6 ms·

Sounds like there's asymmetrical information, a great place for a startup to break into. Or create a better marketplace for seeds!

by huac 10y ago

paavokoya 10y ago
I'd venture to say the reason there is 100% reliability is due to the personal and "non-corporate" aspect to the way he does business. When you stop having face-to-face transactions and stop seeing your customers the interest in maintaining quality plummets. People become numbers. Also, p2p transactions work so well and are cheap because of the lack of middle-men taking unnecessary "fees".
- aalbertson 10y ago
  Coming from the Farm culture/environment growing up, I can support this idea that it is in part the "non-corporate" aspect. It's very very much the personal, non-technological, Stay out of my business, get off my lawn, view points and feelings that drive some of this. In many cases you have a "handshake and your word is your honor" system in place that drives business forward. No one is stressing about much, beyond the weather, and they have a more peaceful perspective on life in general. That CERTAINLY has room for some technological improvement, but would have to be done in a very careful, well thought out and implemented way. Case in point, if it quits working or requires data fulltime (try getting data/cell/internet on a 10,000 acre farm in the middle of nowhere), then you will fail because even if you CAN convince a large portion of farmers to adopt the tech, once they start having enough problems with it? Out it goes, back to paper, phone calls, and a handshake.
HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago
The question is there really anything to "disrupt" and is the market worth it for a startup? I live on a horse farm and as a result, need to buy hay. Our main "hay guy" is a farmer and his son who lives about 1/2 hour away, has great prices and charges a low fee (usually: sometimes he doesn't bother charging) for delivery. There are online hay markets, and Craigslist. They don't bother with any of that. They just ask us to tell other horse owners about them so they have a market. When I drop by to pickup some hay, they are almost never there: I leave cash in the mailbox. If I don't have exact change and I overpay by $5, he gives it to me the next time. There are many, many, many people who are perfectly happy doing business like this. They like their work, make enough money at it (going by the shiny new tractors!), and have no desire to get online or grow their business. I have more anecdotes about other similar people I've dealt with just this week alone, but you get my point: many of these markets aren't remotely large enough to interest a VC and the participants only want to do business face to face.
- ckozlowski 10y ago
  Good story. =) So much success in business is still meeting face to face with people, building interpersonal connections, and performing classic networking. When I'm mentoring younger family members and friends, I stress this a lot. I'm not knocking e-commerce, but you cannot underestimate the power that a friendly 5 minute conversation has.
  - pmyjavec 10y ago
    I dare say this is probably what separates very successful people from the rest. It really is not what you know, but who you know, even in 2016.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      I think I enjoy the idea of that sort of success far more than the guy banging out code 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. It takes far more skill and experience to be human than it does to write code.
      - Nydhal 10y ago
        skill and experience And socio-economic privilege, and luck.
- phillc73 10y ago
  Reading this story I think the opportunity here is in testing the nutrient levels of the hay. He is your hay guy and he provides a fantastic personal service, but is his product of the highest quality for feeding to horses? Even if "highest" is not the correct measure, just knowing the nutrient levels and, in patricular for hay to feed performance horses, the protein level, will greatly assist in formulating a correctly balanced diet for the stock. Therefore, a quick, easy to use test for obtaining the nutrient values could be really valuable to either the supplier, in order to provide confidence and value to the buyer pre-purchase, or to the buyer post-purchase. Each cut of hay is likely to be different. Maybe a quick convenient analyser like this already exists, but my view is not to disrupt the farming industry but rather to provide added value for stronger outcomes in general.

Sounds like there's asymmetrical information, a great place for a startup to break into. Or create a better marketplace for seeds!

by huac 10y ago

Sounds like there's asymmetrical information, a great place for a startup to break into. Or create a better marketplace for seeds!

paavokoya 10y ago

I'd venture to say the reason there is 100% reliability is due to the personal and "non-corporate" aspect to the way he does business. When you stop having face-to-face transactions and stop seeing your customers the interest in maintaining quality plummets. People become numbers. Also, p2p transactions work so well and are cheap because of the lack of middle-men taking unnecessary "fees".

aalbertson 10y ago
Coming from the Farm culture/environment growing up, I can support this idea that it is in part the "non-corporate" aspect. It's very very much the personal, non-technological, Stay out of my business, get off my lawn, view points and feelings that drive some of this. In many cases you have a "handshake and your word is your honor" system in place that drives business forward. No one is stressing about much, beyond the weather, and they have a more peaceful perspective on life in general. That CERTAINLY has room for some technological improvement, but would have to be done in a very careful, well thought out and implemented way. Case in point, if it quits working or requires data fulltime (try getting data/cell/internet on a 10,000 acre farm in the middle of nowhere), then you will fail because even if you CAN convince a large portion of farmers to adopt the tech, once they start having enough problems with it? Out it goes, back to paper, phone calls, and a handshake.

HeyLaughingBoy 10y ago

The question is there really anything to "disrupt" and is the market worth it for a startup? I live on a horse farm and as a result, need to buy hay. Our main "hay guy" is a farmer and his son who lives about 1/2 hour away, has great prices and charges a low fee (usually: sometimes he doesn't bother charging) for delivery. There are online hay markets, and Craigslist. They don't bother with any of that. They just ask us to tell other horse owners about them so they have a market. When I drop by to pickup some hay, they are almost never there: I leave cash in the mailbox. If I don't have exact change and I overpay by $5, he gives it to me the next time. There are many, many, many people who are perfectly happy doing business like this. They like their work, make enough money at it (going by the shiny new tractors!), and have no desire to get online or grow their business. I have more anecdotes about other similar people I've dealt with just this week alone, but you get my point: many of these markets aren't remotely large enough to interest a VC and the participants only want to do business face to face.

ckozlowski 10y ago
Good story. =) So much success in business is still meeting face to face with people, building interpersonal connections, and performing classic networking. When I'm mentoring younger family members and friends, I stress this a lot. I'm not knocking e-commerce, but you cannot underestimate the power that a friendly 5 minute conversation has.
- pmyjavec 10y ago
  I dare say this is probably what separates very successful people from the rest. It really is not what you know, but who you know, even in 2016.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    I think I enjoy the idea of that sort of success far more than the guy banging out code 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. It takes far more skill and experience to be human than it does to write code.
    - Nydhal 10y ago
      skill and experience And socio-economic privilege, and luck.
phillc73 10y ago
Reading this story I think the opportunity here is in testing the nutrient levels of the hay. He is your hay guy and he provides a fantastic personal service, but is his product of the highest quality for feeding to horses? Even if "highest" is not the correct measure, just knowing the nutrient levels and, in patricular for hay to feed performance horses, the protein level, will greatly assist in formulating a correctly balanced diet for the stock. Therefore, a quick, easy to use test for obtaining the nutrient values could be really valuable to either the supplier, in order to provide confidence and value to the buyer pre-purchase, or to the buyer post-purchase. Each cut of hay is likely to be different. Maybe a quick convenient analyser like this already exists, but my view is not to disrupt the farming industry but rather to provide added value for stronger outcomes in general.