In the startup world, I think the obsession over the problem you are trying to solve is a bit narrow-minded. I am reminded of Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877. It seemed the problem Edison was trying to solve was consumers wanting music in their home. In reality, Edison was developing disruptive technology, simply stated as the ability to play back audio. You see, recordings of audio were accomplished 30 years prior. Edison was the person responsible for figuring out how to both record and playback audio. Look at how the world has changed with his discovery we take for granted, above and beyond simply playing music in the home, e.g. radio broadcast, consumer electronics, bands, podcasts, audio books, streaming music, etc.
When I started this company, it was obvious to anyone that autonomy will solve the labor problem in agriculture. However, I spent weeks contemplating how the technology would evolve and create new business models in agriculture. Consider autonomy as to what it does, not the problem it solves. Simply stated, autonomy is a technology that remotely increases the amount of time available for field operations.
I spent weeks with some of our customers and one thing became apparent. The second the farmer steps outside, they enter a realm of chaos. Every last minute is spent dealing with one crisis after the other, e.g. fixing equipment, harvesting, marshalling trucks, pointing labor in the right direction, dealing with weather events, and obviously, growing the crop. Meanwhile, calls are missed, texts are ignored, notifications are disregarded. It became apparent to me that farmers needed an assistant, somebody to take over the mundane, a virtual Field Operator (vFO).
In early summer 2024, Sabanto implemented the first vFO position.
We are building a team of people that are responsible for creating missions, deploying systems, monitoring systems, and traversing them from one field to the next. The farmer communicates with the vFO in the morning via text messages with the day’s agenda. With the system parked in the field and topped off, it’s go-time. We’re implementing this with a limited number of farming operations at this time and it seems to help the chaos that surrounds the farmer.
– Craig
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