Meet The Farmer Who's Making $50M/Year With a Newsletter

About this video

Sam and Shaan discuss their experience at FarmCon, a conference for agricultural industry leaders, where they met Kevin Van Trump, a commodities trader and newsletter publisher who built a 30-40 million dollar subscription business writing daily insights for farmers. The episode explores the sophistication of agricultural entrepreneurs, business lessons from Van Trump’s directness and authenticity, and untapped opportunities in agtech, fintech for farmers, and agricultural automation.

Key takeaways

• Kevin Van Trump built a 30-40 million dollar annual subscription revenue business by writing a daily newsletter himself for nearly 20 years, relying entirely on word-of-mouth with zero paid advertising or sponsorships, demonstrating the power of trust and authentic content in niche markets.
• Farmers are more financially sophisticated than most tech entrepreneurs—they actively trade derivatives, manage hedging positions, and understand complex risk management as core business operations, not side investments.
• Business opportunities exist in underserved niches like fintech for farmers (a ‘Mercury for farmers’), agricultural automation and precision agriculture, family succession planning for multi-generational farms, and fractional farm ownership platforms like AcreTrader.
• Attending conferences outside your industry provides disproportionate value through exposure to different business models, customer bases, and problems—Sam recommends this as a high-ROI activity often dismissed by coastal tech communities.
• Personal brand and reputation are built through consistent one-on-one relationship building, genuine intellectual contribution in conversations, and authentic communication rather than exaggerated credentials or polished messaging.

Episode details: published January 21, 2022 · 40K views · 1:13:06 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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