Molly Knuth

Directions Website Contact the business

Molly Knuth ▪️ Owner of Molly Knuth Media LLC
▫️ Marketing, Small Towns, Small Biz
🎤 Host of
🤍 Wife & Mom

07/16/2026

Your mission if you choose to accept it 👇

Go to my stories and vote.

07/13/2026

The next great American business story isn’t going to come from Silicon Valley.

It’s going to come from places like this.

From a gravel road in Eastern Iowa. From a main street in a town of 2,500. From someone who looked at the place they already loved and decided to build something in it instead of leaving to find something better somewhere else.

I really believe this.

Because the future of business shouldn’t be in the hands of the few with the “right” connections and zip codes deciding what gets built and where.

It will come from the millions of people — with real skills, real relationships, and a real love for the communities around them — deciding to show up and do their part.

The woman who opens the bookkeeping business her town has needed for a decade. The guy who starts the welding shop that keeps three farms running. The mom who turns her kitchen table into a consulting practice that changes how small businesses in her county think about growth.

That’s the story.

Not the unicorn startup. Not the billion dollar exit. The business that keeps a family here. The one that anchors a block. The one that gives someone a reason to stay.

Something is shifting. I see it in the people moving back, in the main streets coming back to life, in the people who are done waiting for someone else to come save their town.

The next great American business story is already being written.

By you.

I’m Molly | Small Town Business Strategist. I help small-town business owners build the thing their community needs. And I think the most important business you could build right now is the one happening right where you already are.

Where are you building from? Tell me below. 👇

07/11/2026

This is what a small town in the middle of a comeback looks like.

Not the polished version. The real one.

Occupied storefronts next to vacant ones. Businesses that decided to stay next to spaces still waiting for someone to say yes.

I drive streets like this one all the time. And I never see the empty ones as failures.

I see them as invitations.

Because every thriving business on every main street in every small town in America started as an empty storefront, an unspoken idea, a person who wasn’t sure they were ready but decided to start anyway.

The gap between a vacant building and a business that anchors a block is almost never money or market size or perfect timing.

It’s someone deciding.

Someone who looked at their town and thought: “I could be part of what makes this better.”

If you’ve been driving past a building like this…and feeling something you haven’t quite named yet…

That feeling has a name.

It’s called your next move ✨

I’m Molly | Small Town Business Strategist. I help small-town business owners take their big idea and build the thing their community needs…and I document what that actually looks like from a town of 2,500 in Eastern Iowa.

If this is your world too then follow along. We’re just getting started.

07/09/2026

Come with me to try Korean hot pot for the first time in my whole entire life.

Hi, I’m Molly. I turn 40 next summer and I’ve made a promise to try one new thing every day before then.

Today’s mission: new food. Specifically — hot pot at Mix in Marion, Iowa, planned entirely by my daughter who has been trying to get our family here for a while now.

She was right. She is always right.

But first: Marion’s uptown district, because if you haven’t been, you need to go. Historic architecture, small businesses worth lingering in, a revitalized central park with a splash pad, walkability, greenery, flowers everywhere. It’s the kind of downtown that reminds you what’s possible when a community decides to invest in itself.

This is exactly the kind of small town success story I love to talk about.

Then we walked into Mix and immediately proved that we are, in fact, very small town people who had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

Three attempts to place our order. Three.

We also thought we were supposed to drink the broth before the food arrived. Like miso soup. That is not how hot pot works. We figured this out eventually with the help of our very patient server.

What we loved: the whole experience. Cooking at the table, trying things none of us had ever eaten, laughing at ourselves the entire time. Rice cakes, fish cakes, tofu balls, glass noodles, quail eggs, a DIY Thai peanut dipping sauce I am still thinking about.

The kids are already asking to go back.

One new thing every day until 40. This one was a really good one.

What should my next new thing be? Drop your ideas below! I’m taking every single suggestion seriously. 👇

Featured businesses: Chilled Freezer Meals | Ready-Made Meals westend_marion throwback.ia uptown_marion Marion Chamber City of Marion, Iowa Chilled West End Diner MIX - Uptown Marion Uptown Marion District

07/09/2026

Somebody had to say it. 🙃👇

This is part of my new series: Things You Need To Get Over If You Run A Small Business In A Small Town.

Item #️⃣1️⃣ : showing your face as the face of your business.

Look, none of us love how we look on camera every time. None of us love the sound of our own voice on a recording. None of us feel like we’re at our best when we hit record on a random Tuesday morning before we’ve fully convinced ourselves this is a good idea.

I know this. I genuinely know this.

👉👉Look at me filming this video. Come on.

But here’s the thing I need you to hear:

When you let that discomfort stop you from hitting record or pressing post — look what you’re actually preventing.

👉You’re preventing yourself from having influence over people you’ve never met.

👉You’re preventing yourself from making connections that show up in your DMs and change the trajectory of your week.

👉You’re preventing yourself from inspiring someone else to take courageous action in their own small town — and that happened for me just this morning after two days of recording videos and posting them on the internet!

None of that happens if you don’t show up.

Your customers, your clients, your community — they don’t need you to be polished.

✨They need you to be present. They need to see a real person doing real work in a real place, because that is what makes them believe they can do it too.

👉 You are the face of your small business.
Start showing up like it.

More of this series coming soon!

Follow Molly | Small Town Business Strategist so you don’t miss it. And if you want to go deeper, with Molly Knuth is available wherever you get your podcasts.

07/08/2026

👇Let me correct something you’ve been mislead about for years.

For decades, the story about small towns was: get out if you want a real life.

The movies said it.
The career advisors said it.
Maybe even the people around you said it.

That story is wrong. And the data is starting to prove it.

In 2025, McKinsey reported that rural communities contributed over $2.7 trillion to US GDP.

Generated by just 13% of the American population.

That’s 45 million people choosing smaller. Choosing neighbors they know, streets where people do the two-finger wave, schools where teachers know their kids’ names.

And for six consecutive years, rural areas across the US have shown net positive population growth. In 2023–2024 alone? Over 135,000 people moved toward rural communities.

People aren’t fleeing small towns anymore.
👉👉They’re choosing them.

But here’s the part that nobody talks about after they share the hopeful statistics:

The narrative doesn’t rewrite itself.

Someone has to do it.
And I think that someone is us ✨

Three things I believe we have to do:

1. Change our own mindset first. Own the fact that small towns are places worth investing in…starting with yourself.
2. Stop waiting to be saved. We are the solution. Not someday. Now.
3. Develop leaders. People with skills, with vision, with the willingness to show up and build the thing their community needs.

I’m and this is what I’m here for.
If you’re ready to be part of rewriting this story, I invite you to follow along. And drop a comment below so I know you’re in. 👇

07/06/2026

Hi, hello, welcome to my cornfield 🌽👋

I joined ’s this month and apparently my version of “yapping” is standing in a field in Eastern Iowa, visibly melting, telling strangers five things about me at 39 years old.

So here’s what you need to know if you just landed here:

1️⃣ if your view looks anything like mine — corn, cattle, a couple barns, chickens you didn’t ask for — you’re in exactly the right place.

2️⃣ I believe self-leadership will make or break your business before your strategy ever gets the chance to. not the sexiest topic. also the most important one.

3️⃣ this is a reinvention year for me. 10 years running a small business from my home office, and 2026 is the year I stop playing small. I’m documenting the whole thing — the consulting, the podcast, the community building, the chaos.

4️⃣ I just turned 39 a couple days ago and I’m knocking on the door of 40 which… scares me a little if I’m being honest. so I made a promise to try something new every single day this year. today’s new thing was this video. in a cornfield. sweating my makeup completely off.

5️⃣ I care about small businesses and small towns so much it’s a little embarrassing. I genuinely believe that strong small businesses build strong communities — and I could talk strategy over coffee for hours. (I already have. multiple times this summer.)

So if you want to hear about building something real in a place where everybody knows your name — follow along.

And tell me — which one are you most excited to hear more about? drop the number below 👇

07/06/2026

Nobody tells you what it actually feels like to run a business in a place where everyone knows your name.

Not the highlight reel version. Not the “small town charm” version that people romanticize from a distance.

The actual version.

👉 Where your biggest client is also your kid’s teacher’s husband and you have to figure out how to have a hard conversation without it becoming the topic of discussion at every sporting event for the next four months.

👉 Where you can’t have a bad week quietly.

👉 Where showing up matters in a way that has nothing to do with your Instagram grid and everything to do with whether you waved at your neighbor from your car this morning.

👉 Where the stakes of your reputation are immediate and personal and completely unglamorous.

✨ And also... where the support, when it comes, comes fast. And it comes from people who actually know you.

Not followers. Not fans. People who you know and love ✨

That’s the thing nobody puts in the small business content. The realness of it.

This account is for that version. Welcome.

Address

Cascade, IA
52033

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Molly Knuth posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Molly Knuth:

Shortcuts

Share

Category