The founder story
From farm chores to Neighborly Harvest.
Anthony Jimenez did not set out to build a farm marketplace. The idea began while helping his brother run JMZ Farms and seeing how much work existed beyond producing the food itself.
When I was 17, decisions I made led to me leaving my parents’ house and moving in with my brother at JMZ Farms in Colleyville, Texas.
My brother gave me a place to stay, but I had to pay rent and help with the farm. He made a weekly schedule for the chicken chores and put it on the wall next to my bedroom door.
Honestly, I hated it.
I was finishing high school online, trying to earn enough money to cover my expenses, and still wanted time to be a normal teenager. Having farm chores waiting for me every day felt like one more thing making my life harder.
I started working at both Chipotle and Whataburger. Some days, I would wake up around 5:00 in the morning to take care of the chickens before starting at Chipotle at 7:00. I would get off around 2:30 or 3:00, return to the farm, do the afternoon chores, change clothes, eat something, and then work at Whataburger from 5:30 until 11:00.
When I first started, the chicken chores could take about an hour.
For a while, all I thought about was how to make my own day easier. I wanted the chores to take less time because I was tired of planning my entire schedule around them.
But as I became more involved with my brother’s farm, I started paying attention to everything my brother was responsible for outside of taking care of the chickens. He still had to find customers, tell people what was available, answer questions, organize orders, and coordinate when everyone would receive their food.
I started helping him promote the farm and reach more people. The more involved I became, the more I wanted to see my brother’s farm succeed.
Watching my brother run his own farm also made me want to build a business of my own. I tried starting a landscaping company, but I did not enjoy knocking on doors and trying to convince strangers to hire me. I was looking everywhere for a business idea without realizing that the problem I understood best was already part of my everyday life.
“My brother could spend all day doing the work required to run a farm, and there could still be people living nearby who had no idea JMZ Farms existed.”
People want to know where their food comes from. Farmers want more customers. But too often, customers have to search through outdated websites, farmers-market schedules, and word of mouth just to figure out which farms are near them and what they currently sell.
I started thinking about how I could help JMZ Farms reach customers without my brother having to manage everything through messages and separate tools.
That was the beginning of Neighborly Harvest.
At first, I was only trying to help my brother’s farm. Then I realized that thousands of independent farms deal with the same problem. They know how to raise animals and produce food, but they are also expected to handle marketing, online sales, customer communication, pickup, and delivery on their own.
Neighborly Harvest is built to bring those pieces together.
Customers can find nearby farms, see what they offer, and understand exactly which farm their food comes from. Participating farmers can manage their storefront, products, orders, pickup, and delivery without giving up control of their name, prices, or business.
I did not grow up knowing that I wanted to build a farm marketplace. The idea came from helping my brother and seeing a problem that had to be solved.
Now I want to help independent farms around the world get found, reach more customers, and build businesses that can last.