Leaping forward
This blog started as an act of reluctant translation.
I am an analog person: kitchens, radio consoles, face-to-face organizing. Digital content was not my native language, and the earliest version of this project shows exactly what it looks like when someone who learned to communicate elbow-deep in a commercial kitchen tries to figure out how platforms work by just... doing it anyway.
What followed was an education in the gap between good content and visible content. A fermentation guide that nobody saw for weeks. A satirical piece about what institutions extract from the people they claim to serve. A video game review about capitalism that required players to win through exploitation before it would let them feel bad about it. Post after post, tagged carefully, written honestly, received in silence.
Then one person liked the fermentation video. I left them a comment. They replied, saved the post for their husband, and followed the blog.
That two-message thread taught me more about authentic engagement than anything else this project produced. You cannot shortcut the relationship. You have to show up and talk to people like a person.
That lesson is the foundation of everything being built next.
Where This Is Going
The Broccoli Sprouts Local Economy Platform (release date TBA) is a mobile-first member portal for small business owners, makers, and cooperative members in Transylvania County, NC. Here is what it is being built to do.
The Document Library puts NC-specific legal and operational templates in the hands of people who need them: LLC formation checklists, worker cooperative bylaws, contractor agreements, HR essentials. The kind of paperwork that costs hundreds of dollars an hour when a lawyer drafts it from scratch.
The Tax Prep Center pre-populates quarterly worksheets and expense trackers from your own business profile data. It does not file your taxes. It makes sure filing is never a crisis.
The Compliance Calendar sends automated reminders for the deadlines that quietly end small businesses when missed: NC annual reports, quarterly estimated tax payments, 1099-NEC thresholds, business license renewals. First-time business owners miss these not because they are careless but because nobody told them the dates existed.
The Podcast is long-form interviews with local entrepreneurs and cooperative members, the people building things in this county who are willing to say publicly how it actually works. The kind of conversation that used to happen over a back fence, recorded and made searchable.
The Sprout Score Dashboard tracks your business formation journey through the platform's botanical framework: Seed, Sprout, Growing, Rooted. Progress needs to be visible to feel real.
The Template Marketplace lets cooperative members and local professionals contribute specialized templates sold through the platform. Contributors keep 85% of each sale. Value stays with the people who generate it.
New members receive a physical Business in a Box kit: printed templates, a compliance checklist customized to their business type, and a welcome letter with local resources. For someone starting a business for the first time, something you can hold in your hands matters.
You can see the original content and code for yourself, including how this whole thing sprouted, over at CodePen.
The audience built here, however small, is the beginning of the trust infrastructure a cooperative economy requires. One mutual who saves your fermentation guide for her husband is a community member. That is the whole model.
Stay tuned for updates on the new website and what comes next.
The seed is already in the ground.
Broccoli Sprouts | Brevard, NC | [email protected]