AGB Agrowbase Business Plan 01-2012 BrentASaulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture
Web Application Business Concept for 2012

____________________________________________________________________________________ Contributors: Brent A Saulic: Designer & Entrepreneur
EXECUTIVE SUMMERY VISION & MISSION: 4 1/11/2012
All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic
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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS: THE TEAM 6 6 7 4 5
PROJECT BACKGROUND: MANAGEMENT PROFILE The Team: 7
Management Organization: THE BUSINESS MODEL Vision: 13
10
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Mission: Error! Bookmark not defined. How our business model works: STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS: Stakeholders: 30 31 30 Error! Bookmark not defined.
Farmers: Mix and Scale Operations Demographics: 34 Customer Personas VALUE PROPOSITION: The Problem: 36 17
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Platform Solution:
CHANNELS - MARKETING PLAN: 17 Online Presence: 17 18
Rural, Suburban, and Urban Presence: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP 18
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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture KEY PARTNERSHIPS: 19 KEY ACTIVITIES: KEY RESOURCES: 22 ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. 26
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS:
BREAKEVEN ANALYSIS: SALES SCENARIOS AND PROJECTIONS: 26 START-UP COSTS: EXPENSES AND OPERATING COSTS 23 SOURCES OF FINANCING: FUNDING REQUIREMENTS: EQUITY STAKES 29 28
GROWTH: SUSTAINING AND EXPANDING OUR MARKET 19 Implementation Roadmap EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT 22 40
MARKET ANALYSIS AND KEY TRENDS: 40 National Overview: The United States Agricultural Profile National Growth Potential: United States Industry Trends 43 State Overview: Michigans Agricultural Profile: 43 44 42 40
Regional Overview: West Michigans Agricultural Profile Local Overview: Kent Countys Agricultural Profile COMPETITOR ANALYSIS: Direct Competition Indirect Competition 47 47 47 48 45
Competitive advantage: Future Competition 48
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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture CONCLUSION 49
Executive Summery
Vision & Mission:
AGB is a vision for an online space, to serve local communities who grow crops, rear animals, and feed people. AGB is a multisided web application platform meant to create a database of credible and trustworthy farming profiles, giving them full control of what they disclose, and the tools to market themselves easily. It will allow communities to collaborate; describe agricultural operations, list opportunities, rate equipment, and techniquesbuilding up a database on agriculture. We would offset the costs free features with an advertising system, to generate substantive revenue. The mission of AGB is to continually researching and designing ways to link agriculture more profoundly online. We believe the next innovation in agriculture rest in enhancing communication between stakeholders in the agriculture industry: farmers, vendors, government agencies, and consumers. If information between these stakeholder groups were exchanged in a more convenient, transparent, and market driven manner, it could have profound effects on the efficiency, rate of innovation, and food production in the agriculture industry.
Business opportunity:
The agricultural community has encountered a design barrier, which is holding back its potential to leverage its deep knowledge, and connect with its stakeholders online. AGB is a multisided web application platform meant to solve this problem. The platform is primarily geared toward farmers and vendors who sell and service them,
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but it will also extend to consumers who are thinking about a starting farm, hobby gardeners, and urban agriculture enthusiast.
Financial projections:
It will be critical to the implementation of a business concept to develop a (MVP) minimum viable product whose features and capabilities are prioritize based on the potential of initial revenue streams it will take to sustain the business. A professional quote on the software development of the full product features outlined in the concept, in the Ruby on Rails environment, is estimate put the cost of the platform around $25,000. AGB is currently in its early stages and would need to raise that capital to see through its platform vision. A more long term development strategy of breaking the system down into $5,000 development release stages might be a more viable approach to building up the platform with little capital. It should lower the cost of development significantly and release a minimum viable product into the market, more quickly, to generate revenue, and develop feedback from. This capital, along with any other capital the founders can crowd source, and wrangle from personal finances; will be used to fund software development of the MVP, any extra revenue will be saved for web hosting and marketing cost. The main sources of revenues that the platform might generate will likely be from advertising and service listing functions. Advertising revenues that can be garnered from the agriculture industry may be substantial; but dependent on marketing the product effectively.
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The Team
Project Background:
Mr. Saulic designed a precursor to the Agrowbase business concept over two years ago (2010) while working as a student researcher for the Grand Rapids Community Colleges Keller Research Center. The original project was known as Agrowhub and constituted a web application for tablet pcs geared toward urban farmers. The development of this concept and a multitude of others followed eight weeks of team based field research, and open discussion involving community stakeholders. The Agrowhub concept is public domain, as the Keller Research Center project findings were made open to the public. However, a lack of interest by local entrepreneurs, businesses, and programming associations in the area, has left the idea un-commercialized. In January of 2011, Mr. Saulic, began continued development and researched of the concept under his own volition with the intent of commercializing the concept. Every improvement and intellectual refinement made to the business concept since this date was rebranded and developed privately under the project name Agrowbase and more recently AGB. The AGB business concept has significantly evolved enough from the initial Agrowhub value premise to be considered a new business concept, and as such the intellectual property of this variation is reserved by its creator Brent Saulic.
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Management Profile
The Team:
Brent Saulic is currently the lone founder, financier, and project manager of this business concept. He has estimate that he has invested $1,000 in consulting fees, related its development thus far. There is currently no legal business formed; all the intellectual property belongs to Brent Saulic, with the intent of incorporating the company as soon as some form of web application code or business partnership is ready to be implemented. Mr. Saulic has been relying on his own skills; outsourcing and hiring consultants for much of the development of the project that rest outside his own skillset. Mr. Saulics main weaknesses rest in programming, specifically coding, and agile processes for developing web applications. What currently constitutes as his team is a loose association of programming consultants, freelance researchers, students, and agriculture specialist; which Mr. Saulic employs on a contractual basis in his research to answer vital questions and uncover insights related to development of the project. Mr. Saulic employs these specialists on an as needed basis using his own funds.
Brent Saulic: I've been pitching this business concept for the last month around Grand Rapids, MI. I was initially hesitant to invest my own time and money into to, but after refining the business concept and learning some basic business skills I became more dedicated to trying to implement the idea. I am searching for a dedicated group (1-4 people) willing to invest their free time and energy into implementation this business concept. I am not looking to garner capital from these partners for the business. I am looking for volunteers, who want to be a part of something bigger than themselves something that will serve a great cause by enhancing communication in food production across the worldstaring here in Kent County.
Mr. Saulic is actively seeking to build a group of founders with diverse skillsets to sit at the heart of development for this project. However, it is likely in the beginning, they will not be paid in waged earnings or consulting fees for their voluntary participation. Participants will be compensated with equity, based upon their contribution to development and implementation of the business concept. Brent Saulic: I need individuals who have skillsets that complement my own that are willing to invest their sweat and hard work for equity in the business idea, and
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eventually profit from the endeavor if we succeed. I'm not going to sugar coat it; it will be hard work, likely eating up a chunk of our free time in the next couple of months. There are no guarantees, there is a chance for success but it will depend in large part on our efforts. According to Mr. Saulic there are four main business roles, four business founder skillsets that could dramatically increase the chances of successful implementation. It will be essential to have these chief oversight positions working together and managing the implementation concurrently: Chief Executive officer, Chief Technical Officer, Chief Design Director, Chief Researcher and Industry Specialist.
Chief Executive Officer:

The Chief Executive Officer is responsible for overall business management and financial oversight. They would also direct marketing efforts and sales development; whether in-house or outsourced these activities report directly to him or her. Mr. Saulic can fill this role, but would prefer a more experienced business professional to manage day to day administrative functions so he can focus more on design and research aspects initially. Developing an online and regional presence will entail an advertising expertise beyond the current capabilities of this firm. It is likely that any team developed will be weak on professional sales, advertising, and marketing experience and so will require consulting, or abilities developed in-house. A qualified accountant will be important to consult to deal with finances. Contracts and licensing agreements will be reviewed by a qualified lawyer on as needed basis.
Chief Technical Officer:

The Chief Technical Officer is a software engineer responsible for developing and designing the web application platform. Mr. Saulic needs a programmer on his team to work out logical systems architecture and to managing software programming in the initial phases of implementation; else he will have to outsource this responsibility and rely entirely on an outside software development firm, university partnership, or a mix of freelance developers.
Chief Design Director:

The Chief Design Director will be a design professional, responsible for product design and user interface development. Mr. Saulic can fill this role, but would enjoy expanding the number of designers to participate in field research and guide iterative
cycles of design development. In particular, he would like to add a graphic design founder to lead development of graphical prototypes of compelling user interfaces for the Agrowbase web application platform.
Chief Researcher and Industry Specialist:

The Chief Researcher and Industry Specialist will be responsible for building a network of customers to garner first hand feedback and testing population for interface and feature prototypes. Mr. Saulic would like an expert in the Agriculture industry, particularly farming, to lead field research and interface development for our customer segments. This will allow us to refine broad assumptions quickly understanding the context and perspective of our customer segments. It may also be advantageous to hire a software team up with and accompany the industry specialist.
Founders: Skillsets
The following is a short bio and overview of the skillsets the current founding team currently possess. For a detailed review of each persons resume see appendix, and or founders resumes attached.
Brent Saulic
Biography: I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and graduated from East Kentwood High School in 2004. After high school I completed a four year stint, and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army when my service contract expired, February 2009.
I've earned two associates degrees; an Associates of Applied Science in Intelligence Analysis and an Associates of Arts from GRCC. I intend to earn my bachelors degree from FSU (Ferris State University) this school year (2012) in Integrative Studies with a minor in Industrial Design (thank you Uncle Sam). I'm going to try to get into GVSU's graduate school program next year, to earn an MBA. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I also want to start my own business sometime soon. Im really good at: I cycle between sloppy driven artist, and a tidy analytically nerd. I like solving problems and designing things, its my passion. I can be be extremely creative, and unconventional in my thinking. I tend to push through hard things by being persistent, and working hard, cranking out several iterations, refining my strategy. Well trained in design, intelligence analysis, with growing experience in
business modeling and entrepreneurship. There are three main skillsets I bring to any project: research, design, and an entrepenurship mindset.
Management Organization:
Mr. Saulic plans to initially setup the business as an LLC (Limited Liability Company) owned and operated by the founders. The LLC status will allow the owners flexibility in selecting the tax treatment they want for their business down the road. In this arraignment there is flexibility in ownership from the offset to enable easy integration and investment by new partners and shareholders as long as the number of shareholder's is under one hundred. As co-owners, all founder/partner positions will jointly develop business strategy and long-term plans. In tandem, these positions will be the final authorities on the development and design of the products while in addition managing the office environments.
Company Culture:
The management style will be expected to constantly evolve to meet business demands and production levels. Agrowbase will respect its community of co-workers and co-owners and will treat all workers well. There will be a concerted effort to develop and nurture the company as a community. Our organizational structure will not be very hierarchical in nature, but there will be managers in designated positions in charge of resources and facilitating company agendas. The atmosphere at work is enhanced by teambuilding activities, facilitated group discussions, and nights out. Agrowbase is geared toward getting to the root of challenges in user interface, platform programming, and value propositioning to customer segments in the agriculture community. Individuals and teams with the ability to come up with solutions relating to these main challenges will be prized, promoted, and rewarded. Individuals and teams with the ability to conduct insightful field research on customer segments will also be commended. Our company will develop an agile process to software development and invest in an holistic systems toward systems development and error prevention. A systemic view to problems and challenges should be applied to any particular circumstance, not the blame game. We shall be focused on making the business system more resilient. In this effort executive leadership should be tolerant of all mistakesthe first time, and be compassionate and open to experimental efforts to solve problems. Executive leadership will sponsor and support the process and respond to failure with honesty and learning. Executive leadership will ask why five times until they get at the root of
the problems and fix them so they do not become chronic problems, caused by bad process.
Business Location:
To lower operational expenses during the research phase, the initial partners will be working out of their homes and consultant places of business. They will also be providing the experience and equipment necessary for the initial research phases of the Agrowbase web application platform. As the enterprise matures financially we expect to move into a building in the vicinity of Grand Rapids, MI.
Board of Directors/Advisory Board:

There is currently no advisory board beyond the initial investors; however, we shall continually seek out a broader group of partners and stakeholders to assist the enterprise, legal advice when applicable, and convene a formal board meeting prior to considering new investors or partners.
Management Communication
There are bi-weekly meetings between the chief executive officers and key partners to review capital reserves, determine priority of work, and suitable directions and deadlines for projects. This meeting can be in a physical location or using a suitable online environment. Beyond this requirement key managers develop meetings and work schedules with freelance team members at their own discretion.
Recruitment and Selection of Employees

This software company will require passionate artist, researcher, programmers, and design thinkers with the creative aptitude to develop solutions for a multitude of agricultural customer groups. All development hires will be primarily freelance contractual until such time that sufficient stores of capital are raised to support more full time employees. The main qualifications for employment will be a well-developed digital art portfolio, software samples, or comparable work experience. From the content provided in the portfolio and or resume, the reviewer, likely one the chief officers, will make a determination about the prospective employees capabilities and what he/she could
add to the overall project development scheme. In the process the reviewer will be trying to determine if the applicant has a broad enough set of skills to meld well with an interdisciplinary environment he will have to collaborate in. The reviewer will also be ensuring the prospective hire has suitable equipment and software available to meet production criteriaas such equipment may not be provided by the company. Key equipment will include a computer with a capable graphics card, web conferencing camera, internet access, and an external backup driveas freelancers will be expected to mainly work from the home and upload their work into the companys online databases. Every freelance member of product development will be paid either by the hour, by production task completion, or a unique combination of the two in a contractual basis. In effect, every artist brought into the fold of a production will be given negotiable compensation package dependent on the resources and abilities they afford the effort of production. Internships will be made available to college student in the design, and computer science disciplines.
Employee Incentives and Compensation:

All non-partners of the research and design process start off as freelance members on teams or staffs. As the research and development process matures, each will have the opportunity to become part owners based on the quality, quantity of their work, and reinvestment into the company. Becoming a partner, however, entails greater responsibilities and task to complete. In this Incentive system artist, designers, software engineers, compete amongst each other in the digital crafts to determine the most skilled, dedicated, passionate, and visionary among them to lead the production cycle past the initial stages. Those that contribute the most in time and effort, above and beyond contractual agreements and job roles, are given the prestigious opportunity of owning shares in the company and leading the production process in a multitude of ways. Those who wish to take on the brunt of the origination of substantive content will be given the opportunity to buy into the company though applying their hard work and vision. In this way we expect to teach and reinforce our business values and expectations. Such an incentive is not always offered, nor is it always accepted, but it will assist in increasing the personal and professional stake of our employees from being short term freelancers, to long term teammates, and potential part owners who will build up their experience in running a business system.
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The Business Model

Vision: AGB is a vision for an online space, to market farms, build networks, advertise, and serve local communities who grow crops, rear animals, and feed people. Mission: Agrowbase is a web platform built with integrity, with the goal of continually researching and designing ways to link agriculture more profoundly. We believe the next innovation in agriculture rest in enhancing communication between stakeholders in the agriculture industry: farmers, vendors, government agencies, and consumers. If information between these stakeholder groups were exchanged in a more convenient, transparent, and market driven manner, it could have profound effects on the efficiency, rate of innovation, and food production in the agriculture industry. Initial Research: The agricultural community has encountered a design barrier, which is holding back its potential to leverage its deep knowledge, and connect with its stakeholders online. Why arent modern communications technologies, particularly the Internet, enhancing the communications between stakeholders in the agriculture community, particularly small scale agricultural operations? Below are common responses from interviews included: Yes I have internet, but I dont have the time or computer skill to wade through all that is available online, or try to find information relevant to my business operations. Problem 1: Although the digital age has brought great innovations in the realm of communications technology, busy farmers are hesitant to invest their time and energy into learning and wading through new complicated information systems of the online world especially older demographics. It is difficult finding opportunities on the internet related to my operations. Other than email its not a significant factor in my day to day business dealings. Problem 2: There is a need for communications tools better tailored to their unique farm operations, and linked in a straightforward way to consumers and agricultural networks. Yes I use it to find contacts, but its not as convenient or trustworthy as word of mouth.
Problem 3: To a small farmer investing in and experimenting with new novel ideas for profit (innovation) or experimentation is often a daunting risk. Small business farmers often have a hard time finding good research, business models to learn from, and the best agricultural practices for new farming niches they wish to exploit. Conclusions: The internet was never designed for farmers, farmers have few inclinations to use it because the tools it offers are not convent for them and do lend themselves to their main skillsetsbuilding networks and running farm operations. These are important failings to highlight because they dont indicate a lack of capability, the internet does do these things and provides this informationit just doesnt do it well and sometimes requires technical knowledge of computers and database systems to sifting through large amounts of data personally. What is missing is purposeful design, design for convenience, design for invoking trust, design for illustrating creative capacity in agriculture, and design for illuminating applicable information and opportunity for its users. In the twenty first century, in this new knowledge economy, the preponderance of technology and communications infrastructure has unleashed a flood of information onto the world wide web; however, while the means exist, much of the agriculture community does not appear to be leveraging the internet effectively, or see it as an substantive business tool. Whole segments that could be using the communications technology cannot because of the huge disconnect between their computer skills, time, money, and a lack of credibility in the online world. If you can solve these three main problems through design there could be a large agricultural audience, with unmet needs that a business can cater to. There is sufficient Infrastructure Business Assumptions: The agricultural community has encountered a design barrier, which is holding back its potential to leverage its deep knowledge, and connect with its stakeholders online. The next innovation in agriculture rest in enhancing communication between stakeholders of the industry: farmers, vendors, government agencies, and consumers; if information between these stakeholder groups were exchanged in a more convenient, interconnected, and straightforward manner online, it could encourage more robust local farming networks, food production opportunities, inspire experimentation, spur product innovations, and help build up a new knowledge economy on agriculture. Innovations in agricultural and the growth of expanding niches in the industry occur frequently; however, information concerning small scale experiments in agriculture is not being shared efficiently between communities of agriculture. There are a myriad of factors which could aid in the dissemination of this information, the main crux of which could be provided online via an automated platform that helps monetize such information (to the benefit of all stakeholders) and
disseminate it among communities effectively through interfaces which contextualize and enhance convenience. Currently there is no agricultural software focused on linking the agriculture community in a holistic manner online. An integrated online marketing, advertising, and learning tool may bridge this gap. A platform solution, likely represents a way to re-segmenting the current market, to bring in new customers who have been left out of marketing and advertising online, due to cost and technical knowledge requirements. The farming community needs a stronger online presence given its importance to not only feeding people, but also in the effort of spurring economic growth and innovation in the industry. The value we could deliver.
Risk Reduction: Effective utilization of business intelligence requires a business person to keep informed of relevant information and opportunities to act on that information. This platform would assists in reducing and forecasting risk in business decisions. By garnering convenient business intelligence (information and opportunity) related to their niche industry Agrowbase will be creating and satisfy a new service that customers previously didnt experience. Increased Accessibility: Agrowbase helps solve the disconnect between farmers and online technology increasing accessibility through design. Using network effects to help information and opportunities to the specific needs of individual customers and segments in an automated way based on their profile information. This approach allows for automated service taking advantage of economies of scale.
Business Model and Opportunity: AGB is a multisided web application platform which would create a database of credible and trustworthy farming profiles, giving farmers full control of what they disclose, and the tools to market themselves easily. It will allow communities to collaborate; describe agricultural operations, rate equipment, and techniques building up a database on agriculture. We would offset the costs of theses free features with an advertising system. We believe existing online marketing products do not adequately fit the needs and budgets of small farm operators. Currently there is no direct competition by other agricultural software developers focused on bridging the scope of the agricultural community with an integrated online marketing, advertising, and learning tool. The product, as envisioned, likely represents a re-segmenting of a market, which will bring in new customers who have been left out of marketing and advertising online, due to cost and technical knowledge requirements. The lower cost and new functionality will improve problem resolution within existing markets. We do not foresee this products
functionality competing directly with any known product currently on the market; however its conglomeration of features may indirectly challenge some small specialty segments. Small businesses in the agriculture industry, is saleable and large enough market segment that a viable long term business might be built. Core business assumptions rest in the feature mix that will be able to provide enough value for local farming communities. The target market is a group of young, somewhat inexperienced farm operators; which make up round 10% of the agriculture community. If we can convince this segment of likely early adopters to buy into the platforms intrinsic value, as an integrated marketing, advertising, and learning tool, there may indeed be a viable business grown out of this effort.
If a credible database of up-to-date profiles on farm operators and farm operations exist online, the attributes of those profiles can be leveraged for further revenue growth; to provide other stakeholder groups with valuable advertising space, market information, statistics, and a farming segments to surveys. With high traffic the platform could become an effective advertising tool--which allows local and regional vendors to target specific market segments by their profile attributes. Transactional fees associated with content creation, advertising, surveying, and other premium features subsidize the basic automated services we provide to farmers.
If local communities find sufficient value to participate, the platform should be able to scale out to a national level. As the platform scales it should become better at delivering contextualized ads and entry content. Marketing to ever broadening sectors of the agricultural community will become possible with greater participation and content creation levels of the community. As revenue is generated, operational processes should be built and become standardized within the company. At present Agrowbase would be competing indirectly against an rather vast dispersion of online websites, discussion boards, news organizations, social media websites, research databases, online books, and magazines. However, Agrowbase is not meant to compete with them in terms of content creation but convenient contextualization. The current competition seems fragmented and difficult to navigate. Wadding through all that information can be frustrating and time consuming for small farm operators. It would not be cost effective to remake the wheel in terms of trying to meet the same content creation capabilities as indirect competitors. Better to make our competitors informal partners that can benefit from our platform as well. We must develop ever better ways to link third party content to market segments in a straightforward and purposeful manner, linking the content entries to their original source sites outside the platform. This means third party content will probably be abstracted in entries in short form with context attributes, with links to the full source content leading outside the platform. Strategic alliances will need to be made that can enable legal and mutually beneficial schemes for information flows, from government, research databases, and
news agencies. In this way we can turn indirect competitors into direct suppliers and outsourced aggregators of information that will be forwarded to the Agrowbase platform for contextualization and targeting. The primary participant is the farmer, and the farming communities he or she is connected to. To draw this group into participating it will be essential to develop business tools (profiles for online marketing with search engine optimization), and simple information interfaces, that are convenient, reliable, and help farmers make more informed business decision (business intelligence). It is also essential that farmers be able to hold in depth conversation on a myriad of topics related to agriculture, and have ways to share their knowledge and expertise in a way which can be monetized (user generated content). Active engagement in content creation will allow the user to monetize their knowledge for the benefit of themselves and the community.
Value proposition:
Value proposition is missing purposfully, curently refining requirments. More to follow.
Channels - Marketing Plan:

Advertising and promotion resources will be distributed between three separate objectives: creating an online presence, urban and suburban presence among hobby gardeners, and rural presence directed at small scale farm operations.
Online Presence:
Priority will be creating a sufficient online presence through our websites landing page and social media to redirect market segments to areas where they can link to the Agrowbase software platform. Google Adwords will be used to target farming segments online. Facebook ads and YouTube ads may also be incorporated to bolster online presence. Partnership with prominent agricultural universities, government agencies, and bloggers might effectively extend links to our product. Developing this online presence can be done in-house on the cheap, or if sufficient capital is available, be outsourced to a capable online advertising company.
Rural, Suburban, and Urban Presence:

Secondary resources will be focused on physical advertising campaign locations, specifically rural regional areas with dense amounts of small farmers, and urban environments with sufficient inner city agriculture. The diverse consumer group within these areas of the agricultural industry can be made aware of this software though targeted advertising in trade shows, farmers markets, state festivals, urban community farms, small business mailing list, magazines, conferences, seminars, association meetings, and sponsor other popular community building events specific to localities. It is important to note that each rural or urban regional advertising campaign will be tailored to choice market segments within those specific regions, particularly small businesses. Developing a regional presence will entail an advertising expertise beyond the current capabilities of this firm; so advertising will be subcontracted to a capable advertising company on a regional basis. Regional contracts will be awarded that stipulate packaged advertising requirements. There will be a yearly bidding process for regional advertising. Employees and key executive officers will participate in some of the community building events organized by the advertising firms. When a certain tipping point is reach, and indications of at least a quarter of agricultural service and producers are participating in the Agrowbase software platform in some fashion, then we will define that market as sufficiently saturated and redirect advertising resources to other neighboring regions.
Customer relationship
Direct-Sales Force and customer service is mainly automated. Agrowbase is an automated business intelligence service which can recognize individual customers by their profile attributes and characteristics. Agrowbase will attempt to simulate a personal customer relationship and be programmed to fully help them with any online issues with clear straightforward directions and interface. It is also essential that the tools and interface facilitate connections between community members. User communities, online communities, allow users to exchange knowledge and solve each other problems. There will be several ways to interact with customer service through the Agrowbase software and conventional phone answering service will also be provided. The main thrust of customer and service technicians will be rotated from the design and programming development teams of the Agrowbase platform. Keeping a contingent
of programming professionals on the frontlines of customer problems will enable quick and systematic updates of the platform on a continuing basis. Further, billing and monetary transactions that occur through our software will be redirected through reputable online banking systems, such as PayPal, and will provide for those customer service problems.
Key Partnerships:
A Software Firm: To implement this software concept we will likely need to partner with a software development firm experience with Ruby on Rails software development. It is imperative that this concept be paired with a software firm who understand the challenges of implementing this business concept and can create a minimum viable product, and refine the product in development cycles of 3 months. There are a number of firms in the vicinity of Grand Rapids who might be able to meet this expectation. We are also open to the idea of Offered some equity in the company to in exchange for continued development at no or low cost, that way we can retain the original software development team and add a partner with critical skillsets to the endeavor. A university or government endorsement: An endorsement or partnership with an agricultural department of a college might add the credibility of the project. Michigan State University Extension might be a good partner; however their product development department has not shown much interest in the project without a substantive prototype and community already engaged. As of December 2011, there is little in the way of university support from MSU. However, Im still optimistic of a joint partnership, grant, or startup funding with a university or government agency might bring capital for initial development. Cooperatives and Association related to the agricultural industry: An endorsement or partnership with an association or cooperative of farmers might generate a quick turnaround for a customer base of farm profiles to test the initial releases of the web application.
Growth: Sustaining and Expanding Our Market

The key to this software generating revenue is participation and linking of numerous consumer and producer groups related to small scale farm operations. When that market as sufficiently saturated, we will begin research to expanding product
development for other scales of business operations in the farmer stakeholder segment. The likely evolution will to be to refine some value propositions for Midsize (regional) operations and Hobbyist consumer gardeners. The potential application of Agrowbase in the urban environment, particularly in large cities where urban agriculture is being expanded and garden hobbyist sectors are thriving, could further enhance market saturation of the software and link urban gardeners and rural farmers in more productive ways. Following an extensive use by urban garden hobbyist there is potential for greater active participation by Vendor who specializes in consumer products related to gardening. The ability to scale the scope of the software system quickly: As the software proves its viability at a local level its regional capabilities will also be tested for errors of context. The advertising system will be expanded geographically focused on large farming communities in the east and west coasts. When this market is saturated, neighboring state regions will be targeted until national saturation through the Agrowbase platform is accomplished. The ability to produce analytical reports & conduct independent in-depth analysis: If enough agricultural farmers, vendors, and government agencies are linked through this software there is great potential in the platform to track and forecast market trends in the full gambit of the agricultural industryand their interrelations related to food production. These trends derived from interactions within the software system could provide key insights into many agricultural industries. It is at the national level that enough data can be aggregated to produce valid market trend forecasting for financial and governmental sectors. The accumulations of agricultural data links related to business and e-commerce, the synthesis of user profiles (connecting various sectors of the agricultural industry) within the Agrowbase platform will enable the creation of journals and proprietary reports which provide statistics and market data which substantial revenues may be garnered from. The finical industries in particular would greatly benefit from source research into profiled buying habits and agricultural commodities trading at local, regional, state, and national levels. The number of links and detailed profiles will entail how comprehensive and trustworthy such statistics gathered from this data system could be. Government agencies and universities may be able to track complex interactions in the agricultural industry through the platform and use online surveys to subsidize their census efforts. Vendors might easily find their customer segments in the farming community and market to them in a cost efficient fashion. And lastly consumers may eventually be able to monitor the full chain of food production to make better informed more ethical decisions concerning the food they eat. A system such as Agrowbase may be able one day to link food makers and food producers in a straightforward and public manner to assist consumers in making food
choices based on ethical preferences. One day it may be able to easily show the local, regional, even national production origins of any particular food ingredient of a product and even link that ingredient to a certain farming profile. In this way it may be possible to quickly enable consumers, government, and private industry to determine the origins (true sources) of the food products they are buying; creating a more informed consumer. At this stage of development Agrowbase software system could have a positive impact on consumer behavior. Currently there is no convenient and time effective way of tracing back the component of most manufactured food products. A system such as Agrowbase paired to legislations that would compel full disclosure of food ingredient by food manufacturers would have the effect of increasing the transparency of food markets. Information in the form of subscriptions to monetized private sector reports and news reporting may be lucrative to model for revenue growth. Universities might be able to acquire a higher level of commercialization of their basic research activities through this system. Agricultural news organizations might be able to leverage another conduit to monetize their reporting from.
To move into international markets the software will need to be significantly updated and standardized. We believe such a platform could have value which extends beyond national boundaries. Among other capabilities it will need to have the ability to translate between different languages. In addition several hundred sister data sectors, will need to be set up across the globe to apply and enforce this standardized system of collecting and administering agricultural data. In each sector the same strategy of beginning local and building up to a national saturation point will be applied.
If this systems platform is successful for agriculture it can be customized and easily adapted to any other sector of industry. It is important to note that the power in this software is its ability to contextualize easily for its user and illuminate possible connections.
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Key Activities & Resources:

Implementation Roadmap
It will be critical to the implementation of a business concept to develop a (MVP) minimum viable product whose features and capabilities are prioritize based on the potential of initial revenue streams it will take to sustain the business. A professional quote on the software development of the full product features outlined in the concept, in the Ruby on Rails environment, is estimate put the cost of the platform around $25,000. AGB is currently in its early stages and would need to raise that capital to see through its platform vision. A more long term development strategy of breaking the system down into $5,000 development release stages might be a more viable approach to building up the platform with little capital. It should lower the cost of development significantly and release a minimum viable product into the market, more quickly, to generate revenue, and develop feedback from. This capital, along with any other capital the founders can crowd source, and wrangle from personal finances; will be used to fund software development of the MVP, any extra revenue will be saved for web hosting and marketing cost. The main sources of revenues that the platform might generate will likely be from advertising and service listing functions. Advertising revenues that can be garnered from the agriculture industry may be substantial; but dependent on marketing the product effectively.
Production costs:
A generic estimate based on the initial concept for the platform, to be developed in the Ruby on Rails programming environment, was estimated to be around $25,000 and take three months. Production cost seems to be dominated by the social integration features, and basic application structure. Release 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5
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Description Base App social integration Marketplace ratings/review engine contract engine research engine
Points 31 44 20 8 15 14
Cost $4,960.00 $7,040.00 $3,200.00 $1,280.00 $2,400.00 $2,240.00
Timeline 3weeks 4.5weeks 2weeks 1week 1.5weeks 1.5weeks

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trending engine TOTALS:
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$2,080.00 $23,200.00
1.5weeks 15 weeks
A more long term development strategy of breaking the system down into $5,000 development release stages might be a more viable approach; building up the platform in stages will require less capital initially. In modeling an effective development strategy, based on this scenario, it is essential to define a mix of features capable of generating initial revenue streams while providing enough initial value to the agricultural community to participate. It is also essential to be clear about business expenses, operating cost, and key administration functions.
Start-up Costs: Expenses and Operating Costs

The first release of the product should attempt try to stay within a $5,000 budget; which includes marketing and hosting cost. Hosting: The main operating cost related to Web App hosting is a relatively inexpensive. I plan to use web app hosting services such as Heruku and engineYard. Both are reasonably priced, based on traffic, and easy to scale in. Access to Herukus web app server, is $60 a month, and its features scale based on user traffic and database requirements to $200-300. Assuming the web app is slow going, with low traffic, and uncomplicated database requirements, it will be important to set aside a 6 to12 month reserve of cash to fund hosting fees, $360-720. Should user traffic be large, and the server requirements will need to increase; there should be adequate revenues pulled from the traffic, or subsequent feature rate hikes will need to occur to offset the hosting fund. Part time Administrative (Content Management): There will need to be content management administrator. Likely this will involves 8-15 hours a month, one of the founders can accomplish this at no cost. Marketing: The system needs to be marketed within a budget of $500. Marketing mix should include Google ads, agriculture websites, and local marketing. Additional creative marketing strategies should be brainstormed.
MVP Software Development Goals:

One of the main challenges of designing this product is deciding what features to include. The software development budget for the first stage release of the MVP should be under $3500. Development priorities should revolve around fleshing out the minimal database, interface requirements; and a few chosen abilities of the AgrowCMS, AgrowProfile, Agrowlearn, and AgrowMarket platform feature sets.
Scaling Plans: When to scale Agrowbase?

Scaling is a delicate and often controversial process between developers. The best strategy would be to go cheap to get something working that will scale for most projects. Then do load-testing and user load testing to figure out the points where scaling will be needed. With this data a timeline can be developed for when and what to scale. The following steps are a simple plan for horizontal scaling. In combination with this and in order to slow horizontal scaling it is smart to do vertical scaling. Vertical scaling is the practice of adding hardware to the server(s) in order to increase performance. The items most upgraded are: ram, hard drives, and processors. Generally it is cheaper and easier to scale vertically so that is normally the first course of action. Once the price tip point is met between scaling vertically and horizontally and it is time to take the next step of horizontal scaling. Now you have another server that you can buy hardware for if needed. Step 1: A virtual server on Heroku (hosting service) http://www.heroku.com/ Step 2: An instances on EngineYard (hosting service) 1 web app instance (virtual server) with multiple mongrels (processes) 1 database instance (virtual server) Step3: 3 instances on Engine Yard (hosting service) 1 web app instance (virtual server) 1 database instance (virtual server) 1 utility instance (virtual server) Scale out horizontally as needed. It is likely that Agrowbase will not grow beyond step3. If it does however, we must add instances where load is heavy. If the platform database is getting choked then boot up a new database instance. If the app is slow and user traffic is high, boot up a new app server. Services like Engine Yard take care of the load balancing for you so there is little to worry about.
Human capital: Inventive programmers and designers.

Where to look? 37signals job board, freelance switch, developer eventsMeetup , ruby, ebdepgr.
What to look out for: 1) If a developer/IT Professional is telling you that you need all enterprise level solutions RUN!!! 2) If a developer/IT Professional tells you that you should start with a complex server environment RUN!!! 3) If a developer/IT Professional recommends services like GoDaddy RUN!! What programming environment to build it in.
Technology Stack: - RoR (ruby on rails, version 3.0.3/3.0.5) - MySql 5 - Mongrel - Ruby 1.9. - PayPal integration
Licensing and patenting the systems design:

It may be essential at some point to protect intellectual resources such as the brand, copyright, customer databases, patents, and partnerships as this will constitute substantial value and licensing opportunity.
Persona Research & Prototyping:

Crafting a larger list of customer archetype personas for the software development team would also be beneficial. Seeking a deep understanding of the customer segments and what problems they have, we will get to know our customers well. Make sure the features and prototype improvements matter to customers. Eliciting feedback, and gauging customers reactions is key. Developing an in-depth flash mockup of the graphical design, and interface features is the essential next step. Defining minimum system requirements for functionality and customer engagement for the web be conducted in a prototype form. Once our
graphic prototype is aligned with customer feedback we will begin funding software development.
Financial Analysis:
Sales Scenarios and Projections:
An accurate sales forecast is difficult and is often an educated guess, because it depends on so many variables such as cost, competition, and how and where a product is sold. The main sources of revenues that the system will generate will likely be from advertising features and service listing transactions in the AgrowMarket functions. Advertising revenues that can be garnered from the agriculture industry may be substantial, but dependent on network effects. It is difficult to assess the revenues this platform would be capable of garnering without an experimental test case of the system; however we do understand the critical factors that will likely play a role in into successfully generating sustainable business revenues. We have designed a set of financial scenarios to play through these factors and devise solutions to overcoming the challenges of initial revenue generation. We have made estimates from several different perspectives. Scenario 1: Charging vendors a transactional fee for advertising. Advertising fees in platform systems are an effective mechanism for generating profit online. Linking vendors with potential consumers of their product and services effectively and in a cost effective way is a compelling value proposition in online marketing. The factors that excite vendor participation levels are not difficult to
predictthey seek a large numbers of leads (customer who may want their product) and systematical pitch their own value proposition to the consumer, and through attrition of large numbers eventually find the few who will buy the product or engage in the service to make a sale. Often online advertising systems rely on click through rates as a way of determining fair compensation. One of the key factors to enticing vendors to participate is to have a large group of relevant customer segments. If their customer segments saturate your platform space they will be naturally drawn in to look for advertising space. There could be little or no revenues the first year of implementation from vendor advertising, without a suitable number of farmer segments participating in the platform to warrant investment from vendors into the advertising system. It would be best not to rely on or expect substantial revenues to be generated by the advertising features of the system until enough user profiles are aggregated, and broad enough farmer segments are participating in the platform, advertising revenues will be highly dependent on network effects, the number of farmers and vendors participating in the system. It would be critical then, to implementation, to gain large numbers of particularly large farmer segments initially, on the level of hundreds to thousands to justify to vendors that advertising dollars would be well spent in this system. Such a predicament can be overcome if marketing efforts were directed at a large farming organization such as a farming coops or agriculture association in the immediate area. Having a large agricultural organization as a partner in development would lend the system credibility and enhance the pace of user aggregation. This is an apparent challenge, engaging enough farmers to participate, will need to be a priority in implementation. Similar software systems such as Facebook, and MySpace faced similar challenges initially; the key to overcoming them was offering a value proposition that was appeal to ever broadening customer segments; an automated advertising system that was cost effective for vendors, and having capital reserves to see the system through to the phase were they had just enough users to leverage network effects for the purposes of advertising. These three factors: having a broad value proposition that appeal to diverse customer segments; an automated advertising system that was cost effective for vendors, and capital reserves to keeping server and development operations going until network effects could be leveraged, is critical. Any implementation plan should hold these factors as key, and a deep analysis of these factors would be essential to devising comparable solutions to overcome the challenges. The most difficult to overcome will likely be the third factor, as the founders at this point have little capital to leverage; and what capital they do have will likely going into software development. Forecasting the amount of cash reserves to see development and operating cost through to the network effects phase of the platform is difficult to estimate. It is likely however that if the platform, being properly
marketed, cannot generate network effects in a year that the value propositions to the stakeholders will need to be redefined or the project abandoned. Scenario 2: Charging early adopters a recurring fee for a new service. To lower operational expenses partners will be working out of their homes, outsourcing work. They will also be providing their personal experience and equipment necessary for the initial research phases of the Agrowbase software at no cost to the company. A 2007 survey of farms in Kent County was estimated to be 1,343. According to USDA statistics, in Michigan, 20-30% of farms are reportedly to use the internet in some manner. This means a local market of (260-400 users). Of which it might be practical to bring in 10% of this market for beta testing, which would equal 40 customers. Premium service features in Information models and opportunity models need to be geared to cover at least web app hosting cost (scales from $300 to 1,000 a month depending on traffic). 40 people need to generate $1,000 worth of sales. This means $25 profitability from 40 customers per month to meet operating expenses. Projected Cash Flow would be seasonal and targeted at a community of early adopters in the agriculture community. Scenario 3: Charging early adopters a recurring fee for just service listings. Vendor and farmer service listings could have a small flat rate five dollar fee associated with them for posting. It can garner annually ($60) or monthly ($5) from customers of the service. If at least three hundred people from various segments of the agricultural industry in west Michigan participated, then we expect a moderate annual revenue stream, between $2,000-$5,000, mainly from service listings capabilities of our software.
Sources of Financing: Funding requirements:

The best financial position this company can take is to sell partial ownership of the Agrowbase software concept outright to another firm with deeper pockets and a robustly experienced software development team. However convincing a firm to do this would be easier if we had capital to subsidies initial development cost. In this predicament it might be best to seek out university research grants, public donations via Kickstarter.com, and submission in business modeling contest and event to gain exposure, interest, and potential partners to pool capital from. The upside to this approach is that the company can be built without relying upon personal funds, angel investors, or venture capitalists. Kickstarter Value Proposition: This project was not accepted by kickstarter as an adequate submission, likely due to the lack of a video and the weakness of our pledge gifts. Future submissions to crowed sourcing sites should include a video, and a
more creative gifting scheme. Below is a write up of the initial gifting scheme, future improvements should include more ideas for more tangible gifts. Supporters $1 Pledge: A heartfelt THANK YOU for supporting the idea and helping support the agriculture community. Believers $10 pledge: Your name and mini picture will be integrated into an interactive sponsor appreciation page of the AGB web application for life. Early adopters $25 pledge: in addition, ??????? Enthusiastic adopters $100 pledge: In addition, you will receive a Limited edition Agb - Linking Agriculture COTTON T-SHIRT. Early business sponsors $1,000 pledge: You will be featured prominently in the interactive sponsor appreciation page. You will receive free, no fee advertising, in our service listings and advertising system services for 1 year after launch.
Equity Stakes
Equity Partners with Key Skills: Software development firm: I intend to partner with a software development firm, who will earn a 5-20% equity stake in the company depending on quality of work, passion, and intent on continuing development and refinement of the web app features and value proposition through the first year after Launch. I think this will provide incentive to the company and create a steadfast partner and consultant until in-house abilities are generated.
Marketing Firm: I will consider sharing 5-10% equity with a marketing firm who successfully draws in large segments of farmers to the platform at a low costin a similar strategy as outlined in the marketing plan. If they can successful interface with large farming organizations and convince them, and their members to endorse the system at a low cost they will have earned the equity and continued employment as a permanent consultant until in-house ability are generated.
Exit Strategy:
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We intend to sell the majority of the equity in the company to a suitable angel, or venture capital investor after a viable web application has proven itself lucrative. These funds will be used to accelerate growth of the company. It is Mr. Saulics wish to bring the company to the place where he can sell the majority of equity in the company for upwards of millions of dollars, retaining only 10-20% of equity, a permanent seat on the board, and a permanent executive position to oversee the design and technology related departments for little or no salary.
Market Segment Analysis:

Stakeholders:
A journey like this begins by understanding farmers. A successful farmer has deep knowledge and broad local connections. The more connections a farmer has, the more information and opportunity they will likely have access to.
The agricultural industry is a multisided market of stakeholders which can be broken down simply into four interrelated customer segments: a circle consisting of farmers, vendors, government agencies, and consumers; which support vast arrays of diversified agricultural production niches, vendor services and products, varying levels of regulation and government oversight, population consumption levels; all of which have varying scales of operation, scope, and cooperation (local, regional, national, Graph 1: Stakeholder Relations
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and international).
Three interrelated segments constitute the main mechanism for effecting and forecasting market need: Simply defined vendor segments, government agencies (which also include nonprofits and universities), and farm operations constitutes a triangle that has a direct effect on food cost and production forecasts. The complex mixings of laws & regulations, population levels, product and service offerings, and consumptions rates constitute the determining factor of the eventual market needs which will be recognized and served.
Farmers: Mix and Scale Operations

Each farm has a mix of operations which serves market forces it caters to: The agricultural industry is full of a diverse array of agricultural operations nichestypes of produce they grow and livestock they rear. Each farm has its own unique mix of operations, with its own subset of vendors, levels of government support, and consumer segments it supports. This is indicated below in the customer segments row. The business decision to invest in a mix of market niches is made by the volition of the farm owners. Farm owners take on the business risk of production and executing farm operations to ensure production goals are met for a perceived vendor or consumer segment, with the intent of serving the communities. Table 1: Industry Stakeholders segments
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Each farm has a scale of operations it geographically caters to: The scale of operations further distinguishes customer segments not only in terms of farm operations but what vendor products, services, equipment, financial support, and government regulations they will need or encounter. This is indicated in the above table 1: Industry Stakeholders, in the Scale of Operations column. The table segments five characters of agricultural operations scale. It starts with consumers such as hobbyist gardeners; expanding outward toward locally supported small farm operations, mid-level regional operations, large interstate producers, and finally multinational operations. In all there are five farm operation scales based mainly on the vastness of the geographic markets they cater to. The majority of U.S. farms are smaller operations: As farm operations scale from small operations to larger ones the number of farm operations decrease. According to USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) 2010 agricultural census the majority of U.S. farms are smaller operations. More than 36 percent are classified as residential/lifestyle farms, with sales of less than $250,000 and operators with a primary occupation other than farming. Another 21 percent are retirement farms, which have sales of less than $250,000 and operators who reported they are retired. There is more personal servicing and less automated processes at the smaller scales of farm operations than the larger ones. As farm operations scale upward so to do sales and revenues. To make completive margins it is normal for automation to be incorporated more heavily into larger scale operations. This automation can be integrated in a number of ways, but it is primarily incorporated in terms of equipment and services provided by vendors. The cost per unit of produce decrease, sales and revenue increase; but the distribution infrastructure and transportation cost rise and
fluctuate, driven mainly by oil prices, which can be directly linked to fluxes in consumer food prices. With the greater levels of automation there are lower levels of transparency and oversight in terms of production procedures and methods. This is partially market driven as these procedures and methods may constitute industry secrets or proprietary systems that give market advantage. However, these standard operating methods and procedures may also lead to a lack of humane treatment of livestock and less scrupulous behaviors, such as dumping large scale production wastes in environments which cannot absorb the impact in a sustainable way. The more automated industrial equipment is incorporated into a farm operation. The less human operators are needed and the more controlled the farm environments needs to be to utilize the efficiency gains. All these factors make for a less transparent environment in food production as farm operations scale. Vendor Competition seems to grow until it reaches the interstate level, where the vendor competition then shrinks down to a few regional players that could serve these large scale segmentsin terms of distribution or service levels. In other cases large farm operations develop traditional vendor capabilities in house to further control costs. The complexity of regulation at large operational scales can be daunting and only fit for large firms to implement and oversee. As the geographic scale of operations increases so too does liability and consumer food risksincreasing the need of standardization of operating procedure and regulation. However, as farm operations scale there are fewer government agencies, regulatory bodies, and nonprofit institutions with the capability to conduct vigil oversight and enforce regulations. And it is often the case attention is administered only after large scale failures occur on the part of food producers or food makers (vendors) that threaten public safety. Therefore value propositions relating to the five characters of agricultural operational scale would be markedly different. The scale and mix of operations defines the character of each of these five farm operation segmentsthe number of vendors which serve them, the number of government agencies and regulations they follow, the number of consumers they serve geographically all relate to these two key factors of segmentation. According to this abstraction, illustrated in table 1, there are a total of twenty different segmented stakeholder groups in the agriculture industry. It becomes necessary then to choose a customer segment, or a mix of customer segments which would create an initially environment promising enough to generate revenue to sustain the Agrowbase business venture. Different segments have substantially different profitability and barriers. The vision of this system will eventually ask the software system to serve as many as possible in some way; however, initially we will start with the stakeholder segments with high volumes of farm operators and vendor interactions.
Initially we will cater Agrowbase features with the stakeholder segments with high traffic volumes of farm operators and vendor interactions. This would prioritize Agrowbase platform development for urban and rural garden hobbyist, small scale local farming operations, with a ceiling of mid-scale regional operations. It is clear that small businesses in the agricultural industry are the best target market to leverage with this software platform. According to the 2007 agricultural Census, Small farms account for 91 percent of all U.S. farms and more than half of the land in farms. In addition, 57 percent, of direct to consumer sales is from small farms. Operators of farms with value of sales between $100,000 and $249,999 are statistically younger than average farmer, are more likely to be full time farmers, and are more likely to already be using computers in their business. If we can convince this market segment that our Agrowbase software is legitimate and valuable to their operations, all others segments--including urban agricultural communities, will be naturally drawn to use the software as well.
Demographics:
There are important trends in the small farm business demographics that present challenges, constraints, and also opportunities. More than half of farm operators juggle more than one job. There is a greater segment 18% of women farmer emerging. Around 10% of farm operators have 4 years or less on their present farm, and might be actively experimenting with ways of increasing efficiency in their operations, marketing, and staying informed in their new farming communities. It is clear that this segments age demographics will challenge the proposition of serving a portion of the community online, as older age groups are often set in their ways and weary of technological nuisances of hardware and software developments.
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A little more than a quarter of the small business population might be less likely to participate in the web platform because of age demographics. In all categories of small business revenues, the age group of operators over 65, averages around 30%; the average age of farm operators in general is 57 years of age. This older demographics skillsets does not often include computer literacy, and past experience may make them prejudicial to incorporating online services if it is not simple and convenient for them to manage. I will not rule out that other participants in the farm, younger and more adept family members could still bridge the gap and help farm operators of this segment participate in the platform for business benefit.
National Internet and communication infrastructure is significantly developed enough to in rural areas to expect the possibility of participation by farm operators. In Michigan the same is true. According to 2007 USAD Statistics, nationally there was estimated to be 2.2 million farms; 57 percent of all farmers have internet access, up from 50 percent in 2002. Of those producers accessing the Internet, 58 percent reported having a high-speed connection.
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USAD statistics indicate that in Michigan, in general, 10-30% of farms are reportedly using the internet in some manner. According to 2010 USDA Statistics, in Michigan in 2010 there was estimated to be 54,900 farms. 63% of those farms reported having internet access. 38% reported using computers for farm business. 14% reported purchasing agricultural Inputs over Internet. 10% conducted some sort of agricultural marketing activities over Internet. 30 % reported conducting business with any nonagricultural web site. Primary Method of Internet Access included: 24% Dialup, 26% DSL, 13% Cable, 8% Satellite, 25 %Wireless, and 4% Other/Unknown. This means a regional market between 5,490 and 16,470 potential users. Of which it might be practical to bring in 5% of this market initially, which would between 275 and 823 users.
Customer Personas
Women Small Business Farmers:
The 2007 Census of Agriculture shows that women have a growing presence in U.S. agriculture. Women are running more farms and ranches, operating more land, and producing a greater value of agricultural products than they were five years ago. Of the 3.3 million U.S. farm operators counted in 2007 Census, 30.2 percent or more than 1 million were women. The total number of women operators increased 19 percent from 2002, significantly outpacing the 7 percent increase in the number of farmers overall. The number of women who were the principal operators of a farm or ranch increased by almost 30 percent, to 306,209 nationally. Women are now the principal operators of 14 percent of the nations 2.2 million farms.
When compared to all farms nationwide, those with female principal operators tend to be smaller both in terms of size and sales. However, women are more likely to own all of the farmland that they operate. Like farm operators overall, the majority of women farm operators are white. However, a growing percentage of female farmers are of other races or ethnicity. The largest number of women minority operators is American Indian, followed by operators of Hispanic origin.
The number of black farm operators who are women grew 53 percent from 2002, outpacing the 29 percent increase in the number of female farm operators overall. Women now comprise 14 percent of all black or African-American principal farm operators. Black farm operators tend to be older than their counterparts nationwide, with an average of 60.3 years, as compared to 57.1 years for U.S. farmers overall. A total of 37 percent of all black farmers are 65 or older, compared to 30 percent of all farmers nationwide.
The 2007 Census shows only 26.5 percent of all principal operators have been farming for less than 10 years, a decline of more than 10 percent since 1982. The 2007 Census of Agriculture shows 291,329 farms and ranches with a principal operator who began working on the operation since 2002. An additional 361,491 principal operators started operating their present farm within the last 10 years. People who are just starting their farming careers need to build networks of support, for advice to guide them in new experiences and challenges they encounter. The Agrowbase platform can facilitate these network connections.
Persona: Margaret Mainser the Organic Chicken Farmer
Margaret Mainser grew up on a conventional dairy farm in northern Illinois and always wanted to farm, but thought it was too unrealistic. Last year she and her husband Mark, moved from their hectic urban life onto their six acres in the rural communities and introduce their children to the rural lifestyle. It wasnt until they put together a couple of moveable chicken pens that they began to think more seriously about farming as a business. Once some of their friends tried some of their
pasture-raised poultry, Margies Grass Kickin Chicken was born. Initially, Margret had a hard time selling her produce (eggs and chickens) beyond the scope of her friends and relatives. Margret is not tech savvy, or particularly good at marketing her produce but through a software program, Agrowbase, she learned about while attending a state festival. Margret was initially apprehensive about trying the software, but after a few minutes of interacting with it on her home computer she found it easy to use and very straightforward. She appreciated the simplified user interface that allowed her to easily scan her region and find local associations, fill out forms, and link directly to urban chefs. She posted twenty of her chickens in the local online agricultural markets and got two replies from local neighbors. She was able to link up to a cooperative of chicken farmers who negotiate with big agriculture company for purchasing plans for grass fed chickens. At about ten weeks of age she transfer her chickens to a certified USDA approved poultry processor approved by her association, where they are packaged and flash frozen. Margret paid a small fee to join a grass fed chicken association, and her profile enabled her to pay that fee online and obtain the paperwork needed for her organic certification. Later that day she was chatting with other local members about the best practices in their farms. In the information section of the platform Margret reads a national news article about urban consumers becoming more aware and favorable of grass fed produce in their buying habits, she used it as a research source in a business plan. Margret intends to use the business plan to take a loan out from the local bank to expand her business. Margret emails the plan to associates for advice.
Older Small Business Farmers:

A long term trend observed in the Census of Agriculture is the aging of farm operators. The average age of the principal farm operator has increased roughly one year in each census cycle, from 50.3 in 1978 to 57.1 in 2007. The majority of farm operators are between 45 and 64, but the fastest growing group of farm operators is those 65 years and older. In addition to the more than 2 million principal operators, the new data show the 2007 Census counted an additional 1.1 million operators on farms. These second and third
operators on average are younger than the principal operators. However, this group of operators also showed an increase in average age between 2002 and 2007. Older farm operators on average produce a lesser value of products than younger operators. They are less likely to report Internet access and off farm work. Most of them have established farming operations only 4 percent report starting the operation in the last four years.
Persona: Bill Dow the Small Organic farmer

Bill Dow is a 51 year old small farmer. Bill started farming over 20 years ago and his Ayrshire Farm in rural Pittsboro was North Carolina's first certified organic farm. Sales to restaurants make up a large percentage of business for Ayrshire Farm. Bill sells to about 20 different restaurants and makes deliveries twice a week. A sample of the day's offerings includes lettuce, cilantro, rosemary, arugula, nasturtiums, and peppers. Bill sold over 18,000 flowers last year. Bill has spent years cultivating relationships with many of the Triangle area's top chefs. He works with them to determine what to grow for the season and provides a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. He often distributes the food in the early morning to beat inner city traffic.
Bill started using Agrowbase b so he could see more up to date listings of new regional chefs he might try to cater to. He found it easier sometimes to haggle online though web video than to drive all the way out to the restaurant just to get turned down. Other times he just lists his produce with pictures on the online markets and prints out the buyers sales addresses in the morning before making his rounds.
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External Environment
Market Analysis and Key Trends:
National Overview: The United States Agricultural Profile
In 2007, U.S. farms sold $297 billion in agricultural products while incurring $241 billion in production expenses. Income from sales increased 48 percent between 2002 and 2007, while production expenses increased 39 percent. In addition to receipts from sales, U.S. farms also received $8 billion in government payments and $10 billion in farm-related income in 2007. Compared to all farms nationwide, these new farms tend to have more diversified production, fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also work off-farm. In the past five years, U.S. farm operators have become more demographically diverse. The 2007 Census counted nearly 30 percent more women as principal farm operators. The count of Hispanic operators grew by 10 percent, and the counts of American Indian, Asian and Black farm operators increased as well. The census figures show a continuation in the trend towards more small and very large farms and fewer mid-sized operations. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of farms with sales of less than $2,500 increased by 74,000. The number of farms with sales of more than $500,000 grew by 46,000 during the same period. Census results show that the majority of U.S. farms are smaller operations. More than 36 percent are classified as residential/lifestyle farms, with sales of less than $250,000 and operators with a primary occupation other than farming. Another 21 percent are retirement farms, which have sales of less than $250,000 and operators who reported they are retired.
Small farms account for 91 percent of all U.S. farms and more than half of the land in farms. Operators of farms with value of sales between $100,000 and $249,999 are younger than average and are more likely to be full time farmers. Operators of farms with sales of less than $10,000 typically work off farm. The majority, 57 percent, of direct to consumer sales is from small farms.
Figure 4, 2007 Agricultural Census Charts 1
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Figure 5, 2007 Agricultural Census Charts
National Growth Potential: United States

The 2007 Census of Agriculture counted 2,204,792 farms in the United States, a 4 percent increase from 2002. The number of farms nationwide has been on a declining trend since World War II. The latest figure indicates a leveling of this trend, with a net increase of 75,810 farms. Despite the overall growth in farm numbers nationwide, not all states showed an increase. Eleven states saw declines in the number of farms while 39 states saw their farm numbers increase. Most of the growth in U.S. farm numbers came from small operations, where sales of no specific commodity accounted for more than 50 percent of the total value of production. Even though the total number of farms increased nationwide, many individual sectors of production including grains and oilseeds, horticulture, cattle and hog operations saw a decline in farm numbers. National Internet and communication infrastructure is significantly developed enough to in rural areas to expect the possibility of large scale participation by farmers and their operators. According to 2007 USAD Statistics, nationally there was estimated to be 2.2 million farms; 57 percent of all farmers have internet access, up from 50 percent in 2002. Of those producers accessing the Internet, 58 percent reported having a highspeed connection.
Conclusion: This journey begins by understanding farmers. It ends with the notion of a worldwide database for linking agriculture.
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Industry Trends
The 2007 Census found that 57 percent of all farmers have internet access, up from 50 percent in 2002. For the first time in 2007, the census also looked at high-speed Internet access. Of those producers accessing the Internet, 58 percent reported having a highspeed connection.
The 2007 Census of Agriculture also shows that women have a growing presence in U.S. agriculture. Women are running more farms and ranches, operating more land, and producing a greater value of agricultural products than they were five years ago. Of the 3.3 million U.S. farm operators counted in 2007 Census, 30.2 percent or more than 1 million were women. The total number of women operators increased 19 percent from 2002, significantly outpacing the 7 percent increase in the number of farmers overall.
The 2007 Census shows only 26.5 percent of all principal operators have been farming for less than 10 years, a decline of more than 10 percent since 1982. The 2007 Census of Agriculture shows 291,329 farms and ranches with a principal operator who began working on the operation since 2002. An additional 361,491 principal operators started operating their present farm within the last 10 years.
The 2007 Census of Agriculture indicates that the majority, 57 percent, of direct to consumer sales is from small farms. While the number of farms producing under contract declined 14 percent between 2002 and 2007, the value of commodities produced under contract increased by 55 percent, to $49 billion. The 2 percent of farms involved in contract production produced 16 percent of the total value of all agricultural products sold nationwide.
State Overview: Michigans Agricultural Profile:
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The National Agricultural Statistics Services reports Michigans Net farm income in 2008 rose 67 percent from last year to a record high $2.03 billion. That includes $166 million of government payments. The total agriculture output was $7.67 billion dollars, up 16 percent from 2007. Production expenses were $3.74 billion in 2008, up 9 percent from the previous year. Preliminary cash receipts from 2008 marketings of Michigan crops, livestock and livestock products totaled $6.61 billion, up 13 percent from 2007. Michigan ranked 19 nationally in total cash receipts. Crop receipts, at $4.08 billion, were up 18 percent from 2007. Increases were noted in the market value of field crops and vegetable crops. Livestock cash receipts were up 5 percent from a year earlier to $2.53 billion. In 2008, the top ten Michigan commodities ranked by cash receipts were milk, corn, soybeans, floriculture and nursery, cattle and calves, poultry and eggs, wheat, hogs, sugar beets, and potatoes. USAD statistics indicate that in Michigan, in general, 10-30% of farms are reportedly using the internet in some manner. According to 2010 USDA Statistics, in Michigan in 2010 there was estimated to be 54,900 farms. 63% of those farms reported having internet access. 38% reported using computers for farm business. 14% reported purchasing agricultural Inputs over Internet. 10% conducted some sort of agricultural marketing activities over Internet. 30 % reported conducting business with any nonagricultural web site. This means a regional market were we might expect between 10% to 30% to participate; which is between 5,490 and 16,470 potential users. However it might be practical to bring in 5% of this market initially, early adopters could be between 275 and 823 users.
Regional Overview: West Michigans Agricultural Profile

Figures created by Land Policy Research at the Land Policy Institute, Michigan State University, suggest that West Michigans agriculture is diverse, unique and strategically endowed. Its sales contributions to Michigans agricultural economy (28%), far exceeds its land base (14.7%), and its farm numbers (16.6%). The minor decline in sales and acreage between 1997 and 2002 was overshadowed by rapid gains between 2002 and 2007. The general decline in net farm income, over time, raises concerns about long-term viability. However, recent gains in the net farm income indicate strong ability of agriculture to rebound and be resilient.
The total economic impact of West Michigan agriculture (in 2007 dollar values) includes $579 million in labor income, $498 million in property-type income, over 26,000 jobs and $2.4 billion in economic output. A 5% increase in agricultures performance would create an additional $29 million in labor income, $25 million in property-type income, 1,300 new jobs and $120 million in economic output. Three counties within the eight-county regionAllegan, Montcalm and Ioniahave the greatest share of the regions agricultural acreage, containing 18.6%, 16.4% and 16.1%, respectively in the region. Allegan County also ranks 1st in total agricultural sales, with a value of $330
million in 2007 (normalized to 2000 dollar values), with over $205 million in livestock, poultry and their products. Ottawa County, tied for 4th with Kent County in total agricultural land for the region, and has the 2nd greatest value of sales for West Michigan, with $224 million (for 2007, normalized to 2000 values). This is due, primarily, to the large sales in nursery, greenhouses, floriculture and sod. Newaygo County, with over 75% of its land devoted to natural land types, has experienced the greatest increase in the total number of farms (an increase of 164) from 1997 to 2007, while at the same time experienced a decrease in average farm size, with total agricultural acreage only increasing slightly.
Local Overview: Kent Countys Agricultural Profile

The most urbanized county in West Michigan, Kent County, has the highest proportion
of urban/developed land, with 33% of the countys acreage devoted to urban/developed land. Despite the amount of developed land, which is concentrated in the southwest portion of the County, it ranks 4th in the region in acres for the production of grains, hay and seeds, as well as for other crops. For 1997, 2002
and 2007, Kent was among the top three counties in the region in crop sales, with over $114 million. Most of these sales can be credited to fruits, tree nuts and berries ($28.2 million), and to nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod ($52.7 million). Kent had total sale of $161.6 million in 2007, as adjusted for inflation to 2000 dollar value ($194.7 million in 2007 dollar values). From 1997 to 2007, Kent County lost more than 11% in number of farms and lost more than 14% in acres of farmlandthe greatest losses in the region over this time period.
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Competitor Analysis:
Direct Competition
The software industry servicing agriculture is segmented into specialty software which usually helps greese market interactions with consumers. There also exist disjointed listing services, marketed to particular groups in the same industry sector. Currently there is no direct competition by other agricultural software developers focused on bridging the agricultural community with an integrated online marketing, advertising, and learning tool. The product, as outlined, likely represents a resegmenting of a market, which will bring in new customers who have been left out of marketing and advertising online, due to cost and technical knowledge requirements. We believe existing online marketing products do not adequately fit their needs and budgets, and lower cost and new functionality will improve problem resolution within existing markets. We do not foresee this products functionality competing directly with any known product currently on the market; however its conglomeration of features may indirectly challenge some small specialty segments. For example one competitor, West Michigan Farm Link, conducts online sales of fresh farm good on a weekly shopping cycle. The site collects 5% of each transaction from both producers and
buyers to maintain software development and services. As a buyer, you only pay when you buy; as a producer, you only pay when you sell. While this has proven to be an effective service, getting in-between buyers and sellers is wrought with risks. The company must verify the product is good, which forces them to operate a warehouse as a distribution and pickup point. Although the service generates revenue, it limits the service offering to west Michigan, as it hinges on the producers ability to get the product to the distribution point before or after the online sale is made. We believe Agrowbase should not interfere with market dynamics by getting in-between buyers and sellers, nor should an online service be the police of product quality. The role of online tools should be to spark real world connections at little or no cost. Although it may generate revenue, getting in between market exchanges puts a company at risk and increases operating cost and liabilities, better to work interactions as listingswhere only the buyer and seller are responsible for the sale.
Indirect Competition
At present Agrowbase would be competing indirectly against an rather vast dispersion of online websites, discussion boards, news organizations, social media websites, specialty sales software, research databases, online books, and magazines. However, Agrowbase is not meant to compete with them in terms of content creation but convenient contextualization. The current competition seems fragmented and difficult to navigate. Wadding through all that information can be frustrating and time consuming. It would not be
cost effective to remake the wheel in terms of trying to meet the same content creation capabilities as indirect competitors. Better to make our competitors informal partners that can benefit from our platform as well. We must develop ever better ways to link third party content to market segments in a straightforward and purposeful manner, linking the content entries to their original source sites outside the platform. This means third party content will probably be abstracted in entries in short form with context attributes, with links to the full source content. Strategic alliances will need to be made that can enable legal and mutually beneficial schemes for information flows, from government, research databases, and news agencies. In this way we can turn indirect competitors into direct suppliers and outsourced aggregators of information that will be forwarded to the Agrowbase platform for contextualization and targeting.
Competitive advantage:
It is in this vast online dispersion that their combined competitive weakness rest and Agrowbase competitive advantage stands. The Agrowbase web application interface can increase convenience and save time accompanied with wadding through online world to find meaningful connections. The Agrowbase software platform can contextualize the many dispersed data systems and news agencies into a better consolidated hub for agricultural enthusiast, business interest, and government agencies. Through the Agrowbase interface users can receive an individualized dataflow that will pertain to their unique concerns in their unique regions. In this way Agrowbase will be greatly enhancing the agricultural industries ability to communicate and become informed in a timely manner. This disposition is analogous to creating a customizable and interactive ESPN for agriculturebut beyond just news it would be enabling the user to create content and connect with business interest online.
Future Competition
Future competition will likely arise from other software firms that, in seeing such a convenient platform, will uncountable try to copy the business model. The key to distinguishing our software and maintaining our market segments is through capable user interface design, reliable and secure database management, and quickly expanding the platforms leverage across national and international markets. If a tipping point can be reach in the amount of market saturation all other potential competitors will be unable to gain a foothold into the market.
Conclusion
Brent Saulic: Im currently the lone entrepreneur, financier, and project manager of the business concept known as Agrowbase. Agrowbase is meant to be a web application for small farmers. In theory, Agrowbase would be multisided web platform, serving farmers, vendors, and government agencies. But the majority of free features and automated services of this web app would be targeted at small farm operators. I have come to realize that it would be beneficial to build a strong passionate team to share the workload with and work through the many challenges that will arise. I am not looking to garner capital (money) from these partners. I am looking for skillsets that complement my own, people who are willing to invest their sweat and hard work for equity in the business idea, and eventually profit from the endeavor if we succeed. Im in need of passionate individuals, volunteers, who want to be a part of something bigger than themselvessomething that will serve a great cause by enhancing communication in food production across the worldstaring here in Michigan. I am searching for a diverse group of dedicated partners (1-4 people) willing to invest their free time and energy into implementation this business concept. I'm not going to sugar coat it; it may involve hard work, likely eating up a chunk of our free time in the next couple of months. There are no guarantees, there is a chance for success but it will depend in large part on our efforts. There is currently no legal business formed; all the intellectual property and business modeling designed so far belongs to me, with the intent of incorporating the company as soon as some form of web application code or business partnership is ready to be implemented.
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AGB Agrowbase Business Plan 01-2012 BrentASaulic

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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Web Application Business Concept for 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMERY VISION & MISSION: 4 1/11/2012

All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY: FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS: THE TEAM 6 6 7 4 5

PROJECT BACKGROUND: MANAGEMENT PROFILE The Team: 7

Management Organization: THE BUSINESS MODEL Vision: 13

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CHANNELS - MARKETING PLAN: 17 Online Presence: 17 18

Rural, Suburban, and Urban Presence: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP 18

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Competitive advantage: Future Competition 48

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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture CONCLUSION 49

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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Chief Executive Officer:

Chief Technical Officer:

Chief Design Director:

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Chief Researcher and Industry Specialist:

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Board of Directors/Advisory Board:

Recruitment and Selection of Employees

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Employee Incentives and Compensation:

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Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

The Business Model

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Channels - Marketing Plan:

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Rural, Suburban, and Urban Presence:

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Growth: Sustaining and Expanding Our Market

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Key Activities & Resources:

Cost $4,960.00 $7,040.00 $3,200.00 $1,280.00 $2,400.00 $2,240.00

Timeline 3weeks 4.5weeks 2weeks 1week 1.5weeks 1.5weeks

All rights Reserved by Brent A Saulic

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

trending engine TOTALS:

Start-up Costs: Expenses and Operating Costs

MVP Software Development Goals:

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Scaling Plans: When to scale Agrowbase?

Human capital: Inventive programmers and designers.

Agrowbase Linking Agriculture

Licensing and patenting the systems design:

Persona Research & Prototyping: