2019 - In-House
Croptomize set out to provide every farmer with the necessary tools to stay competitive in today’s grain commodity markets. The Croptomize app was launched to bring grain marketing tools to farms of all sizes. Think Robinhood for farmers.
Team
Jaine Hanson - Co-Founder
Deanna Lahre - Co-Founder
Alec Hogstad - Designer
Ryan Peterson - Designer (Modern Logic)
Brian Krohn - Product (Modern Logic)
Regardless of your marketing strategy being aware of current prices is a non-negotiable. The watchlist feature is the home screen for the our product. Market information can come from many different places, our watchlist functionality gives users the ability to consolidate live price data from local grain buyers and larger commodity exchanges.
For the average farm (~1,500 acres) just a penny in price fluctuation can represent $3K in revenue.
Farming is big, family business. There are 2 million family farms in the United States. About 700,000 of specialize in commodity grains representing annual sales of more than $99 Billion. While globally, corn production has increased, the US has lost market share - primarily to Brazil & Argentina - creating a more competitive grain market.
Most farmers stick to cash markets but some leverage the opportunities (and take on the risks) of the futures market. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the price of grain commodities. Futures are generally impacted by macro events while cash markets are more heavily influenced by local factors. Storage capacity, transportation costs, and local supply & demand all play a role.
As with all markets you need to be very weary of who you take advice from. Grain is no different, there are endless talking heads making price predictions. Some may be genuine, some not so much. You need a way to cut through the bullshit.
Aptly named, the B.S. checker allows a user to test the validity of price predictions from the pundits. A user chooses a crop, a timeframe, and enters a price prediction, Croptomize provides a probability of that price occurring.
