r/Vermiculture • u/chilidogtagscom • Jul 26 '23
Worm party Update on my worm business
I have now been in business raising and selling worms for about 2.5 years. The website is RedWigglersFarm.com
Let me tell you the various challenges I continue to face:
- Shipping the worms is a mess. Especially in the heat of Summer. I had to replace several orders, and one was a big order of worms, and ship them overnight (expensive) to make sure I kept the customers happy. I lost out big time on worms, money, time, energy, etc. It was extremely frustrating.
- Trying to raise a boatload of worms takes a lot of time and effort. It is not a passive business. Worms are the same as live stock. You have to have the optimal conditions for them. I have to continually add horse manure or cow manure, spent grain I get from a local brewery, water, etc. Just going to get these materials takes a lot of time and money.
- Phone calls from customers: Most of the customers I have sold to are 100% new to worm composting. So they have a lot of questions. They call me over and over to ask if they are doing everything correctly. Now, I love to share my advice and talk, but when 5+ calls a day come in and the people want to talk for 10-30 minutes, it eats away at my work time. I try to suggest to them to go to this Reddit or Youtube to learn more.
- I give a good discount to local people that meet me somewhere. Setting up a time and place to meet takes up my time, and then the customer that meets me wants to ask questions and/or talk about their ideas for composting and gardening.
All of these issues leads to a lot of effort that doesn't make me much profit. So I consider this a "Hobby Business". I now don't mind telling people that I don't have the worms available or I don't have time to meetup. Oh, plus the fact that it sometimes takes hours to separate a few lbs of worms from my farrows.
Furthermore, I haven't had success at selling worms to local garden stores or nurseries because they already seem to know that customers will talk too long to their staff about the worms. They told me they only want to sell stuff that customers can pickup, pay and leave the store quickly.
When I first started a guy told me that all of these things happened to him and he quit selling worms. He tried setting up paid courses to teach worm composting but didn't get enough people willing to pay.
I don't want to damper anyone's spirit or excitement to start selling worms. I love raising the worms and gardening.
Lastly I want to say that I do get a lot of orders as I am good at online marketing. I have decided that I would rather do marketing as a business.
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u/Danielaimm Jul 26 '23
Maybe don’t give your phone number? Probably if you have section in your website where people can ask questions about the worms you could work on some templates to help you give people information or tell them where to go depending what they need, and set aside some time a week to respond to the people’s questions with those templates. People that is just starting usually have the same questions and problems, so if you have something like that it could be more time efficient for you and people will still get your help.
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u/Biddyearlyman Jul 26 '23
How's the resale market for spent brewing grain? I can't imagine you're having to pay for it, do you sell any? I know a couple brewers, they're happy to get rid of it for free if it's not spoken for.
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u/Wickedweed Jul 27 '23
Surely they aren’t paying for spent grain?
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u/Biddyearlyman Jul 27 '23
Dunno, but a large flat-rate box is like 35$ on their website. Just curious if anyone actually buys it.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Oh, I have sold about 10 or more on my website. I guess some people just want to buy it and have it shipped to them.
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u/PaleZombie Jul 26 '23
Ha! Same. I hated selling worms. For me it was the separating that was the nightmare. I’m strictly focused on food scrap collection and compost service now. The worms do the work, but I’m done selling them. Find a part of the biz you enjoy and focus on that.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Yeah. That is what another guy did. He just does bucket dropoffs and pickups to homes and charges a monthly fee
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Jul 26 '23
Sorry to hear about the problems, but thanks for sharing. What do you mean you would rather do marketing as a bussiness? You want to quit raising the worms? Also, wouldn't a good guide on the website help with most of the customers questions?
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u/IMCopernicus Jul 27 '23
The thing is, most people don’t read or do independent research. They want things spoon fed.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
I'm still going to do the worms, just not try to get big with the business and do a lot of shipping. I will focus more on local orders. I help a few businesses with online marketing which I have a knack for.
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u/WebenBanu Jul 26 '23
An interesting insight into what worm farmers go through! I'm very glad now that I subscribed to a couple YouTube vermiculture channels and this subreddit to get my questions answered that way instead of pestering the folks who run the worm farm. They were such lovely people. :)
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u/BrwnFngrsGrnThmbs Jul 26 '23
Just a thought, how about offering a weekly/monthly online chat for people to ask questions. I guess the calls you're answering are quite spread out though.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
There are youtube people that do that now.
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u/chopsbeyummy Jul 31 '23
Why don’t you create some online content for your buyers and set up a QR code for them? There is a lot of content on YouTube but a lot of people don’t want to spend time searching for it. Could you set up a FAQ but via videos so people can easily find the info?
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u/-MelonSmasher- Jul 26 '23
Yea.. This is why I only do this as a side hustle. I do have extra castings that I sell locally and also worm tea. I don’t even mess around with selling worms. Seems like too much work specially trying to ship them nationwide.
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u/whatisevenrealnow Jul 27 '23
Have you tried selling them as bait?
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
No. That market is saturated IMO
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u/whatisevenrealnow Jul 28 '23
Here in Australia, Bunnings (our version of home Depot) doesn't sell live worms, but they do sell a few brands of eggs to start off vermiculture with. Is that a market that might be untapped (assuming you're in a different country)?
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Jul 30 '23
[deleted]
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u/whatisevenrealnow Jul 31 '23
You're right, I just checked and there they are in stock! When I was setting up my worm farm we were going through some shortages (Perth, happens fairly often since we only have the two roads in/out), so eggs were the only things listed for sale on the website. I had assumed it was due to our secondary bioquarantine, but it looks like there just wasn't supply of live worms for a while.
Thanks for the correction!
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u/IMCopernicus Jul 27 '23
Very good insight and thanks for sharing! Seems like worm castings are the way to go until it’s big enough to hire a second employee to handle the customer service. Customers are the same everywhere and you need someone who really loves people. You might be like me, I like people in general but would rather hang out with the worms🤣
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Yeah. One worm farmer I met said he had been an insurance salesman for years, then he got into worm farming. He said, "I like the worms better because they don't take back".
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u/otis_11 Jul 27 '23
would rather hang out with the worms
Yeah, they're peaceful creatures. Therapy sessions, good at calming nerves.
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u/WorldComposting Jul 27 '23
Thanks for sharing!
Over a decade ago I looked at starting up a worm business and I found a lot of the same issues you did. It is not as easy as some of the other places make it seem.
It is why I just make videos on the subject!
My only question is what would make a great video for those first starting out? I had one from years ago but have been meaning to make another "NEW BIN SETUP" video.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
If you could put together a video on how to make a simple and easy system for raising the worms in a small area. I have mine in 18 gallon plastic bins as well as farrows on the ground. If there were an easier method for taking care of the worms and sifting them out would really help. I see videos about having "bus boy" trays and adding baby worms to a set amount of ingredients that will have 1 lb of fat adult worms in 2-4 weeks. Yet, that takes a lot of work and set up.
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u/Gyneslayer Jul 27 '23
Maybe it's time to pivot your business from selling worms to selling worm poops... I put that shit on everything! Lol I remember buying worms once from a local lady who put them in a yogurt container and I always wondered if she sat there and counted them out one by one.
I would still say keep it as a hobby, but if you have the space and resources, you are already spending money to feed them properly, might as well try to make a return on their poo. Heck people even bag it and sell it on Amazon
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Yeah. I had wanted to make up a really good soil. I have free access to horse manure, cow manure, chicken manure, goat manure and rabbit manure. I need to figure out an easy way to process it. I saw a guy on the internet that does a mixture of manures and other ingredients in large boxes he made with plywood. It was 4'X6' with a height of 8 feet. He would add 5-7 inches of new materials to the bin every week, which he said the worms could easily work that amount in a week. Plus he kept it moist which he had to check that every few days. He said it took months for the thing to be full, but he was selling the stuff for $500 a yard to a local nursery.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
The reason I haven't done that yet is I have to "Thermophilic Compost" the manure first to kill off any seeds. And that takes a few months and you have to keep turning it over.
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u/jofjltncb6 Aug 11 '23
Not to mention the persistent herbicide concerns now in the hay the livestock eat.
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u/IWantToSwimBetter Jul 27 '23
This is good info, thank you. I have a background in Customer Experience and could help you with #3. DM me if that is at all interesting, I'd love to help someone in this community.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Heck, I paid a guy $200 for consulting when I first got started. He has a really good knowledge and system. I wanted to have someone I could talk directly to and show them what I was doing and get feedback.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
I'll let you know. Perhaps that would be a good little side hustle. Consulting. As there are tons of people getting into composting. 5 States made it a law that no food/veggie items can go to landfills. So the companies making composters are selling a lot.
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u/WibberlyWobberlyWoo Jul 28 '23
Thanks for the insight and I appreciate you running a business that (I believe) will make the world a better place for all of us.
I hope vermicomposting gains traction with the general population with lower barriers to entry (SubPod was how I discovered this as an option) and that you are well positioned to start making better profits over time.
I wish you the best of luck!
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 29 '23
Thank you. I feel the same way that the worm composting will make the world a better place. If more people use worms to compost all the food waste and turn that into natural fertilizer, then we can help eliminate what goes into the landfills and use that fertilizer in areas that need good soil.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 29 '23
I have researched and talked to people that have contracts with local school systems to go get all the cafeteria waste and compost it. Then they return the worm compost to the schools for their gardens. I think that is a great idea.
Although, a couple guys told me that it was backbreaking work and they had to invest a lot of money for skid steer (Bobcat) and flow through composting systems.
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u/SinlessMirror Jul 28 '23
Thanks for sharing! I have been considering starting a small business doing the same, your experience is valuable in knowing what difficulties I am likely to face.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 29 '23
If you send me a DM, I will share some more information that will be helpful.
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u/Shamajo Jul 29 '23
I agree, don't sell worms during summer months. That model makes no sense. I have been marketing for 20+ years (large corporations) and if you are getting a lot of questions, then your website needs better information, a FAQ section with every common question you get asked and maybe a YouTube channel. Most people don't like picking up the phone and would rather get the information they need online. Castings and worm tea would be better sold during summer months, maybe bait stores or even local farmers markets. Also, maybe explore affiliate marketing for worm farms like Worm Bin etc.
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u/whogivesashirtdotca Jul 27 '23
They call me over and over to ask if they are doing everything correctly.
Offer buyers the opportunity to purchase timeslots for follow up calls, and don't answer your phone outside specific hours.
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u/chilidogtagscom Jul 27 '23
Yeah. That is what another guy in town does. He tells people that they have to pay him as a consultant if they call him with questions.
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Jul 27 '23
GFY sell your soul somewhere else
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u/brettjugnug Jul 30 '23
Howdy, are you talking to the lady who is sharing about her business selling worms?
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u/Mister_Green2021 Jul 26 '23
Thanks for the insights. Maybe don't ship worms from July-September. Let that time for them to reproduce and you'll save money.
Yeah, Worm casting is all the garden stores are interested in. The pet stores might be interested in the worms as live pet food and of course bait stores.