Calling All Food and Agriculture Entrepreneurs!

Grow-NY is a competition for startups with growth potential in food and agriculture. This includes:  physical products, hardware or software technologies, food, fuels, fibers, raw materials, and processes or systems. The startup must operate in the Grow-NY region for at least 12 months.

Deadline for submissions is July 15.  Finalists will get help in the form of mentorship, pitch training and a 3-day business development trip to the region to network with potential partners.

$3MM Dollar Ag-Tech Competition – $1MM Top Prize

2019 winners included a wild and wonderful range of ideas:

• Real Eats, a healthy meal delivery service – $1,000,000
• Dropcopter, automated pollination of orchard crops using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) – $500,000
• Tiliter, software that uses AI and machine learning to automatically identify products (this is a Red Delicious apple, not a Pink Lady apple) – $500,000
• Capro-X, a system that turns Greek yogurt whey into bio-oil – $250,000
• Combplex, laser technology that eliminates mites that can devastate honeybee hives – $250,000
• The Perfect Granola, a food company that helps those in need and empowers the underserved – $250,000
• Whole Healthy Food, a natural way to reduce your body’s carbohydrate/calorie intake without changing your diet – $250,000

Continuing to Build on Unique Local Strengths

Source: The History Center

I not only went to Cornell twice, but I was born in Ithaca NY.  So I have many happy memories of visiting my grandparents there as a child.  For most of these halcyon years the Ithaca area was thriving, with companies like Smith Corona, National Cash Register, and Ithaca Gun.  But when these companies left or went out of business in the 70’s and ‘80’s, they took a large chunk of the local economy with them.

So it was extremely heartening to discover how enterprising and resilient this area actually has been over the years.

This fascinating history of Tompkins County’s entrepreneurial roots from the History Center speaks to the full range of companies that started and flourished here over the years.  Flour mills, confectioners, woolen mills, pottery works, iron bridges, iron works, calendar clocks, tobacco and cigar manufacturers, glass works, organs, bicycle chains, guns, typewriters, egg incubators, sauerkraut, silent films, pocketbooks, turbine components, cash registers, Moog synthesizers, high precision measurement tools, beer, and chocolates.

The region has always had wonderful growing conditions (the reward for its terrible winters). It also offers excellent water sources and hardworking people.  And because only Cornell University has both a top 10 agriculture program and a top 10 computer and information science program this university is uniquely able to stimulate research and innovation.  The combination is fertile, shall we say?

Grow-NY funding is provided by Empire State Development through its Upstate Revitalization Initiative. The competition will be administered by Cornell’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement.

With the Grow-NY competition now in its second year, I’m looking forward to seeing what this partnership will accomplish.

Medify basically collects these databases in one place and allows people to search on the exact criteria they are looking for.

Source: Medify

Streat decided to go after the consumer market as a B2C play – the need was clearly there for patients and their caregivers. At that point the question became which medical conditions to focus on – such as Alzheimer’s, asthma, autism, breast cancer, kidney disease, leukemia and lymphoma – so they could build out their databases accordingly. Their VC was strongly encouraging them to focus on one of these segments as an initial target audience.

Startups have a particularly urgent need to get the target right for their innovation, because it affects how they build out their product or service, and they have to show results before they run out of money.

But sometimes its hard to evaluate which target is the most viable. There are often many to choose from.

A framework for thinking about targets

Here is a framework I developed with my various clients over the years to help startups assess the attractiveness of possible targets.

The high level criteria required for a viable target are straightforward:

The real power in the framework is that it allows you to build out each of these four buckets with further qualifying criteria to suit your business situation, as in this example.

When you find you have two or more equally viable targets, consider what the tie-breaker criteria should be. For startups, it’s often how quickly you can get to market. If you are concerned about showing traction to your investors, a medium-sized target that is willing to buy now is more attractive than a large target that requires a lengthy sales process.

In Medify’s case, once we spoke with the physicians, hospitals, insurers, drug manufacturers and advocacy groups who made up the health care ecosystem, and aligned our findings against this framework, it became clear which conditions – and therefore which target segment – had the most potential for their innovation.  Once they landed on this, they could solidify their value proposition and build out their product offering.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

This post was originally published by the American Marketing Executive Circle.

Their Idea to Plan innovation workshop is geared towards UW researchers who want to commercialize their work. It focuses on the problem to be solved, the customer segment, the market reach, and the value proposition of each teams’ innovation. The final session concludes with the development of a business pitch. Throughout the process each team is supported by Entrepreneur In Residence mentors.

I’d presented on value propositions at CoMotion before, as part of their Fundamentals for Startups series. In preparing for that session I wanted to understand what different frameworks were in use, as I have found nobody seems to agree on exactly what they should include. I went through my personal files, conducted a literature search, checked out previous UW presentations and found some great examples:

You have almost certainly heard of the framework articulated by Geoffrey Moore in Crossing the Chasm:

For (target customer – beachhead segment only)

Who are dissatisfied with (the current market alternative)

Our product is a (new product category)

That provides (key problem solving capability).

Unlike (the product alternative)

We have assembled (key whole product features for your specific application).

Michael Skok, Partner at _Underscore.VC, and Entrepreneur In Residence at Harvard Business School, builds on Moore’s framework and extends the discussion on value propositions in an excellent article in Forbes. His version is a little shorter:

For (target customers)

Who are dissatisfied with (the current alternative)

Our product is a (new product)

That provides (key problem-solving capability)

Unlike (the product alternative).

Steve Blank, Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and academician and launcher of the Lean Canvas movement, uses an elegantly simple sentence:

“We help X do Y doing Z.”

All these frameworks are useful, but one of the things that surprised me was what many value propositions didn’t include.

What about emotional benefits? What about costs?

When I worked for PepsiCo we were trained to express our value propositions in terms of emotional benefits, and how those in turn could tap into fundamental need states. One example is Pepsi tapping into teens’ desires to forge their own identity by positioning Pepsi as the soft drink of choice, thus repositioning Coke as the default drink for adults. The science is beginning to show that all decision makers are influenced by emotional and often unconscious factors, so it makes sense that all companies consider this.

We were also taught that a value proposition answered the consumer’s question “What I get versus what I pay” – this price can be time, money, perceived risk, potential loss of face, etc.

Think about the last time you bought a car, for example.

Did you say to yourself, Wow, this car drives like a dream, I’ll take it.

Or did you think, Boy I love this car but it’s going to require a lot of maintenance and my spouse will kill me if we have to bring it in all the time. Is this a smart decision?

Neither emotional benefits nor “price” was reflected in the value proposition statements I was seeing. So I developed a version that did:

For (target customers who have a problem – include their emotional struggle)

We offer a (category you compete in/with)

That delivers (benefit – emotional or functional)

Because (reasons why they should believe you – specific proof points that differentiate you).

All that’s required is (what the customer pays in price, time investment, risk, etc.).

As you develop that one, crisp value proposition statement that will galvanize your organization and help you attract investors, you’ll want to choose the framework makes the most sense. If your audience is wedded to a particular framework by all means use it.

But don’t let that stop you from innovating and create a framework of your own, even if you have to do it in the privacy of your own office.

Six questions to consider

1. What are the emotional and even subconscious benefits of your product or service? What fundamental need states can you tap into?
2. What is the mental and emotional price you’re asking your target audience to pay, and is their internal ROI high enough for them to take action?
3. How does your value proposition vary for different target market segments?
4. What are the value propositions for your purchasers, end users, channel partners, and any other stakeholder groups you need to satisfy?
5. What’s the value proposition for the individuals who need to say yes – your Sales team is certainly thinking about this. Are they heroes at budget time? Do they risk losing their jobs if they buy your product or service and it doesn’t deliver as expected?
6. How does your value proposition change as people buy and use your product over time? Buying a gym membership is a lot different than going to the gym. Just sayin’ …

Anyone who would like to see my value proposition presentation, feel free to download it from my website. I would love to hear from any of you who are exploring this question.

This post was originally published by the American Marketing Executive Circle.