Maximum Yield USA February/March 2020 | Page 51

The stress of starting a business really took a toll, didn’t it? Our first couple years were quite a trial. I was struggling with Crohn’s disease and the stress of starting a new business really got to me the first year. In early December 2012 I woke up to excruciating pain in the middle of the night. I had pain like this regularly from Crohn’s but this time seemed a bit different than the others. After a rather long ride to the ER we found out that my intestines had ruptured and shortly after I was in exploratory intestinal surgery. I lost 22 centimeters of my small intestine and remained in the hospital for 10 days recovering. The stress of starting a new business is real. After my surgery I began a journey for my own personal health and the health of my family. I really learned that food and lifestyle choices can have a large impact on the way you handle stress. I have had close to no issues from Crohn’s disease since my journey began. How does family factor into SCO’s philosophy? Our company philosophy is really family first and improving our environment. Our first environment is our family. There are so many broken families today — I come from one — and it’s been my goal to change that, at least in my personal space. Beyond our emotional environment is our physical environment and a lot of what we decide to put in to our physical environment doesn’t seem to translate into health. SLF-100 is our only product and it was created to clean, stabilize, and remediate issues in our environment. It goes hand-in-hand with our personal beliefs. This philosophy creates healthy environments. Healthy land produces healthy food and healthy food makes healthy people that can create opportunities for growth instead of a dependency on health care. If we all play our part, we can reclaim this ground. “ Our company philosophy is really family first and improving our environment.” What products do you make? SLF-100 is our first and only product to date. Were there any bumps in the road early on? Our biggest struggle in business was realizing who our friends were. We are farmers, not business people. We really didn’t have an idea the lengths people will go to take advantage of others. We trust people maybe more than we should. We haven’t lost our ability to trust people, we’ve just gotten better at recognizing the weeds. Considering the learning curve on trust, how did you gain market share? We gained market share through correct education, honesty, and samples. We believe in our product and know that if someone can just try it, they’ll see it. Maximum Yield 51