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Hi guys, Thus far this thread has been very helpful, especially with the book recommendations. They have been great in having a common basis in talking to business people, since I come from a very specialized and technical background. I have a challenge in realizing my MVP. Our technology uses molecular fingerprinting in an field agricultural setting for crop disease management. Scientifically, the concept is sound and has been demonstrated to work in a field setting across the literature. Translating that from a research model into a commercial product however will take considerable time and capital. The models that currently exist need a lot of love and care. I guess the capital requirement is nothing that isn’t already thrown around in SF but definitely something that requires a set up more elaborate than a standard web startup. Also I am not nor based within America. Laboratories can be expensive things and a garage has some very strict limitations to it. Very early in the thread, there was a discussion about a paper MVP. I presume that corresponds to a presentation to throw at prospective investors. Is it worth creating a direct customer version or would it be better to wait till I have more relevant data and/or a more applicable prototype? Are there any specifics or tips that can make this pitch more convincing? I can bend a few ears and scrounge up more relevant data but it wouldn’t be very fair to my academic associates in this endeavour. My first impulse is to just stuff it with data and an exhaustive literature search but I don’t know if that is relevant. Thanks again for your help.
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Oct 21, 2016 06:43
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Vulture Culture posted:Investors want to be convinced, first and foremost, that people want to buy your product. The reason an MVP is important in a pitch is because it demonstrates, in a very real sense, that you at the very least sense have something that fills a customer need. Academic endorsements won't in any way substitute for this unless you're talking to other academics, but people interested in buying your product will help your standing with anyone. (If your approach is too complicated for someone outside your field to understand, it may be helpful to retain a few people who will say that you're not selling snake oil.) If you think you can have a product ready in a reasonable timeframe, and you're not just effectively asking lenders for grant money to do R&D, your best bet for a paper MVP is to hit the bricks and get some people in industry with buying power to commit to your project. This is actually really encouraging. I am very certain that this will fulfill a critical need and can be reasonably realized. No one actually enjoys spraying pesticides and wider consumer groups outright loathe the stuff. I'll polish up what I do have and pound the walls.
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Oct 22, 2016 05:21
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Maybe reach out to those protest/consumer groups. A quote from them saying this is a great idea we are behind it, would be helpful both to convinvce customers (takeaway the cost and pain or crop spraying, take away the pain of the interest grohp) and investors (the consumer group wont instead switch to protesting your product) We are already involved with a green tech/ environmental technology group. It is our hope to approach other relevant parties but those protest consumer groups would do more harm than good. Our primary customer typically wears a Monsanto hat and drinks out of a Bayer mug. That is not to say that organic farmers wouldn’t value our technology, they may value it more so, but it gets stronger if the network is bigger. I will not lie, our technology is antagonistic to the current practises of the agro-chemical giants but doesn’t outright reject them. It won’t stop pesticide use, just misuse. Misuse however may constitute up to 40% of all pesticide applications. This is not due to malicious intent but rather a lack of anything better than current practise. To come out too strong against the agri-chemical giants risks annihilation. Cast_No_Shadow posted:Other than that I would want to see the math. Maybe I don want to see all the calculations straight away (i will eventually before you get a penny) but initually I need to know this makes commercial sense. How much will it cost to produce, any unusual fixed costs (ie. The lab) then what does each item (or whatever you call what a farmer buys) cost to make, deliver and 'install' in the plants. Then I want to see that number next to the costs a farmer currently spends on whatever the current methods of acheiving their goals are. Then if that story makes sense I start to care about how good your product is. Whats different to spraying, why does it work, how does it work. Be honest upfront about risks. Show me farmers that are interested. The current market problem is that spraying fungicides are at least a $25 per acre question. The average farm size in my district is 1324 acres, so this comes to $33100 per application. For maximum coverage to prevent disease, three applications over the growing season are required. Ultimately, spraying a fungicide is a $100 thousand-dollar decision. In a serious disease scenario, a properly timed application can save the season. How do you know if you applied at the right time or even if you had to apply at all? While there are resources out there, ultimately it comes down to the expertise and vigilance of the farmer. It requires a lot of walking through your fields and covering a significant sample for 1000 acres is quite a chore. Identifying disease correctly is another problem since many symptoms are shared and diseases can form complexes. As such, farmers generally are starved for information when deciding to spray, something which the agri-chemical reps are prone to exploit. Fungicides are treated like a form of crop insurance by the industry. Maybe you will get hit, maybe you won’t but you can’t be sure so give us $100 thousand and we will give you piece of mind. That piece of mind however comes with costs and risks beyond just the price tag though. Our technology can measure spore concentrations present within the fields, giving an update of what is out there at the microbial level. It is not a disease scouting enhancement so much as a disease scouting replacement, a system that will accurately predict disease risk without ever having eyes on the plants. Monitoring for weeds and insect pests will still be required but those are far easier to identify and mitigate than plant diseases. Based upon rudimentary numbers, I can provide this for a fraction of the cost of a spray application, $5 an acre once compared to $23 an acre three times over the season. If there is a serious problem, the famer must spray regardless but at least they will know that they saved their season. It is my hope that this system saves producers money by dramatically cutting back in mistimed sprays, habitual applications and panic spraying. Ultimately this hopefully will result in less pesticide being applied. Cast_No_Shadow posted:Is it at all possible to set up a trial with a local farmer to prove your story? Or maybe ask for a lower seed amount of cash to run this kinda of trial before going out and asking for bigger sums? It has been validated on a field. How it can accurately handle an entire farm is another question. Your second question has been the plan thus far. I don’t need 10 million to prototype but substantially more than a student living on ramen could hope to afford. That number is closer to what might be needed to get to launch.
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Oct 26, 2016 21:47
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Konstantin posted:Do you personally know any farmers, or do you have connections in farming communities? This industry is notoriously hostile to outsiders, and you'll be competing against people who have spent decades building long term relationships with their customers. You could try targeting newer farmers who may be more open to innovation, but they might not be able to provide you with short term capital. This won't be a problem. I tried leaving the farm, this startup idea is me coming back.
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Oct 28, 2016 23:56
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Zeppelin Insanity posted:I don't have any of that information yet as I'm in the very early stages still, but your post gave me a lot of food for thought. From what I learnt, any question that involves future actions or interest does not reflect your actual market. Someone could say they are interested in the product but when it comes time to take out the wallet, you will find that interest was only just that. A better indicator is past actions; what did they do or ended up not doing.
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Mar 12, 2017 10:17
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So I got a weird question, is there a way to tell if an investor is credible? A bunch of investors have been quite cautious and have pointed out some serious concerns that need some validation. Generally they are all good points and their unease I feel is justified at this point till I have more measurements. Agriculture can be a bit unfriendly if you are more "environmental" than usual. I have one investor though who is super excited and quite interested but hasn't said no to anything. His promises are too good and considering the caution of the other groups, I don't trust him. He has also been weird with phone calls, such as messing up the timezone for a phone call even though he arranged the time, losing documents and asking us to call different numbers than what is on his business cards or within his Email. They are supposed to be set up in Vancouver, right in the middle of downtown in a quite expensive building. All things considered, I didn't expect the building to sound like a child's birthday party in the background during my conversation. I was thinking of playing 20 questions with them to confirm that the location they say they are set up in is real and not just a nice facade they have going. My other thought was to call their other supposed clients and see if they actually exist, though they haven't gotten back to me yet. I have no idea what their angle is but everything just feels wrong. Maybe they just REALLY don't understand the industry or are a level of techbro I have never known to exist? Any other ways to find out if they represent something credible, like some kind of angel network agency? I'm in Canada if that helps at all.
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Mar 13, 2017 06:36
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