4 ms·

I co-founded a company in this space a few years ago. We ultimately pivoted out of the space because for all of the user buy-in that we got, the legal encumbra

I co-founded a company in this space a few years ago. We ultimately pivoted out of the space because for all of the user buy-in that we got, the legal encumbrances were way too high to be able to successfully operate without raising a lot of money just to pay lawyers. If we'd decided to go the VC route instead of bootstrapping we might have been able to make a go of it, but raising VC money for a startup in the midwest working on something as mundane as farming was looking pretty untenable.

jessriedel 10y ago
> the legal encumbrances were way too high to be able to successfully operate without raising a lot of money just to pay lawyers. Were these standard encumbrances that hardware and software makers put to try and lockdown their products, or was there something special about farming?
- rebeccaskinner 10y ago
  It was, for the most part, regular DRM and proprietary data/hardware format stuff that is common across industries. The very high cost of the equipment if it were bricked for license violation, and the very narrow windows for being able to use the equipment (if you need to call John Deere and have them re-enable your tractor you've just potentially lost out on an entire seasons revenue) were also big factors. Many of the farmers that we talked to were fed up enough that they would have risked it, but between our own direct legal risks, and the risk to our reputation if our customers equipment started getting bricked, was enough to stop us from moving forward.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    Thank you for the really interesting comments!
burfog 10y ago
Couldn't you make a full electronics replacement kit? It's a bit more involved, but DMCA and other DRM issues just go away. All the original electronics just get removed, to be boxed up and maybe discarded. You run your own software on your own computer with your own sensors.
- rebeccaskinner 10y ago
  It might have been with a much longer team, and a much longer time to market. We were 4 people, and as I mentioned in another comment, getting VC funding for a company in the rural midwest is essentially impossible. The other issue is that I'm not sure we would have gotten as many buy-ins from the farmers. Many of them were very frustrated by the lack of interoperability between different pieces of equipment, their sensor data being locked behind DRM schemes, etc. They wanted to integrate the hardware and software that they owned, and wanted something that would let them do it piecemeal and with relatively little risk to their hardware. A complete overhaul wouldn't have helped with integrating their historic data, and would have definitely had a higher upfront cost and risk associated with bricking their equipment.

jessriedel 10y ago

> the legal encumbrances were way too high to be able to successfully operate without raising a lot of money just to pay lawyers. Were these standard encumbrances that hardware and software makers put to try and lockdown their products, or was there something special about farming?

rebeccaskinner 10y ago
It was, for the most part, regular DRM and proprietary data/hardware format stuff that is common across industries. The very high cost of the equipment if it were bricked for license violation, and the very narrow windows for being able to use the equipment (if you need to call John Deere and have them re-enable your tractor you've just potentially lost out on an entire seasons revenue) were also big factors. Many of the farmers that we talked to were fed up enough that they would have risked it, but between our own direct legal risks, and the risk to our reputation if our customers equipment started getting bricked, was enough to stop us from moving forward.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  Thank you for the really interesting comments!

burfog 10y ago

Couldn't you make a full electronics replacement kit? It's a bit more involved, but DMCA and other DRM issues just go away. All the original electronics just get removed, to be boxed up and maybe discarded. You run your own software on your own computer with your own sensors.

rebeccaskinner 10y ago
It might have been with a much longer team, and a much longer time to market. We were 4 people, and as I mentioned in another comment, getting VC funding for a company in the rural midwest is essentially impossible. The other issue is that I'm not sure we would have gotten as many buy-ins from the farmers. Many of them were very frustrated by the lack of interoperability between different pieces of equipment, their sensor data being locked behind DRM schemes, etc. They wanted to integrate the hardware and software that they owned, and wanted something that would let them do it piecemeal and with relatively little risk to their hardware. A complete overhaul wouldn't have helped with integrating their historic data, and would have definitely had a higher upfront cost and risk associated with bricking their equipment.