FARGO — Matt Fall founded Red E in 2012 as an agricultural engineering services company that contracted out his technology to other companies.
His twin brother Jesse soon joined the business and the brothers decided to design and manufacture their own products and deal with customers face-to-face.
Producing high-performance replacement parts for things like aerial seeding equipment is a big part of the company's business, and its goal is simple: to keep farmers farming by increasing the uptime of their machinery, delaying the day when they have to buy expensive new equipment.
However, the business ran into financial difficulties when customers failed to pay large amounts of money, forcing the brothers to borrow from relatives to keep the business afloat.
“We were desperate. We needed some cash to get by,” Matt Fall said, recalling the anxious time.
That's when the U.S. Small Business Administration came on the scene.
![070224.B.FF.SBA.5](https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/0f3c63b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1930x3088+0+0/resize/840x1344!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F66%2F8a%2Fd5b7cb454d538019d035ed419355%2F070224-b-ff-sba-5.jpg)
Alyssa Goelzer/Forum
The agency helped Red E secure an SBA-guaranteed loan in 2017, and the company, which started with four employees 12 years ago, has grown to now employ 40 people.
The company is also expanding into other markets around the world, including other parts of the U.S., Australia and South Africa, and plans to hire an additional 10 to 15 people.
The SBA-guaranteed loan wasn't the only thing that saved Red E, but it was a big part, Matt Fall said on a recent afternoon as he and his brother waited for the arrival of Isabel Guzman, the SBA administrator and spokesperson for the nation's more than 33 million small businesses in President Joe Biden's Cabinet.
![070224.B.FF.SBA.7](https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/d964660/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x3420+0+0/resize/840x525!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F83%2Fc8%2F6cd7b6a34823932cfa13ab0d2664%2F070224-b-ff-sba-7.jpg)
Alyssa Goelzer/Forum
Guzman was soon assigned to businesses in north Fargo, touring the Red E as part of a national Small Business Boom Tour.
She said the tour is an opportunity to spread the word that America is experiencing a small business boom under the Biden administration, with more than 18 million new business applications across the country, including more than 28,000 in North Dakota.
This wasn't the first time Red E and the Fall Brothers had come under the SBA's radar.
In 2023, the twins were named the SBA's North Dakota Small Business Owners of the Year.
During Guzman's recent visit to the company, Matt Fall thanked Red E for helping get the company through a tough period.
“We came out of that situation and looking back now, we're doing really well, thanks to the SBA,” Fowle said.