When Carmen Dianne and Kara Still couldn’t afford the custom trailer they’d envisioned for Prosperity Market, they didn’t wait around for the money. They ran pop-up markets across Los Angeles instead—and spent the next several years turning one obstacle after another into a next step.
A makeup artist and a fashion designer with no background in food or farming, the duo launched their mobile farmers market during the pandemic to keep dollars circulating in Black communities. They’ve since grown from 15 vendors in an Inglewood, California, church parking lot to more than 80 vendors at events held across the city. What follows is how they redefined what a “farmer” is, threw a rain party for Good Morning America, and learned to treat no as an answer to a question they simply hadn’t asked the right way yet.
On starting with pop-ups when they couldn’t afford the trailer:
Kara: We didn’t have enough money to build a custom trailer from the beginning, so we started doing pop-up markets instead. We wanted to keep the mobile approach, so every month we’d be in a different location. We traveled from Compton to Malibu and everywhere in between, and we brought the farmers market with us.
It gave us a chance to meet all kinds of people, see different neighborhoods, and build relationships. We weren’t ready to build our wheels the way we wanted to at first—but doing pop-ups all over LA is how we got so much support.
Carmen: We had to build traction. We had to show people this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re about. They’ve seen us from the very beginning, so they know we’re serious, and they know we’ve done everything we said we would. We don’t count the time. Just count the words and the actions. That’s it.
On redefining what counts as a farmer:
Carmen: We had little reality checks with every next step, and the first one was, “OK, we’re going to find Black farmers”—and then, “Wait, where are they?” So we had to restructure what we thought a farmer was. Instead of someone with a whole bunch of acreage and land, we found community gardens, backyard growers, and urban farmers—people who can still grow a lot of food and supply a lot of people.
Kara: A lot of them were already feeding their neighborhoods during the pandemic. We were surprised to put numbers to it: In the entire country, less than 2% of farmers are Black—about 1.3%. And in California, one of the biggest agricultural states in the country, it’s under 1%. Once we shifted our perspective on what a farmer could look like, it turned out to be so much more abundant than you’d think. You can grow a lot in a little bit of space.
Carmen: Ron Finley, the Gangsta Gardener, was one of the first people we reached out to. When you’re looking for farmers in LA, you get the Gangsta Gardener, Farmer Ken, and Crop Swap LA. We reached out to all of them cold, and they took our calls. We had amazing conversations, and they referred us to other farmers and growers. That’s how we started to build the network.
On refusing to accept no as a final answer:
Carmen: I don’t register no. No is just, “OK, how else can we try? How else can we ask? How do we get around it?" And the funny thing is, asking it a different way actually works sometimes.
Kara: We were both like that from the beginning—no was never a problem for either of us. We just go about it differently. When Carmen gets a no, she’ll ask it a different way. When I get a no, I immediately go into, “OK, how else can we get this done?" Sometimes we still get the no right now, but so many of those moments have shown up for us later. Sometimes a no is just a not right now.
On the rainstorm that almost canceled a Good Morning America shoot:
Carmen: Good Morning America was coming to film our market in February 2023, and it had been raining that whole week—torrential downpours. Any other time we would have just canceled, because that’s what you do. But Good Morning America was coming, so we couldn’t. We pared the market down and told our vendors, “Your safety comes first. You don’t have to come. But if you do want to, we’re going to have one big tent, we’ll all have tables under it, and we’re going to make it a rain party.” And that’s what we did. The sun came out just long enough for us to get some good shots before the rain came back.
Kara: At three in the morning, we were on the phone going, “What are we going to do?” Carmen’s apartment was flooding. It was not a fun time. But it was, “OK, let’s make some calls, email every vendor, call the equipment company, and figure it out.” The rental company helped us combine all their tents into one big canopy.
So many vendors came anyway—“No, we’re sticking with you guys.” And customers showed up and shopped in the rain, taking pictures, excited with us. Had we not figured it out, we would have never had the chance to meet Dr. Dre.
On the “Interest from Dr. Dre” email they were sure was fake:
Carmen: Our PR fairy godmother introduced us to our publicist, Skyler, who’s been instrumental in all the press we’ve gotten. She got us on Good Morning America—which Dr. Dre apparently watches. We filmed early in the morning because it airs on East Coast time, and we hadn’t even made it home yet. We were at breakfast when our web developer, Mallory, who was monitoring our emails, texted us: “You guys should check your email.”
Kara: It literally said, “Interest from Dr. Dre.” We didn’t think that was real.
Carmen: His team wanted to see how he could support us, and that turned into two more trailers for Prosperity Market. So we’ll have three on the road, two of them sponsored by Dre.
Kara: He’s done a lot of philanthropic work that people don’t know about. For us—not originally being from LA, then being so embraced by communities here—to have the work we’re doing get the Dr. Dre stamp of approval was enormous. It validates that what we’re doing is wanted on a large scale. From a Good Morning America segment, we never in a million years would have guessed that was the outcome.
On entrepreneurship as a mirror:
Kara: Neither of us knew what to expect starting this. We had no idea what the journey would look like. But the most challenging thing I come up against is usually me. I’ve always known myself as someone who keeps my word with myself—if I decide I’m going to do something, I do it. This process has challenged me in ways I didn’t expect. Some days it doesn’t look or feel like my best, some days I don’t want to, some days I’m excited. The goalpost keeps moving—and we’re the ones moving it.
Carmen: Entrepreneurship really shows you yourself. It holds a mirror up to you, and it’s all you. As a leader, it’s all you—things don’t happen to you, so it’s about how you handle it and what you can do better. That kind of self-awareness isn’t comfortable when you’re seeing things you want to change. But yesterday was yesterday, today is today. You start over a lot every day.
Kara: Every day. Sometimes multiple times in a day.
On moving through conflict as a two-founder partnership:
Carmen: We have to talk about everything, because things change so fast, by the moment. Sometimes I want to share something and Kara doesn’t, or we want to do different things. But because there are two of us to talk it through and weigh the pros and cons, that keeps us level. Maybe that’s our balance—the two of us.
Kara: Ultimately we’re moving in the same direction, we have the same goals, but we’re two different people. So sometimes it’s, “Yep, yep,” and sometimes it’s, “Wait, let’s figure out what we’re doing.” It’s a marriage. When it comes to conflict, you just talk about it. Sometimes it’s, “Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it,” because there’s a bunch of other things to do. And sometimes it’s, “We’re staying in this conversation until it’s complete.” But it’s really just talking about it.
On treating people they’ve never met as mentors:
Carmen: The first thing I’d say is you don’t actually have to know them. I have a lot of mentors in my head—I consume their content, I read what they write, and I learn from it. You can do that while you’re pursuing an actual conversation with someone.
Kara: We’ve never been afraid to ask for a conversation. Not a favor, not “What can you do for me”—just a conversation. That’s gotten us pretty far. Some people we call mentors simply because they have so much more experience than we do, and even a few interactions made a big difference. They don’t even know they’re our mentors. Take the opportunity to learn from people whenever you can, and be present when you’re in it—sometimes you don’t realize the conversation is happening right now.
Carmen: Before our first market, back in 2020, we had a 30-minute conversation with Arlan Hamilton, an incredible investor, that changed the trajectory of Prosperity Market. We were telling her about the market we were planning, and she asked, “What about COVID?” In my mind I thought, “Oh, it’ll be over by then, we’ll be fine.” But she planted a seed, and that’s what started our online marketplace. We built a 24-hour pre-order shop from scratch—a website that could list and sell products—and people would pick up their orders with contactless pickup at the market. That’s now grown into our full online marketplace.
Hear the rest of Carmen and Kara’s conversation on Shopify Masters, including the six-hour statistic that convinced them to start, how they funded their entire first year on customer donations, and the grant-writing habits that keep money coming in.
