The Underdog

Every time I think about access to real food in rural Appalachia, I think about the math people have to do just to get it. A Saturday farmers market that's an hour and twenty minutes away. A county with one chain grocery store and three dollar stores. A community of working people who want better, but with food access so far away and gas prices what they are, finding quality food is hard and costly.

That gap is real. I've heard it talked about. I've seen it play out. And I've always wondered what it would take for someone to actually solve it — not theorize about it or write a grant about it, but show up with a converted horse trailer and a freezer full of pasture-raised chicken. Rebecca Kilgore is that person.

A Proposal, a Pasture, and a Turkey Feather

The name Turkey Feather Farm doesn't come from the animals they raise, though they do raise a lot of chickens. It comes from the day Rebecca's husband Jonathan proposed to her in the back pasture of a farmhouse they didn't technically own yet. They'd made an offer, were waiting to hear back, and decided to go for a drive and just look at the place. One thing led to another. They found themselves having a picnic on the front porch, then walking the dirt road out back. Rebecca was twirling a turkey feather she'd picked up off the ground when Jonathan got down on one knee. He was nervous enough that the words barely came out. But they did, and she said yes, and the farm became theirs a short time later.

"We may have met a few years before that moment, but our true adventure began that day, in that field, in those few words my husband got out because he was so nervous to ask me to marry him." — Rebecca Kilgore, Founder, Turkey Feather Farm

They bought the farm in September of 2023. By the time she sat down in the first session of the Dickenson County Avante Bootcamp cohort, she had chickens, a vision, and a question she hadn't fully answered yet: how do you actually build a business out of this?

The Problem She Was Actually Solving

Rebecca grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey, but spent her teenage years working at a farmstand and eventually moved to a 16-acre hobby farm with chickens, goats, and alpacas. Farming was always in the background. It didn't become a mission until her early twenties, when she started learning about where her food actually came from.

By the time she and Jonathan were settled in Dickenson County, she knew the problem firsthand. The farmers markets 50 miles away were inconsistent. Producers didn't show up regularly. The weekday hours didn't work for working families. The best market in the region required a ninety-minute drive each way. And Dickenson County itself — ranked in the top three poorest counties in Virginia by median household income — was down to one chain grocery store and a handful of dollar stores.

They started growing their own food because they couldn't reliably find what they wanted nearby. Then the question shifted: what if they could make it easier for everyone else?

"It shows in the litter strewn across front yards and roadsides. It shows in the pile of little snack cakes and soda pop weighing down in their shopping buggies. It will be challenging to break that mindset and show people that what they do and what they eat really does matter on multiple levels." — Rebecca Kilgore, Turkey Feather Farm

"By curating a welcoming space where people can learn about the food in the grocery store versus the food off the farm, we can inspire positive life habits." — Rebecca Kilgore, Turkey Feather Farm

A Market on Wheels for People Who Work

The mobile farmers market idea came from thinking through every obstacle that stood between a working family in Dickenson County and a bag of real food. Drive too far. Market isn't open. Don't know what'll be there this week. Not worth it. A mobile market removes most of those barriers. It shows up in town, on a consistent day and time, in a place people already are. No hour-and-a-half drive. No guessing what vendors showed up this week.

A one-stop setup with meats, eggs, produce, honey, baked goods, herbs, and dried goods — much of it grown at Turkey Feather Farm, the rest sourced from neighboring local producers on consignment. The unit itself is still being finalized, but Rebecca has a clear vision: a converted horse trailer with a concession window for frozen meats, a table or two outside for everything else. Something that looks like it belongs on a farm. Something people are curious enough to stop for.

"You can spend a little more on good food now, or spend it on medical bills later." — Rebecca Kilgore, Turkey Feather Farm

What the Avante Cohort Did for Her

Rebecca almost missed the application deadline. She saw the Avante Bootcamp posting on Facebook a few days before the cutoff. She applied mostly to learn — she didn't expect to do anything with the business until she felt "ready." The Dickenson County cohort ended up being the largest in Avante's history.

The program gave her more than tools. It gave her a framework for thinking about her business differently. Start with the problem, not the solution. Know what you're actually solving before you get excited about what you're selling. She also found something she didn't expect in her cohort peers: people at different stages, with different backgrounds, who cared about each other's success. Not competitive. Just honest.

When pitch night came, she was ready. She laid out her problem, her solution, exactly where every dollar of the requested funding would go, down to each piece of equipment. She brought a profit projection she described as "very honest." She won first place — $16,000 out of $50,000 given away total.

"It wasn't until I got home later that night that it sunk in and I was like, 'Oh shucks, I really gotta do this now.'" — Rebecca Kilgore, Turkey Feather Farm

Building Slow on Purpose

Rebecca is not trying to do everything at once. She still has a full-time job as Director of Parks and Recreation for a local city. Summer is her busiest season, which is also when the farm needs the most attention. She has a six-month-old. She is, as she put it, a wife, a new mom, a daughter, a sister, and an active church member.

She's watched homesteaders burn out in six years — too much too fast, overwhelmed, then done. Her father's voice is in her head: "There's only one way to eat an elephant, and that's one bite at a time." So she's building slow. Get the mobile market right before anything else. Show up consistently. Earn the trust.

Her Turkey Feather Farm Facebook page went up before she had a single product to sell, on the advice of one of the Avante judges. She posts about gardening and cooking and farm life. People are finding her. Connecting. That's the community she's building, and the mobile market is just the physical version of what she's already creating online.

Here's a complaint we hear from founders constantly: "I just wish my employees cared as much as I do." And we get it. You're the one who showed up on Saturday when nobody asked you to, because nobody had to. And when you watch an employee clock out at 5:01 with a half-finished task on their desk, something in you wants to shake them and say, "Don't you see what we're building here?" But have you ever stopped to ask: why would they care?

At the 2025 Startup Mountain Summit, I sat in the room when Dave Hatley, the founder of LPI, spoke to a group of early-stage founders. Dave built a company from scratch into the largest consumer-direct hot tub manufacturer in the country: over 700 employees, 700,000 square feet of manufacturing, and 97 retail stores from Maine to California, all without taking on a single dollar of outside debt. When he talked about employees, he wasn't demanding more from them. He was asking founders to be more honest with themselves.

They're Employees for a Reason, and That's Okay

Dave didn't sugarcoat it: "They're employees for a reason, because that's what they want." He said it plainly, with zero contempt, because he'd spent years figuring that out the hard way.

Employees want stability. They want to know what their job is, do it well, and go home to their families without carrying the weight of the whole company on their shoulders. That's not a character flaw — it's the entire point of employment. When founders lose sight of that, they start resenting the very people they hired. They read "lack of passion" into what is actually a completely normal relationship with work, and that slow burn of resentment does more damage to a team than most founders ever want to admit.

Dave put it plainly: "You've got to align yourself that these people are never going to be you. You've got to know what to expect from employees." You hired humans, not co-founders. Respect that, and then build structures that give people a reason to go further.

"I didn't build this company by myself. These people here build it for me. So in my mind, there's no better way to reward your employees than that." — Dave Hatley, Founder, LPI

What Changes Behavior: Shared Upside

This is usually the part where founders check out, because it sounds complicated or expensive. But the most direct path to employees who act like owners is giving them actual ownership — or at minimum, a financial stake in how the company does.

Dave converted LPI into an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP. Today, his employees collectively own 36% of the company. He still holds 66% and has turned down private equity and public market offers to keep the culture the way he wants it. What matters more than the structure itself is what it did to people's behavior.

He described watching the guy on the production line start paying attention to the guy next to him, making sure the hot tubs were being drilled correctly, picking up scrap, not wasting materials. Nobody told him to do that. But when a profitable year means a deposit into his retirement account, he starts thinking differently about the work in front of him.

The Difference Between Being Paid to Work and Paid to Care

Standard pay structures compensate people for their time. Profit sharing gives them a reason to care what happens with that time. It shows up in small decisions throughout the day: whether someone flags a quality issue or lets it go, whether they mention wasted materials to their manager or figure it's not their problem.

Dave addressed the equity question directly: "Why do I need 100%? I still own 66% of the company." A smaller stake in a company that performs, with people who stay, is worth more than full ownership of something grinding itself into the ground.

Respect Comes Before Results

None of the incentive stuff works if the basic relationship is off. And the basic relationship starts with accepting that your employees made a different choice than you did — and that choice is fine.

Dave said it directly: "Temper your expectations on what you expect from employees." He wasn't telling founders to settle for mediocre work. He was pointing out that the measuring stick is wrong. Your employee who leaves at 5:30 isn't failing you. They're doing exactly what they signed up for. If you wanted co-founder energy, you needed to offer a co-founder's upside.

Dave built a consumer-direct manufacturing company in East Tennessee with no outside money, near-zero turnover, and 700 people who show up and give a damn. If you want people to treat the business like it's theirs, at some point you have to give them a reason to.

Every Saturday I find myself strolling between two rows of white tents, brainstorming what I'm making for dinner with the fresh local produce surrounding me. And I think now more than ever, we care about where our food comes from and how it's made. That same awareness has made room for entrepreneurs who share those same values — people who care just as deeply about what's in our cleaning products, our candles, the things we bring into our homes. And more often than not, they're starting right here, under those white tents at the Johnson City Farmers Market.

A Backyard Shed and a Big Idea

Kay and Matt are a perfect example of how low-barrier opportunities can launch wildly successful businesses. In the early days of the COVID pandemic, they had an idea: what if home cleaning products could actually be good? Non-toxic, genuinely effective, and completely zero waste. Not two out of three. All three, or don't sell it.

They spent over a year formulating before their first sale. They converted a backyard shed into what they now call the Llama Lab, insulated the walls, painted the floors, installed a dehumidifier, and figured out how to wire an AC unit themselves. And when it was time to start selling? They got a tent at the Johnson City Farmers Market.

"We launched at our local farmers market in Johnson City. We saw revenue early on because of it." — Kay, Co-Founder, Green Llama

Why the Market Works for New Founders

So many businesses in this city trace their roots back to the farmers market. Every Saturday, you're standing in front of customers — neighbors, regulars, people who will tell you exactly what they think. You're learning things no business plan could teach you. Does my pricing make sense? Does anyone actually care about this? The market gives you a low-risk environment to answer those questions before you spend money you don't have.

For Kay and Matt, it also led them somewhere they didn't expect. Someone at the market handed them a flyer for FoundersForge's Startup Bootcamp. That connection turned out to be a turning point.

"If we had had mentors from the start, we would not have made the same mistakes early on. It takes a village. Anyone who says 'I built this business myself' — they're lying." — Kay, Co-Founder, Green Llama

Five Years In, and Still Going

Green Llama is now about five years old. They've outgrown the Llama Lab and moved production to a rented warehouse. They've grown a small team and built a brand that holds to its three pillars without compromise. But it wasn't an overnight climb. Real traction didn't come until around year three and a half to four. Profits took even longer.

"We did not see profits for about three or four years. It took that long, after putting a lot of our own money in and growing very slowly, before that money came back." — Kay, Co-Founder, Green Llama

Green Llama started under a tent. Now they're in a warehouse, with a team, with a product line that's grown alongside the values that started it all. That arc — from farmers market booth to real business — is possible. We see it happen here all the time. If you've got an idea and you're not sure it's ready, maybe it doesn't need to be ready. Maybe it just needs a tent.