
Farming Startup FarmLogs (YC W12) Triples Market Share in Last Six Months - vollmarj
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/05/farming-startup-farmlogs-triples-marketshare-in-last-six-months/
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kfcm
The problem with the 15% number is how many are actually using it to manage
their farm versus just on checking it out or using the weather/markets
features? The guys (dozen or so) I've spoken to about it are just using it for
weather/markets.

A second problem is web-/app-based farm management solutions place at
loggerheads two qualities of good farmers: 1) progressive use of technology to
increase profitability; and 2)the natural resistance to tell anyone what
they've paid for inputs (land, machinery, seed, fertilizer) and what they're
being paid for outputs.

Farming is a business, and by giving out too much information, farmers risk
being out-maneuvered by their competition. Whether the competition be another
farmer discovering what's being paid for cash rent and offering $5/acre more,
or a hedge-fund gathering up real-time planting and yield information to play
the CBOT/CME.

On a personal note, I've been involved in farming for 45+ years. My dad 80+
years. When explaining taking the information about the farm and crops and
giving it to a company, my dad--who's never used a computer in his life--just
stopped me and said: "That information is a new commodity they'd be getting
for free to take and sell, and we'll never see a penny of it. "

Something for farmers to consider.

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gumballhead
Agriculture is a practice affected by loads of variables that are often not
well understood. Farmers could definitely benefit from products that could be
created by applying data science to all the information collected from other
farmers, the government, remote sensing, etc.

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kfcm
The problem is, ag data is a commodity. People/organizations can gather, mine,
and create new products with it. It's always been that way, except the past
few years have seen the types and amount of data being gathered, and the speed
at which it can be analyzed growing rapidly.

And farmers just are supposed to give this commodity away for free? An action
which--whether done for free or for profit--might have some short-term
benefits, but may run counter to their interests in the long-term?

Yeah, right.

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jqm
The thing I wonder about is their rainfall accumulation feature (I haven't
tried it so don't know the details).

They say you don't have to go check rain gauges. That using government weather
station data and some sort of calculations, it is possible to show how much
rain fell on a field.

Now this may very well be possible. But if it is I wonder how it's done (yes,
I know they explain it...but I still wonder). And I wonder how accurate it is.
Maybe it's accurate enough. But I'd love to see some side by sides with actual
rain gauges. Government weather stations are not that close together and
rainfall can vary even hundreds of yards apart. It would really suck to claim
X inches of rain fell on a field so no water is necessary, when in reality it
didn't happen. It seems like this could cause claims of reduced crop yields
for which the provider is responsible. But maybe this works exactly as
claimed. I don't know. If it does work as claimed it's an amazing feature.

It's a cool project for sure. One downside I see is that they are basically
asking farmers to hand over their budgetary and production data (to be fair,
Farmlogs says this data won't be sold). Having known some farmers, I see this
being an issue with many and there will be a significant portion that will
never use the product for this reason. On the other hand, many apparently
will, so good for Farmlogs.

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YokoZar
FarmLogs is in the right market. Agriculture is a growth industry.

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qu1mby
well done.

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mikelbring
15% of farms are using their service. That is incredible.

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ams6110
Indeed. But that's their own claim, not supported by any cited independent
source.

They may be at 15% of some undefined subset of farms (e.g. wheat, corn, or
soybean farms larger than n acres) or something like that.

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kochb
You're correct, it's 15% of row crop farms (corn, soy, wheat, etc).

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keithwarren
How do you quantify that (is there really an accurate count of how many of
those farms exist?)

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mikelbring
As a programmer that lives in the middle of Nebraska. I am really intrigued by
this company.

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programminggeek
This is not a huge accomplishment, they've become a totally free app and are
VC backed, so basically instead of having real paying customers, they are
getting farmers onboard by not charging anything.

Basically, I'm guessing they are hoping that Monsanto or John Deere or some
other giant AG company buys them for however many millions of dollars.

This might be a valid strategy, but it sucks for the farmer because they don't
have an incentive to build a truly valuable product that people will pay for.
There is a huge difference when you build something people pay for vs
something they use because it's free.

When you build a free product, the end user is not a customer, they are the
product. I wonder how many farmers like being the product and not the
customer.

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badclient
_When you build a free product, the end user is not a customer, they are the
product. I wonder how many farmers like being the product and not the
customer._

Careful because the other extreme has its own problems: my company _only_ has
paid customers who prepay for the entire year. While this has helped us pay
the bills and cover cost, it has been detrimental to building a great product
because we aren't getting as much feedback as we would if we had 10x users.
I'm finally reaching a stage where I may take up a job _just so_ we can give
away free trials and not have to rely as much on near term revenue to pay the
bills.

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sogen
Why don't you give 15-30 day trials?

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terravion
That is a really impressive milestone. Best of luck in continued growth.

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shanacarp
What about non classic commodity crops, like spinach? How does it work with
scaling alternative farming, such as organic?

