded on TRUST. This is an industry where many businesses still do large business deals, with a handshake, becuase they trust the people they’re working with.

Even when you’re someone like I was, who was well-known, well-respected, and had a strong personal network within the industry, I still had to create and build trust with customers when we launched our business into the world.

And how we did that was the most painful process at the time, but looking back it was 100% worth it. For the first year our platform was live, it was FREE for people to use. Not one cent changed hands in 12 months.

Employers posted jobs for free, which allowed us to build up a network of job seekers at a consistent volume. And becuase we had a consistent stream of job seekers, employers wanted to post those open roles on our website. Had we charged employers at the time, I know that many of the jobs they paid to post would have gone unfilled. And that would have left us with the feeling that we let them down, and it would have left those employers with a bad taste in their mouths about the experience they had.

Like I said, it felt like it was a terrible idea. A business needs to make money in order to survive, and a platform that is free for people to use definitely isn’t making money. But I knew that we would see that return, tenfold, if we played the long game. We did, and that painful investment has absolutely paid us back, ten times over.

I am a big believer in the idea of always playing the long game. Yes, short-term wins are great, and they are needed now and then to keep the wind in our sails. But if a business only ever plays the short game, it won’t be around for a long time. I wanted to build a company that had a strong reputation, that would be recommended by our current customers, and would have a high rate of returning customers, and we have exactly that, because we have focused on those long-term strategies.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

Yes! In 2017, some partners and I created a western fashion magazine called Western Runway. It was a huge hit with women in the agriculture and western industries. It was very grassroots in the sense that it was created by women in the western fashion space, FOR women in that space. It was incredibly successful; but, as the magazine grew, we all grew as individuals as well. In 2020, we realized that the visions we all had for the product, didn’t match the time or resources we would need to dedicate to getting it to that point, so we made the decision to sell it.

In addition to selling a business, I’ve been close to a number of people who have sold their businesses. I’ve noticed that a lot of people sell a business because they think it’s going to make them happy, but they end up feeling lost, becuase their identity was completely wrapped up in that business. They’ve lost themselves as a part of that sale, and struggle to figure out the direction they should head in next.

I think that before someone considers selling a business, they need to do a lot of work on and in themselves, so that when the time comes, they don’t sell what they see as their identity, with the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ofthewest.co | www.jessiejarvis.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ofthewest.co | www.instagram.com/mrsjjarv
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jobsofthewest | https://www.facebook.com/mrsjjarv
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/81686084 | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessiethompsonjarvis/
• Other: https://pod.link/1691893350

Image Credits

Here’s a Drive link with additional photos. Most of these can be credited to Nicole Poyo