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Mostly cherries in this case. For him, newer trees and varietals, so he was expecting to get something like $10k - $15k per acre. It was actually impressive -

Mostly cherries in this case. For him, newer trees and varietals, so he was expecting to get something like $10k - $15k per acre. It was actually impressive - for every tech product he used, he knew exactly how much ROI it gave him. Most recently he was excited about an anti-pest system he had just acquired that would detect certain species of bugs in a field and only spray when needed. $10/mo/acre and he was expecting to save ~$10k on pesticide + ~$30k on labor.

bombcar 4y ago
Yeah, farmers (the successful ones!) are really really good at tracking ROI in ways you wouldn't expect, and they know what is worth it and what isn't.
- hef19898 4y ago
  And if it is, they are willing, and able, to pay. After all, developing solutions for farmers is a good market frol ehat I hear. Trying to replace traditional farming so was only ever a way to blow away VC millions.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, it's one of those markets where you really do have to have the numbers when the treads hit the mud, if your thing costs a million bucks a year but results in even a small amount of profit that covers the cost, they'll be all there. But even if it's cheap, if it doesn't have that ROI you ain't gonna be selling it. I feel a lot of software/Silicon Valley types do NOT expect that at all, given how hard it is to measure ROI normally.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      There are a lot of farmers and they talk to each other. When something new comes out and they are not sure if this is an ROI a few of the farmers in the area will try it on a few of their fields. They will then have numbers. Running experiments is easy, all farmers do at least a little: it is easy to plant one bag of seed somewhere and then in fall compare that bag to what they plant elsewhere. It only slightly more difficult to do that in a proper controlled scientific way. The only hard part is there are may months between starting the experiment and seeing results. When something shows good results farmers tell each other. Not always, but they at least tell friends and things spread.

bombcar 4y ago

Yeah, farmers (the successful ones!) are really really good at tracking ROI in ways you wouldn't expect, and they know what is worth it and what isn't.

hef19898 4y ago
And if it is, they are willing, and able, to pay. After all, developing solutions for farmers is a good market frol ehat I hear. Trying to replace traditional farming so was only ever a way to blow away VC millions.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, it's one of those markets where you really do have to have the numbers when the treads hit the mud, if your thing costs a million bucks a year but results in even a small amount of profit that covers the cost, they'll be all there. But even if it's cheap, if it doesn't have that ROI you ain't gonna be selling it. I feel a lot of software/Silicon Valley types do NOT expect that at all, given how hard it is to measure ROI normally.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    There are a lot of farmers and they talk to each other. When something new comes out and they are not sure if this is an ROI a few of the farmers in the area will try it on a few of their fields. They will then have numbers. Running experiments is easy, all farmers do at least a little: it is easy to plant one bag of seed somewhere and then in fall compare that bag to what they plant elsewhere. It only slightly more difficult to do that in a proper controlled scientific way. The only hard part is there are may months between starting the experiment and seeing results. When something shows good results farmers tell each other. Not always, but they at least tell friends and things spread.