Harvest Solutions shrinks local presence

Douglas Feller: Harvest Solutions will open offices in Nashville and Sarasota, Florida.

Christopher Upton: Company previously had interest in relocating to Walnut Grove.

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A Springfield-based tech startup nearing a year in operation is downsizing locally amid what its leadership is terming an expansion plan out of state.

In a June 20 companywide email obtained by Springfield Business Journal, Harvest Solutions CEO Douglas Feller said the business, which first began hiring employees last August, was adding offices in Sarasota, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee. A mid-July moving date was announced, and the email noted some employees based in Springfield would transition to the new offices in the coming months.

Feller said in the email the office locations were “designed to support our growth and allow us to better connect with local partners and talent.”

In conversations with half a dozen former employees who worked in the Springfield office, however, Springfield Business Journal reporters heard a different story, with the organization having laid off or planning to lay off most of its local hires.

In a February story in SBJ, Feller described Harvest Solutions, registered as Harvest Learning Group LLC, as “50% tech company and 50% content creators,” noting the venture is an online app that helps people grow personally and professionally by offering free tools to help with housing, employment and mental health support.

While Feller said at the time the company had grown to a team of 37 – with most in Springfield and an additional 10 employees based in India as part of its web team of coders and developers – the number this month is significantly lower, said Shannon Sherrow. Sherrow was hired by Harvest Solutions in January and said her final day was July 11, adding she didn’t leave the company of her own accord. She had worked at Harvest Solutions as director of talent acquisition and project development.

Sherrow said the email was how she found out about the company’s moving plans.

“That email with very, very little context really sent the office in a tailspin because it blindsided everyone,” she said.

She said Feller subsequently described the move as a relocation to Florida.

“It was a very positive expansion conversation that was had with all of the employees, that they would be adding a Florida office,” she said. “However, weeks after that announcement, people were being let go every single week that could not relocate down to Florida.”

Sherrow said company leaders Shaun Bertrand, who is the chief experience officer, and Devin and Danielle Eskra, who are the vice president of strategic partnerships and activations and vice president of community outreach, respectively, also will be moving to Florida.

By the time she was laid off roughly two weeks ago, Sherrow said the local employee count was down to 10 – a mix of those in sales and production. She said she’s still owed an undisclosed amount of money by the company for her work.

Feller did not answer an extensive list of questions posed to him by SBJ, including why the company was leaving Springfield and whether the company was producing revenue. Feller did, however, release a statement.

“Harvest is excited to announce that yes, we are relocating part of our offices to Nashville and Sarasota. We will still have a small team in Springfield operating out of our offices there. Nashville and Sarasota provides Harvest with the specific employee talent pool that we need to grow our operations. Our studios are tripling in size with the move. We are excited to be able to produce more content which is a great thing for our platform. Additionally, we now have U.S.-based (development) teams along with overseas teams, which is helping us expand our platform tech side at a faster pace.”

Another former employee, Shawn Carnes, who was director of public relations and media, worked for Harvest Solutions from March until late June. He declined to disclose how his employment ended at the company.

“When I started my position, there were around 30 employees,” he said. “The staff cutbacks started during my first week of employment.”

Carnes said he and Harvest’s staff believed in the mission of the platform.

“Sadly, I feel Harvest did not receive the support from Springfield, in turn, causing Feller to move the company to Florida,” he said.

Christopher Upton, the company’s former director of college outreach and educational partnerships, said Feller had previously looked elsewhere in the area to relocate the company. Upton recalled Walnut Grove was a town where Feller sought to invest in property for a possible new headquarters, among other projects like new apartments and patio homes, according to media reports. SBJ reporting in February indicates Harvest Solutions occupied roughly two-thirds of the 9,000 square feet on the top floor of the 27,000-square-foot office building at 1531 E. Bradford Parkway, where Feller owns a portion of the third story via Bradford-FH LLC. Employees worked in two suites, one of which is a studio for recording videos and podcasts.

An SBJ reporter visited the office the afternoon of July 22 and observed what appeared to be a mostly unoccupied main suite, save for Danielle Eskra, who declined to answer any questions. The second suite was closed, while a real estate sign from Murney Associates, Realtors was posted outside the building. An online listing advertised that one of the third-floor suites can be purchased separately or combined with two other suites on the floor.

Seeking deals
Feller said in February the company was in talks with undisclosed companies regarding partnerships for areas such as housing and employment listings, noting that would be the primary source of Harvest Solutions’ revenue stream. He said at the time no revenue was coming in yet and the website and app as of July 23 appeared to list no advertisers or sponsors. His goals were to generate at least $10 million in revenue and expand the workforce to 100 people by year’s end, according to past reporting.

“The business model that was expressed to us within staff meetings was that they were seeking private investors and partnerships, and that’s how they would be receiving money into the organization,” Sherrow said.

One business leader who was approached is Jack Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings Corp. Stack said he attended a pitch meeting involving Feller with several other undisclosed business representatives around March at Nicola’s Ristorante. He admitted to not being aware of the meeting’s purpose prior to its start.

“I got the impression they were looking for resources, for sure,” Stack said, adding he declined to invest in the company. “I was going through a period of time around then when I was getting hit with a lot of requests for capital.”

Feller said in February that he personally invested seven figures into Harvest Solutions from private sources. But he declined to disclose startup costs and financing.

Upon reflection
Upton said he resigned in April after nearly 90 days on the job. At that time, Upton counted roughly 25 workers. He said there were multiple instances when leadership told employees people were let go for performance-related issues. But Upton said that explanation didn’t seem to match up with his own observations of Harvest Solutions as a workplace.

“People were just let go, it seemed indiscriminately, and of course we were always told, ‘Oh, we’re moving to better things. This person’s being replaced with so-and-so. We’re so excited about this new chapter,’” he said. “And just in the three months that I was there, we had several new starts and chapters.”

That’s not to say that Upton wants to paint his experience working for Harvest Solutions as a negative experience.

“Frankly, I enjoyed the work that we were doing there,” he said, noting he left before the company finalized the app launch. “I liked the promise of it. I really thought that we were building something very, very worthwhile, but unfortunately, the culture there was just not a fit for me.”

Like Upton, now the annual giving manager for the Brightli Foundation, former Harvest Solutions employee Natalie Nunn also has moved on in her career.

Nunn, who worked for over a decade in broadcast television in Springfield, was hired as the company’s director of public relations and media in December. While declining to disclose the circumstances of her departure or details of her time at Harvest Solutions, she said her employment ended at the company in late February.

“While there, I worked with some of the most impressive talent found in the Ozarks,” she said. “Thankfully, I’m now employed by Zimmer Communications, where I work as on-air talent at 98.7 The Dove.”

Creating content
Users who register on HarvestSolutions.com or through the company’s mobile app for iPhone and Android devices have free access to dozens of videos. They cover topics such as finance, health, goal-setting and time management. Roughly 65 videos from subject-matter experts were available on the site as of July 23. That’s in addition to dozens more from influencers who have videos covering content such as life hacks, nutrition and sports.

Much of the video content the company is producing is like a MasterClass-style presentation that features a speaker and a couple of different camera angles, according to past SBJ reporting. The website also includes listings for area jobs and housing. One of the goals Feller announced for Harvest back in February was to offer real estate and employment resources in one place.

One of the content creators for Harvest Solutions is Bobby Bostic, a St. Louis native who was sentenced in 1997 to 241 years in prison for two armed robberies he committed at the age of 16. He was released on parole in 2022, according to media reports.

Bostic confirmed July 22 he worked with Harvest Solutions to create content, which the company promoted on its Facebook feed as recently as July 20.

“I was just filming with them, filming content,” he said, adding the intent was to keep people out of trouble.

Bostic said he did “a whole bunch” of video shoots with Harvest over the course of “several days” in Springfield last year. It was about “using my experiences to help people.”

Bostic said the work was unpaid: “I agreed to do it. It wasn’t for money; it was for education, it was for education – it was for purposes.”

Asked if he had any sense of problems with company revenues or with Harvest Solutions’ plans – and how he would describe his relationship with them – Bostic said it was a “very good” relationship.

“It was a very good company,” Bostic said. “Everybody got along at the time I interviewed with them. It was like a big family.”

Bostic added that his own experience with Feller “was great.”

Like Bostic, Feller has his own history with the criminal justice system. Earlier this year, Feller told SBJ that Harvest Solutions is a passion project for him and an attempt to give back to society.

Feller was sentenced to 28 months in federal prison for his role in a nearly $4 million fraud scheme involving Oregon-based company Yakima Products Inc. Feller pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of income tax evasion, according to SBJ archives.

Harvest Solutions announced in a May news release that it was partnering with
Texas-based NCIC, a provider of communications services for inmates, to provide learning tools for inmates and their families as they enter back into society.

Katee Bond, curriculum coordinator for NCIC, said no money changed hands in the partnership, through which Harvest Solutions has sent educational content for use by NCIC. Bond said NCIC has had one meeting to date with Harvest Solutions, with another planned soon.

“It seems like it will be an ongoing partnership,” Bond said. “They even went a little bit above and beyond. They even bought a membership to a course creator tool that we utilize and created their courses from scratch.” 

Additional reporting by editors Christine Temple and Gregory Holman