nearfarms connects farmers and shoppers for fresh, local produce
nearfarms was founded by a team that includes I School Master of Information Management and Systems student, Surya Sendyl (MIMS 2019). Their team is part of the LAUNCH startup accelerator’s 2018 cohort. Sendyl tells us more about nearfarms and what they have been working on as they prepare to pitch to investors and VCs at the accelerator’s Demo Day.
Tell us more about nearfarms.
nearfarms is an online marketplace for fresh, local produce. We create direct connections between shoppers and local farmers. For shoppers, who are busy with work and family commitments, we help you shop local in a convenient and hassle-free way. For farmers, who only make 20–30 cents on the dollar because they are forced to sell into distribution channels, we help increase their market access — which means more customers and more money per sale. We are rethinking the local food distribution system. Our mission is to make it easy for shoppers to access high quality local produce and provide a means of financial viability for small independent farmers. We’re chipping away at this lofty goal by starting in Berkeley, and have just started taking orders on our website: nearfarmsmarket.com!
How did the idea come about? What inspired you and your team to pursue it?
The idea for nearfarms came about during a mixer for the Lean Launchpad class at Haas. I went up and pitched a very early form of what nearfarms is right now, and my soon to be co-founder, Shom Gupta (Berkeley MBA student) reached out to me to grab coffee. He had very relevant experience in the space, having run merchandising strategy at FreshDirect in New York before Haas, and a passion for driving sustainability in the food system. I could sense his passion for the space and the idea, so we decided to spend some time working together to explore the idea of an online farmer’s market. After conducting close to 30 customer interviews and developing some early wireframes, we decided to take things further by applying to LAUNCH.
How has LAUNCH helped you develop nearfarms further this spring?
LAUNCH has been incredibly valuable to our growth and progress. It’s no joke that they call it an accelerator, as nearfarms has certainly been accelerated in the last three months. LAUNCH started with a bootcamp, which allowed all the teams to meet in person and get up to speed on a few key tools and concepts for entrepreneurs. Namely, we learned about the business model canvas, Steve Blank’s lean methodology, what value propositions are and how to test them, how to form a hypothesis and validate it through customer interviews, and much more. After bootcamp, the 23 teams were split into three cohorts, and every two weeks we have a webinar with the instructors showcasing our progress. LAUNCH has also provided us a lot of help by connecting us with startup law firms, investors, and mentors from industry. We even got the opportunity to pitch our startup to two partners from Y-Combinator, which was a great learning experience.
Overall, I’d say the biggest help LAUNCH has provided is the structure and guidance that comes with a well-run accelerator program. By creating a sense of urgency and competition, nearfarms and the other teams in LAUNCH have really progressed a great deal over the past three months. Our goal at the start of LAUNCH was to have a minimum viable product and at least 1–2 customer trials completed. We are way past that stage and are excited about the path forward.
We hope for nearfarms to be the go-to source for shoppers to access local produce, and for farmers to sell the food that they grow.
How is your team preparing for Demo Day?
nearfarms has been preparing by really ramping up our marketing and refining our story. Our goal is to display the traction we are getting and highlight key metrics like orders, and Facebook likes and views.Our goal is to show, in our 5-minute pitch, that we have a strong business model that is ready to scale with investment.
What are the next steps for nearfarms?
Our next steps are very clear. We need to be laser focused on customer acquisition. This means working on marketing and building a brand people want to be associated with. It also means continuing to improve our product, including building out a farmer onboarding tool, which will be key as we begin to get more farmers on the platform. In the next 5 years, we hope for nearfarms to be the go-to source for shoppers to access local produce, and for farmers to sell the food that they grow.
How has you education at I School helped you build nearfarms?
My learnings from my time at the I School have been invaluable to my time at nearfarms. User Interface Design and Development (Info 213) was key to my work on the wireframes and the nearfarms style guide. Software Prototyping (206) was incredibly helpful as we began to write the code to build the website. Social Issues of Information (203) and Information Law and Policy (205) have also come in handy as we deal with issues of privacy and user-expectations on our platform.
Apart from the classes themselves, the community at the I School has helped so much. Several of my classmates have helped me with the code, the design, and even by being my first customers on the platform.
Apart from the classes themselves, the community at the I School has helped so much. Several of my classmates have helped me with the code, the design, and even by being my first customers on the platform. For all of these things, I’m incredibly thankful!
Learn more about nearfarms and ordering fresh produce at nearfarmsmarket.com. The team will be participating in the LAUNCH Demo Day, on Thursday, April 26, at the Haas School of Business.
nearfarms is growing fast and needs help with marketing! If you are interested and passionate about startups and the food space, contact Sendyl at surya@berkeley.edu.
