Strategic Partnerships: Challenge the Status Quo

At Hunt & Gather Marketplace, we started with a simple but frustrating observation: it shouldn’t be this hard to buy fresh, local food. Unless you’re carving out time every weekend to wander farmers markets, there’s no streamlined way to connect with the people who actually grow, catch, or raise your food—farmers, ranchers, and fishermen in your community.

We asked ourselves: Why doesn’t an online marketplace exist to bring all of these producers together in one place? Something like an Etsy—but for food. And when we couldn’t find it, we decided to build it ourselves.

There was only one problem: we weren’t software developers.

Building Without All the Answers

We come from real estate, not tech. We don’t code. We don’t know marketing. And we certainly don’t farm. We’re just customers who saw a gap in the marketplace and wanted to fix it. But that’s where strategic partnerships became our superpower.

When Jonathan was deployed overseas and Nicholas was working full-time while pursuing his MBA, neither of us had “free time” to moonlight as startup founders. We had families with young children. We had careers already in motion. What we didn’t have was expertise in technology, design, or branding.

So instead of waiting until we “knew enough,” we leaned into partnerships. We sought out developers who believed in our vision and could bring it to life. We partnered with marketers who understood how to tell a story bigger than ourselves. We talked to neighbors, friends, and local producers to learn what they wanted from an online farmers market.

Challenging the Status Quo with Collaboration

The lesson? You don’t need to know everything yourself—you need to know the right people and be willing to ask for help. Traditional wisdom says you need deep expertise before you can start something new. We challenged that assumption.

Instead of trying to become software engineers overnight, we focused on what we did know: the pain of being customers without real choice. That frustration was enough to spark a vision. Partnerships made it possible to execute it.

What We’ve Learned

Strategic partnerships aren’t just a tactic; they’re a mindset. They’re about acknowledging your gaps without letting them stop you. They’re about finding people who are better than you at the things you can’t (or shouldn’t) do yourself—and empowering them to run with it.

That’s how Hunt & Gather Marketplace came to life: through collaboration, trust, and a shared belief that food should be fresher, local, and easier to access.

Because sometimes, the boldest move isn’t doing it all yourself—it’s challenging the status quo by doing it together.