Blanco: Big Data agriculture in sight

"In the office is not to find all this, to go deep into the customer to find the real demand." ”

Article | Steve Branco http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13438.html "> Professor of Entrepreneurship, Stanford University

If a start-up team is putting ongoing customer discovery into their DNA, they will go beyond their investors and build successful businesses.

As I mentioned in my column earlier, one of my students, Ashwin, wants to invest in a seed fund to develop a drone that can capture hyperspectral imagery over farmland. These images are processed in a special way to tell farmers exactly what their field condition is, what disease or defect they have, whether they have enough fertilizer and enough water.

When modern computers, GPS and measurement technologies are used in agriculture, we call it "precision agriculture". Over the past year, I've seen at least one or two entrepreneurial teams struggling in this area.

I pointed out to Ashwin that the best and viable product he could bring to farmers was data, not drones. I suggest that we rent some hyperspectral cameras and airplanes, get some data, and then go to the farmers to verify that the data is really what they need and are willing to pay for. Obviously, this is a lot safer, and now they need just one-tenth of the money.

A few months later, when I was drinking coffee with Ashwin, I was tempted to ask his company what it was like. I want to know if they are still trying to do the drone business, and if they don't do it anymore, what are their products now.

When I understand the situation, the only thing I can do is smile. Because he had not been able to think of anything in the House that his team had learned at this time, they had succeeded in finding their way. They are much cleverer now than I am.

Ashe's team initially wanted to build drones, and I predicted that farmers would only care about the final data, not how the data were obtained. But when they went deep into the countryside, the farmers told them something, Ashe mild I never even thought about it-farmers want them to provide "crop rags" in addition to farm data or use a more ornate word for "aerial applicator" services. This thing can be sprayed with pesticides over farmland.

Mr. Ashe's team found 1400 companies in the United States that could use aircraft to spray pesticides, and 2800 planes to cover 44 states of farmland. They realised that they could install hyperspectral cameras on these planes. It's a very good idea that they don't need drones anymore.

It also means that Ashe's company does not need to build any aviation infrastructure-it already exists. This greatly reduces the cost. Even better, the 1400 insecticide-sprayed aircraft companies may be a potential sales channel partner.

Ashe's company has finally found the products they should offer-the imaging systems that can be used on sprayed pesticides and special algorithms that can accurately monitor farmland conditions.

I asked Ashwin what led them to finally find the product direction. He replied, "in the office is not to find all this, to go deep into the customer to find the real demand." We are now working with farmers and agricultural experts in California every day. This makes our products smell more grounded. ”

From Ashe's entrepreneurial experience, we can come to the following conclusions:

Mining ongoing customer requirements into the company's DNA

Go to a client to find your business model

First focus on providing direct value to customers

Then add business complexity to increase added value.