Post by Jennifer Neujahr, MBA

One of the things I appreciate most about Kyle Barnett is that he asks questions that make you think. His recent CropTalk article, "Product Market Combination: How New Technology Reaches Growers at Commercial Scale," captured one of the conversations Ted Buis and I have with almost every company we work with. The past few days as Ted and I've been walking the aisles at the AmericanHort Cultivate show, talking with friends, growers, manufacturers, and technology developers, that conversation has been playing over and over in my mind. There are some incredible innovations on display. But I keep coming back to one question: Can the grower make money? If I were launching a new technology today, I wouldn't start with the product. I'd start with the spreadsheet. It's probably the hardest work because, at the beginning, many of the assumptions are still unknown. But if you can't build a credible economic case for the grower, even the best technology will struggle to gain traction. Over the years, I've seen products succeed not because they were the most innovative, but because they solved an expensive problem. They reduced labor, lowered substrate costs, improved yields, increased consistency, reduced risk or delivered enough value that the economics were impossible to ignore. Technology opens the door. Grower economics determine whether anyone walks through it. Thank you, Kyle, for capturing this idea so well in your article and for continuing to elevate these conversations across our industry. I'd love to hear from others. What's the most compelling technology you've seen this week and can you clearly explain the grower's return on investment? #NextNextNextNext Step Solutions #Cultivate26 #GrowerEconomics #Horticulture #CEA #AgTech #Commercialization #CropTalk