As agtech investors, we spend a lot of time analyzing what drives success for new companies. Founders often dedicate much of their time detailing how novel/revolutionary/differentiated their innovation is.

The reason that farmers will and won’t adopt your solution is not based on technological innovation.

These 3 factors in the psychology of decision making will have far more impact on adoption:

• Fear of loss of self-determination
• Fear of unintended consequences
• Fear of missed opportunity

If your go-to-market strategy and business model don’t address these factors, your innovation will be hamstrung from the start.

Fear of loss of self-determination

Farming is subject to a crazy number of external factors, all of which impact the performance of the operation in major ways: weather, prices, labor availability, regulation, etc.

When so many factors are outside your control, it is easy to understand why farmers have deeply held concerns about platform technologies, who controls them, and how reliant users become on the future of that platform.

Fear of unintended consequences

We all know why data has so much potential to drive better farming outcomes, but it might also drive worse outcomes in the wrong hands. Too much information held by other parties can create asymmetries that might work against farmers, not for them.

Fear of missed opportunity

Better information can also create new products and new opportunities, but farmers rightfully expect that if those new opportunities reap a reward, they should share in that reward, not see it flow to others.

It’s all in the business model

None of these factors are insurmountable, and often the solution to address one. will address all. Your path to overcoming these factors is the design of your business model. Innovate here as much as you do in your core product.

This post was created with Typeshare