Building Trust in Agtech
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Sometimes, farmers are reluctant to trust startup ag companies, especially those whose products or services rely heavily on new and less proven technologies. Founder and CEO of Farmwave Craig Ganssle says when he’s deploying his product with new customers, he builds trust by meeting them where they’re at, directly in the field.
Ganssle… “I've been out with people and a week will go by and they don't even ask, but then something that comes up and they're like, so what do you do at FarmWave? Are you just sales? And I'm like, well, I'm, I'm the founder of the company. And they're like, and you're out here? Yeah, this is where I belong out here. Like, I can't help you from behind the desk somewhere. I mean, I know it's important in my job to go through numbers and spreadsheets. I don't really like it, but I, I get out in the field. And I think the way that you scale that is consistency. And look, there's a real cost to that for us. There's an investment for that. We have to fly ourselves at our expense around the world and spend time, you know, but you just have to do it. It's just part of the cost of doing business in this because we have to build their trust, right? I want to shake hands with people and look them in the eye and let them know who I am as a person and be like, look, I'm not going to fail. And it's just because canola is really hard to solve for, we're going to keep at it, right? We're going to keep at it until we get this within an acceptable range that it adds value and does something for you. The reality is there's just a cost of that. That's all there is to it.”
Farmwave has a harvest loss vision system that reduces field loss in corn, soybeans, peanuts, wheat, and cotton crops.
