Sprout Ag

⚫ Four Reasons for AgTech Companies to Invest in Product Design ⚫ We’re dead serious about design as one of the most important tools that can drive—or drown—your product. Here are the main reasons why: 📈 Increase feature adoption If users can’t tap, scroll, close, or even understand how to access a feature, it's effectively dead for them. Thoughtful interaction design is needed to ensure that your features are not just available but usable and engaging. 🚀 Enhance user retention Product design helps identify pain points and opportunities for user engagement. With it, you can personalize the customer experience and make users not only engaged but also habitual in using your app. 🤑 Market your product cheaper  A well-designed product is more recognizable, easier to use, and more trustworthy. Over time, you’ll inevitably need to overhaul a poorly designed product, so why not invest in good design from the start? Good design reduces friction in marketing efforts and enhances user trust and loyalty. 💚 Make your app loved  While marketing efforts aim to sell, design is about the users. By focusing on user-centric design, you inherently drive product adoption. Effective design solves user problems intuitively, creating a more compelling and valuable user experience. Another tip—don’t be afraid to completely revamp your design. In practice, users adapt quickly to new designs. They become attached to the value of the product, not necessarily the design itself. Any objections?

🌱 4 good moves that helped Sprout Agency thrive 🌱 Here are the lessons that Sprout Agency learned the easy way. 👩🌾 Buy rubber boots first, laptops second. One of the best things that we did was to travel to our customers regularly and write detailed reports, sharing findings at all-company meetings afterward. Not everyone can go to the fields often, but everyone should be interested in learning from the findings. 🌎 Localize it. Spend time and effort on building an effective localization system. Don’t just outsource translations without establishing an in-house quality-control system. Terms are specific, and a random agency might fail to deliver quality—once we found that "peanuts" were translated into Spanish as "miseria", or misery. If you’re building a global product, it’s a must. 🚣♂️ Row against the industry flow. It’s difficult to count how often we’ve heard that our communication style is too 'simple' and straightforward, not proper for an industry like AgTech. However, work means connecting with people, not robots—at least not yet—and communication style is ultimately about brand. Don’t try to sound like a corporation just because the industry is dominated by them. 📲 Go for digital marketing. Farmers are just like other people; they watch YouTube, use TikTok, and Instagram. Yes, printed agricultural outlets still exist, but user acquisition through Facebook also thrives. And we know how to leverage it. Other non-trivial tips for AgTech companies?

🥊 4 fuck ups that helped Sprout Agency mature 🥊 We’ll explain step-by-step what Sprout Agency does, starting with the lessons learned the hard way. LinkedIn is a place where everyone fails gracefully, but that does not work so in real life, right? 📴 Test your app in the field, not in the office. Your app won't work in the field the way you expect. There will be poor or no connection, it might be raining, or it might be so sunny that the interface will be barely visible. Additionally, the device screens might be too small, and experienced farmers may not be accustomed to tapping small, fancy buttons. 😱 Developing a great app is not enough, you need to market it. Don't expect that just because you made a great product, everyone will rush to use it. For one of the apps we worked with, it took 1.5 years to gain momentum. 🤖 AgTech experience does not equal culture fit. For many positions, experience in agri-tech is nice but not obligatory. A developer or PR person can thrive without it. Yes, you’ll need experts, but a system of knowledge exchange and motivation to learn is more important. 🐌 AgTech is a marathon, not a sprint. There are seasons, and there are unpredictable weather conditions. You can't outpace Mother Nature. Farmers are stubborn; you need time to persuade and build relationships. Everything takes longer than usual, so don't expect to impress everyone overnight, including your investors. Any objections?