GREENTECH: How to scale an AI satellite tool to make agriculture more sustainable, with Will Wells (Hummingbird)

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Hello dear Entrepreneurs changing the world for the better,

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Episode 19 is out, and it is for all those who are into scaling up an AI tech product!

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Starting and growing a tech company is never easy, especially if you are trying to have a high impact on a global market like the food and agriculture industry.

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Developing an AI technology is a very fancy and trendy topic, but you can only be successful if you find a real paint point to solve, so

- how should you best try to find product market fit in such a busy, technological and competitive market?

- how much funding should you raise?

- how long should you try before you decide to pivot?

- how should you expand and internationalize: should you go in attractive but expensive markets like the US?

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Well, these are all questions that we are going to answer in today’s episode.

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I am very excited to receive our guest Will Wells, founder and CEO of Hummingbird Technology, an artificial intelligence SaaS platform that helps food and agriculture business to be more efficient and sustainable. They use drone and satellite enabled data and imagery analytics for example to help reduce the chemical usage of farming

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Started in 2016 and they are already in the commercial scale up phase with 60 employees in 10 different countries. They are in their Series B funding and raised 20 million $ so far, and they should reach break even next year.

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Will prepared a list of 💡8 Do’s and don’ts about 💡

- raising funding,

- finding product market fit,

- expanding globally in markets like the US,

- pivoting from B2C to B2B!”

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​Click here for the link to all podcast platforms & the resources of this episode.​

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And as usual, your promised newsletter perks below 😄

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MY FAVOURITE AND MOST INSPIRING PARTS

- When we discussed how tricky it can be to expand in markets like the US, Brazil, and Russia, we had a very insightful talk about what you should do or avoid:

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DO'S & DON'TS

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Do raise more money than you need. Even the best companies are better off with 18 months of cash in the bank than 2-3 months of runway left. If your company is healthy and you can, try to over raise. You are much better off with that safety net.

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But… don’t take anyone’s money, especially if there are terms attached you wouldn’t be comfortable with when your chips are down. The right investors will give you strategic guidance and will accelerate your journey. The wrong ones will hold you back.

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Do solve a pain point by aiming for the jugular - go to where there exists the best product market opportunity for your business, and where you can have the most impact solving the problem and pain point you intend to alleviate.

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Don’t just chase after the easiest or most opportunistic short term revenue opportunity. Long term, you can’t escape the fundamentals, and these short term measures can be expensive distractions.

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Do follow your heart on an early pivot, even if it’s not what you set out to do. If you know something’s not right, you can only fix things by making a big change. Over the past few years, Hummingbird has gone from being a drone for farming play, to a fully fledged satellite data analytics engine for global food supply chains. Don’t be afraid to switch your entire business model if its needed.

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Don’t ignore the US early on if its your best market, just because it is hard or expensive. If it's your most attractive market, it's just that.

Hummingbird is based in London, UK but has broadly speaking 20% of its revenue in Australia, Brazil, North America, Russia and Ukraine.Therefore international expansion has been a massive theme for us since inception.

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But do know that the cost and time burden of having people in far away jurisdictions is not easy. The management overhead of running a team in Australia, getting IP protection in China, or establishing a legal entity in Russia is significant, and can be an enormous distraction.

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Will Wells and Repack:

• Will Wells on Linkedin
• Hummingbird’s website​

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Resources and recommendations from the episode

• Masters of Scale podcast​
• ​The Lean Startup book

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🙏 WANT TO SUPPORT MISSION FIRST? 🙏

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You'd be fantastic and very helpful if you:

• Forward this newsletter to the entrepreneurs around you,
• Send me your feedback (hit the button reply and tell me: "What do you like about it? How is it helpful for you?")
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Have a nice listen to the episode and see you in two weeks for the next episode and Do's and Don'ts :-)

Keep up the good work,

Gilles

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