Overview:

• Within 4 months of implementing the strategy the firm had successfully agreed 27 proof of concepts with growers in California.

• Initial assessment showed higher than expected life time customer value and lower customer acquisition costs.

Challenge:

After a successful $4million Series A round, a European precision agriculture SME approached Challenge Advisory to design a comprehensive market entry strategy for the American agriculture industry. The firm had developed a portfolio of solution which use ariel Imagery and farm data to detect, classify and geo-locate specific farm anomalies. The firm’s core capabilities and positioning lied in geospatial analytics, in particular, pest infestation and disease detection for row and field crops. 32% of the firm’s revenue came from 2000+ acre farms in Ukraine, after developing and deploying solutions for early detection of Aphids, Stink Bugs, Cereal Leaf Beetle, Wireworms and Mites. However, the firm’s deep geospatial expertise and AI modeling capabilities suggested widespread applications.

The client lacked the necessary market expertise in US agriculture to formulate a strategy and position themselves accordingly. The client also lacked the necessary relationships to drive proof of concepts with growers, farmers, and cooperatives, thus the primary challenge was achieving product-market fit, strategic positioning and a route to market. Challenge Advisory were also asked to coordinate POC’s for the client, as both parties agreed early validation is essential to achieving customer traction.

Challenges:

• Strategic Positioning: Establish the firms market positioning; which growers it will serve, price to performance positioning, brand perception positioning etc
• Market Assessment: Identify customer needs and market structures through qualitative interviews and grower focus groups as well as quantitative forecasting 
• Core Value Proposition Development: Build customer-centric, and testable core propositions with target verticals  
• Route to Market: Build a route to market by identifying supply chain partnerships and manage all marketing efforts to build partnerships

Strategy:

Focus on speciality crops in California

• High net value per acre with little precision ag adoption in comparison to row and field crops
• Short crop cycles – little time to react unless detected early
• Organic practices limit available solutions for growers

Core value proposition:

After conducting a capabilities assessment and aligning to our analysis on market needs and structures, we found 3 uses cases target uses. These use cases provided the greatest market opportunity and were identified as areas that the firm could create superior value in.

1. Early detection of citrus greening for orange growers
2. Use of tractor mounted cameras for detection of powdery mildew for Vineyards
3. Fixed cameras for detection of powdery mildew for cannabis growers

Route to market:

• Go after #1 processor for each of the focus crops
• Partner with existing hardware companies
• Build channel partnerships to drive grower advisory group meetings
• Build channel partnerships with supply cooperatives.

Impact:

• Within 4 months of implementing the strategy the firm had successfully agreed 27 proof of concepts with growers in California, including 2 POCs with fresh produce supply cooperatives.
• Selection of use case was validated after initial trials showed between 10-20% improvements in detection time, compared to existing to solutions.
• 3 channel partnerships have been built with processors and marketing cooperatives providing market access to over 700 growers.
• Initial assessment showed high than expected lifetime customer value and lower customer acquisition costs.