Why This Heirloom Bean Club Has 30,000 Members Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo

Rancho Gordo: Today’s episode is a real treat for me. Some of you know that I grew up on a small farm in Northern California that sold livestock, poultry and pumpkins directly to consumers. Then most of my career has been spent in large scale commodity agriculture. Which is why I’ve always been interested in how e-commerce can be used to scale direct to consumer business models. Admittedly there aren’t a ton of great examples of this. But we definitely have one for you today in Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo. Twenty five years ago Steve started growing heirloom beans and selling them at a local farmers market. That led to conversations and the realization that he could build a business by as he says “imposing his taste” for heirloom beans on other people. That has grown by leaps and bounds and I think you’re going to be blown away by the success of his company, Rancho Gordo. This episode also offers a ton of lessons about finding and creating true fans, beanfreaks as Steve calls them, and building a thriving business by surprising and delighting them time and time again.

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Why This Heirloom Bean Club Has 30,000 Members Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo is an episode from Future of Agriculture by Tim Hammerich.

This episode is 39:56 long.

This episode was published on Apr 17, 2026.

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