FarmLogs (YC W12) Letting the Cloud Watch Over the Farm(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
FarmLogs (YC W12) Letting the Cloud Watch Over the Farm
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/business/farm-software-tries-to-make-its-mark-digital-domain.html
15 comments
Their design looks gorgeous and serious to me. Maybe what I think does not count because I'm not a farmer. They could A/B test this with a more enterprise-y looking site, who knows.
I like their site because it looks so simple to use and shows it could be very valuable very quickly, kind of like an iPhone. I'd be surprised if they don't see some considerable adoption, esp among the newer generation of farmers.
I like their site because it looks so simple to use and shows it could be very valuable very quickly, kind of like an iPhone. I'd be surprised if they don't see some considerable adoption, esp among the newer generation of farmers.
I am a farmer and I think it is fine. Some of the interfaces I have seen for farm-related software are hilariously bad. The big farms already log all this information (and more) automatically, so it seems that the target market is really smaller hobby farmers where a "fun" interface probably isn't so bad anyway.
And that is exactly how all great companies start (by flying under the radar until it is too late for the incumbents).
I am a farmer
This makes me curious. What brings you to HN? :)
This makes me curious. What brings you to HN? :)
I wish I had some elaborate story for you, but I'm also a software developer.
Which career came first?
I have been around the farm my whole life, but my first real job was doing design/development/general IT work in high school. I've worked in software-related roles ever since, primarily on the programming side. About four years ago I established my own farming operation. It is still small, but I'm working on slowly growing it.
How can I contact you? Email?
Are you talking about the icon sets? They seem nice to me. There isn't anything cartoony about them and they are very clear and easy to understand. Honestly it's better than many icon sets I've seen in web applications. The site looks fine to me.
I'm not sure anyone thinks "I'm losing money and dammit this web app isn't reflecting my mood at this moment."
I'm not sure anyone thinks "I'm losing money and dammit this web app isn't reflecting my mood at this moment."
Thanks for the feedback.
Something that might interest you re: Australian agriculture -
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm
there's been keen interest in computers and software in agriculture for a good 30 odd years that I'm aware of, the first thought that crosses my mind when reading about your software is it's apparent dependence on the internet and regular cell towers.
I'm nor sure how widespread good Internet is across the US farming areas, in Australia nothing is taken for granted in most farming regions - telephone, power, cell phone coverage, gas supplies, etc are all more or less present in many places but all are subject to accidental cut out from a few hours, to a few days, to sometimes a few weeks.
There's always been a strong interest in solutions that continue to function when connections to the rest of the world are lost for a bit.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm
there's been keen interest in computers and software in agriculture for a good 30 odd years that I'm aware of, the first thought that crosses my mind when reading about your software is it's apparent dependence on the internet and regular cell towers.
I'm nor sure how widespread good Internet is across the US farming areas, in Australia nothing is taken for granted in most farming regions - telephone, power, cell phone coverage, gas supplies, etc are all more or less present in many places but all are subject to accidental cut out from a few hours, to a few days, to sometimes a few weeks.
There's always been a strong interest in solutions that continue to function when connections to the rest of the world are lost for a bit.
My father-in-law is a small farmer running 2000-3000 acres each year, depending on the year. My wife does the books for the family farm so I get to hear quite a bit about what is going on per field, per crop, etc.
I signed up for the trial to see what it was like. The UI is very simple and looks easy to use. The only thing that I might recommend is that you look into standardized farm management taxonomy.
Serious farmers will go take classes on how to scale and run profitable farms. Most of these classes teach them to separate tasks/costs into Enterprises and Overheads per field or other terms that I am personally not too familiar with. It looks like you're heading the right direction, I just didn't see a lot of the terms I hear thrown around when talking with my wife or father-in-law. They have both sat in on classes that I described above although they are farmers - they will do and say things their own way, class or not.
Here's a Farm Management Glossary that looks pretty decent. Perhaps you can start here and compare your software's definitions with these:
http://fdin.net/glossary.htm
Good luck!
I signed up for the trial to see what it was like. The UI is very simple and looks easy to use. The only thing that I might recommend is that you look into standardized farm management taxonomy.
Serious farmers will go take classes on how to scale and run profitable farms. Most of these classes teach them to separate tasks/costs into Enterprises and Overheads per field or other terms that I am personally not too familiar with. It looks like you're heading the right direction, I just didn't see a lot of the terms I hear thrown around when talking with my wife or father-in-law. They have both sat in on classes that I described above although they are farmers - they will do and say things their own way, class or not.
Here's a Farm Management Glossary that looks pretty decent. Perhaps you can start here and compare your software's definitions with these:
http://fdin.net/glossary.htm
Good luck!
I wonder if this isn't a case of competing standards?
I'm speaking entirely hypothetically here, as I've never been anywhere near a farm, but having seen ITIL, Six Sigma and other enterprisey terminologies vary between methodologies, I can't help but wonder if they're not using the right lexicon because maybe they're using a 'different', competing lexicon?
Either way, that looks to be a great tip and solid criticism.
I'm speaking entirely hypothetically here, as I've never been anywhere near a farm, but having seen ITIL, Six Sigma and other enterprisey terminologies vary between methodologies, I can't help but wonder if they're not using the right lexicon because maybe they're using a 'different', competing lexicon?
Either way, that looks to be a great tip and solid criticism.
Excellent point! I agree, I could be hearing only one of many standards and/or the developers are using another.
I grew up on a grain farm in Saskatchewan. As far as I know, my farmer brother and my dad still use paper and whiteboards to record this sort of information, if they record it at all --- which is amazing because the machinery alone is worth several million dollars.
They do use GPS in the tractors, mostly to minimize overlap/gaps. They used a big paper ledger to do bookkeeping until my brother took over the bookkeeping, and I think he now uses Quicken (not QuickBooks). The farm is a strange mix of low tech and high tech, and I suspect that's not unusual.
If you want to advertise to grain farmers in Western Canada, then one good way is to buy an ad in The Western Producer (a newspaper). Agricultural trade shows are probably a better bet though. I know they go to the Farm Progress Show every year.
http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about
They do use GPS in the tractors, mostly to minimize overlap/gaps. They used a big paper ledger to do bookkeeping until my brother took over the bookkeeping, and I think he now uses Quicken (not QuickBooks). The farm is a strange mix of low tech and high tech, and I suspect that's not unusual.
If you want to advertise to grain farmers in Western Canada, then one good way is to buy an ad in The Western Producer (a newspaper). Agricultural trade shows are probably a better bet though. I know they go to the Farm Progress Show every year.
http://www.myfarmshow.com/general/about
This is great, I'm so sick of seeing nothing but a plethora of useless stupid games, the world has gone entertainment crazy, this is really a great direction, I wish there were many many more useful apps, creative uses of the mobile platform to do something other than entertain the masses.
I wonder how this compares to Agworld?
http://www.agworld.com.au/
I've no relation to Agworld, except that they're based in the same city as I am (Perth, Australia).
http://www.agworld.com.au/
I've no relation to Agworld, except that they're based in the same city as I am (Perth, Australia).
Glad to see some other Aussie sites mentioned here. We launched eGrowers out of Deni last year, so this might just motivate us to run a second season.
[deleted]
I work in the dairy business, and I must say that a business like this is hit or miss. Most farmers are old timers that still use pin paper for record keeping. I know farmers that have built multi-million dollar dairy farms that are computer automated and they still prefer a pen/paper. I wish the FarmLogs crew the best of luck, but from my experience it's going to be a tough ride for them.
I demand a Venn Diagram.
Congrats to Jesse and Brad. Way to go!
Congrats guys! I was curious, so I signed up for a free a/c. super easy to use, and beautifully designed product!
Would be happy to work with you guys to integrate farm energy use data into this. (Wattvision.com YC W09)
Also relevant: http://www.farmigo.com/
Maybe also the italian http://growtheplanet.com - a real-life farmville?
We have a local one: http://www.terra-organics.com/
Also relevant, http://farmeron.com from Croatia.
One of my favorite from W12, best of luck!
Congrats Jesse and Brad! Smashing it!
Congrats guys!
This is more than amazing [stream of conscious to follow]:
This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU
FarmLogs could be used to actually teach ANYONE how to farm efficiently.
You take the data that each farmer uses to track their crop and harvest and teach people how to do the same.
You will need to incorporate sensors into the system, such as the TWINE SENSOR [1] into your system -- track the weather and moisture for every location, as well as the crop.
You can build a DB of the yields over time for any given farm. Use this to inform people of the best times and conditions to plant various crops.
You can track man-power-hours to yields as well and be able to help people understand that if they want to grow X amount of Y crop, they need Z people and Z1 hours...
Finally, the most obvious, is cost - you can then say that for a property of X size, you need Y labor and Z dollars to produce Z1 crop!
Seriously - alongside fake meat - if you have an APP that can actually TRAIN a farmer, this is farking planet changing.
Use this info to build out a tutorial to train 3rd world people to micro-farm with HIGH yields.
There was this articla about big-data being the next billion dollar industry: big farm data will be the trillion dollar industry. NEVER SELL OUT TO MONSANTO. NEVER.
Ultimately:
Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow.
Knowing what the cost per squarefoot to yield is for massive famrs will allow such an engine to be built.
Every single person on the planet should be able to access this app - enter their capabilities and determine how much they could produce to either sustain themselves or sell to the local market.
This is revolutionary. If you can build this into an app that is stand alone, it should be married to the open-source civ kit [2]
Look at big data as the future - this is the biggest (most important) data.. [3]
[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li...
[2] http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_D...
[3] http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-bi...
This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU
FarmLogs could be used to actually teach ANYONE how to farm efficiently.
You take the data that each farmer uses to track their crop and harvest and teach people how to do the same.
You will need to incorporate sensors into the system, such as the TWINE SENSOR [1] into your system -- track the weather and moisture for every location, as well as the crop.
You can build a DB of the yields over time for any given farm. Use this to inform people of the best times and conditions to plant various crops.
You can track man-power-hours to yields as well and be able to help people understand that if they want to grow X amount of Y crop, they need Z people and Z1 hours...
Finally, the most obvious, is cost - you can then say that for a property of X size, you need Y labor and Z dollars to produce Z1 crop!
Seriously - alongside fake meat - if you have an APP that can actually TRAIN a farmer, this is farking planet changing.
Use this info to build out a tutorial to train 3rd world people to micro-farm with HIGH yields.
There was this articla about big-data being the next billion dollar industry: big farm data will be the trillion dollar industry. NEVER SELL OUT TO MONSANTO. NEVER.
Ultimately:
Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow.
Knowing what the cost per squarefoot to yield is for massive famrs will allow such an engine to be built.
Every single person on the planet should be able to access this app - enter their capabilities and determine how much they could produce to either sustain themselves or sell to the local market.
This is revolutionary. If you can build this into an app that is stand alone, it should be married to the open-source civ kit [2]
Look at big data as the future - this is the biggest (most important) data.. [3]
[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-li...
[2] http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_D...
[3] http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/doug-hornig/is-bi...
> This could be the only tool in fighting against massive congloms like Monsanto PLEASE NEVER SELL TO THEM - THEY WILL TRY TO DEVOUR YOU
This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it.
But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.
This being a site for entrepreneurs, I'm going to give a different piece of advice: if the likes of Monsanto come to you and attempt to buy you out for a price and other terms that you find acceptable, do it. Do it in a heartbeat. You can do far more good with a bunch of money than without it; you can always circle back and make another attempt to change farming for the better, and be in a better position to do it.
But at the end of the day, you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world. I wish you all the best of luck.
I, as a former farm boy, would support this. Contrary as it is to the spirit of HN. My dad, and his father before him, ran a dry-land wheat farm out west. When he finally decided to sell, and get an actual job, the level of stress reduction was quite amazing. For example, the growing season for wheat is about 101 days, while the growing season available was 99 days. The rain was 12 inches a year, and you had to leave half the land idle to get enough moisture to grow a reasonable crop. As a young boy, I saw one year's crop destroyed in a 15-minute hailstorm.
The risks inherent in farming resemble those of starting a new business, but without the potential upside.
Monsanto is going to do what they will, with our without your small (to them) farm. Better plan of action is to remove the distortion in the marketplace caused by the farm subsidies.
But as daeken says, take the money and do good with it. Like start a small business helping small farmers.
The risks inherent in farming resemble those of starting a new business, but without the potential upside.
Monsanto is going to do what they will, with our without your small (to them) farm. Better plan of action is to remove the distortion in the marketplace caused by the farm subsidies.
But as daeken says, take the money and do good with it. Like start a small business helping small farmers.
Totally disagree:
"you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world"
Be a selfish self-centered piece of shit for the money...
That is what you just stated.
Sorry - but you MUST have some better vision of the world than "do whats right for your own wallet"
If you don't. in the long term - you are a part (albeit potentially very small) of the reason civilization fails.
I am 1000% against what daeken posted.
"you need to do what's right for you; not me, not the parent, not the world"
Be a selfish self-centered piece of shit for the money...
That is what you just stated.
Sorry - but you MUST have some better vision of the world than "do whats right for your own wallet"
If you don't. in the long term - you are a part (albeit potentially very small) of the reason civilization fails.
I am 1000% against what daeken posted.
Straw-man much? You are mischaracterizing both the letter and the spirit of what daeken said, framing a convenient caricature of it to say "hey look everybody, I disagree with this mean badie".
Poor form.
Poor form.
Sorry but I don't think your analysis of this particular argument is on the level...
Read it several times - I did no such thing as straw-man this argument. I simply disagree with his position. I didnt call him out as being completely irrelevant in any manner...
If I did, and I am unaware of this, please educate me.
Thanks
Read it several times - I did no such thing as straw-man this argument. I simply disagree with his position. I didnt call him out as being completely irrelevant in any manner...
If I did, and I am unaware of this, please educate me.
Thanks
Farmlog is a web-based CRUD app. Monsanto is a billion dollar, multinational behemoth. All daeken said was not to be afraid to sell out to big-agro if you have a chance, take the money and run, be a martyr on your own damn time and dime.
You somehow think selling your company to another is matter of morality. It's not. An stupid CRUD app is not gonna give big-agro powers they didn't already have. This is not a strain of grains that can feed the planet: it's just a web app, specific to the farm-management "line of business". This is the Remember The Milk of agriculture technology.
Biggest revolutions in agriculture will not be in software, but in geo-politics, law, finance, real-estate, insurance, equipment, transportation, fertilizers, packaging and preservation, and genetic engineering, etc. Real stuff.
Farming is our bread and butter, meat and potatoes. Food is the #1 on every living being's list of Important Shit™.
So, sell out, sell your apps and move on.
You somehow think selling your company to another is matter of morality. It's not. An stupid CRUD app is not gonna give big-agro powers they didn't already have. This is not a strain of grains that can feed the planet: it's just a web app, specific to the farm-management "line of business". This is the Remember The Milk of agriculture technology.
Biggest revolutions in agriculture will not be in software, but in geo-politics, law, finance, real-estate, insurance, equipment, transportation, fertilizers, packaging and preservation, and genetic engineering, etc. Real stuff.
Farming is our bread and butter, meat and potatoes. Food is the #1 on every living being's list of Important Shit™.
So, sell out, sell your apps and move on.
We've been collecting this kind of data for hundreds of years. It is all pretty well understood at this point. It looks like a great tool over pen and paper, but I'm just not seeing the future potential that you are. Even sharing how farms operate in North America to less fortunate areas of the world isn't going to get them very far. I often cannot even practice the same techniques used by my neighbours a few miles up the road, let alone half way across the world.
> Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow.
Ignoring the challenges of scaling the volumes down, I can tell you right now that my average input costs for 200 square feet of grain is about $2. You can expect to make about $0.20-$0.40 after harvest. Vegetables will have better returns, but you are unlikely to grow more than you can eat yourself in such a small area. For a garden, you may as well plant what you like to eat. You don't really need an app for that.
> Build an app that asks me what my resources and interests are, and help me build a farm that suits my capabilities: If i have an apartment in seatlle with a balcony of 200 square feet and $50 per month to apply to that square footage, what can I grow.
Ignoring the challenges of scaling the volumes down, I can tell you right now that my average input costs for 200 square feet of grain is about $2. You can expect to make about $0.20-$0.40 after harvest. Vegetables will have better returns, but you are unlikely to grow more than you can eat yourself in such a small area. For a garden, you may as well plant what you like to eat. You don't really need an app for that.
I'm all for this. It's a field I've considered many times. I'm an urban homesteader and programmer, so I see the value. I want you to succeed. Please understand my criticism is meant only to further your progress. I love what you're doing.
My concern is that your product looks like a toy. Farmers are serious about their work. They aren't playing a Zynga game or... Agricola. That farm equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Farmers across the nation have lost $20 Billion worth of crops this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-in...
Please, get a more sophisticated look. Let farmers know you are serious. If I could look at your website and believe you are serious, I may not need someone else to tell me you are serious.