Putting the Customer First in AgTech
Harvest Profit Founder Nick Horob shares his journey of bootstrapping a farm management software company.
How does a small company compete in agtech against competitors with impressive teams and large war chests of capital?
By focusing on the farmer.
Nick Horob left his farming roots to work in private equity. During the big rally in commodities in 2007–2008 he began to get very interested in how farmers were objectively approaching their decision making to reduce risk and maximize return.
This interest led him to start working with a handful of farmers individually. Through this close interaction, he started building tools that worked for them. These tools tracked their profitability on a year-by-year and field-by-field basis using a number of metrics.
“I’m a big fan of ‘what gets measured gets improved’. Numbers are really a no-BS way to filter through the constant noise and news that farmers are bombarded with.” — Nick Horob
Every company claims to be focused on the customer. Here is what stands out specifically about Nick’s company:
- He didn’t set out to build a software company. Nick started with a solid background in both farming and finance. Then he started working collaboratively with farmer clients. He identified the problems first, THEN he went out and tried to find the best solution. The best solution just happened to be software.
- He spends no time focused on raising money. Admittedly, I have never been in a situation where I’ve had to raise large seed rounds. However, I am guessing that this has to take at least some of the focus off of the customer. Additionally, you are then responsible for meeting investor needs with the business as well as customer needs.
- He creates some of the best free content available. I have seen several comments on the free information that Nick posts online that it is some of the best available. This is another sign that Nick is really taking time to understand the needs of the farmer.
Through these methods, Nick is building a thriving business based on one thing: providing real value to real paying customers.
How could you focus more on your customer and bring them more value in your business?
Catch the entire interview with Nick here:
