Original published date : 06-06-2022 Edited : 15-12-2023 **** ### Preface This is an introduction to my journey into Agri-space. Following sections are slightly edited version of the post published first on our internal communication tool, Basecamp on Aug, 2020. **** <h2>Introduction</h2> When I envisioned to enter the Agri-space as an entrepreneur. It was never about solving every problem that conspired in the field of agriculture. I am an upper caste, middle class and engineering graduate male. My background features the life of a Govt. services family. I couldn't relate with farmers and help wipe out their problems in agriculture of the last 70 years. In my time, working with many logistics clients in product design roles. I gained substantial field experience on how "logistics" works. It looked simple; movement of cargo from point A to B. But, the context in which the movement happens changes time to time. It was my core understanding while trying to design and help build software for multiple companies and seeing them not get adopted. It is the year 2018, when I ventured into my first startup for a brief period of six months. It was about urban commuting with few of my school friends. It fizzled out during the shock of demonetisaton as our customer, state road transport corporation was forced to change its focus. In the aftermath, while working as a contract product designer.I slowly trickled into the space of agriculture through a chance interaction with a logistics veteran. It started my inquiry. He mentioned the large quantity of commodity movement he did for FCI, the public procurement agency. It struck me then that we could approach this space with a different mindset, logistical services. My belonging to agriculture doesn’t matter as much as the service we will try to offer. <h2>Formation days</h2> There was a barrier to reach out to farmers and sell my uninformed idea of solving their market access problem through integrated logistics. So, for a good half year I had been refining the thesis and value proposition. This path led me to discover multiple concepts and helped me crystallise the value proposition. Fine tunning economic concepts and business models that I didn’t know could be applied for agriculture. Yet, the chance to enter the field was elusive without any connections. <h2>A Game of chance : Cold outreach</h2><p>I am a big believer of cold emailing and reaching out to interesting strangers on the internet. I have written to multiple people in the past. Our company’s existence happens to be one such shining example of outreach turning into an opportunity.</p><p>I am an avid listener of podcasts and was listening to the Amit Varma’s “The Seen and the Unseen” podcast. An <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://seenunseen.in/episodes/2018/9/16/episode-86-the-state-of-our-farmers/">episode</a> which dropped on 16-september-2018 was in Hindi. It happens to be the only episode in Hindi. The guest was <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://twitter.com/gunvantpatilh">Mr. Gunvant Patil</a> of Shetkari Sanghatana (SS) .</p><p>I can write a whole story on Gunvant Patil but that is out of scope for this post. In brief, he is a current member and ex-general secretary of SS in Maharashtra. SS is a farmers organisation founded by Late Sharad Joshi.</p> The ideas discussed in the episode inspired the heck out of me and led me to write to him a week later introducing myself and the idea I had been working on. He replied back to me a month later saying that we would meet once he is back from USA. We did meet in Hyderabad on one of his visits in October and he invited me to an event of their organisation in the month of December. That was when I decided that it was now or never to enter the field. December 13th, 2018 was the day I committed to start Pipehaul at a motel in Shiridi after attending the death anniversary celebrations of Sharad Joshi. Gunvant helped me gain the confidence and the contacts to enter Nasikh 1 year later and start our procurement in 2019. Rest, you could say was history. Today, Gunvant happens to be one of my closest and most trusted people. He was the guiding light behind our ideologies at Subjimandi.app. I am writing this story in the introduction to inform you that we may or may not be successful. But what got us till here is people taking a chance, lending credibility and believing in our approach. We won’t be successful because we have a brilliant insight or have the money but becasuse we align with the market in a way that benefits producers and consumers in a far superior manner. <p><img src="https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/c146718f-b293-4b27-a6ba-1eb56edf403a.jpeg" alt="Receipt of Motel"></p> <p>My social and financial status provided me the opportunity to spend the time to convert this concept into a company over a longer than usual duration of time. So, our ideas are not our strengths if they just stay with us. They need to manifest into bigger than just ideas.</p><hr><h3>Epilogue : Status update</h3><p><img src="https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/a04dbab5-9b98-4826-b490-4e74c673a29e.jpeg" alt="Subjimandi|Left"></p> <p>We stuck to the model but iterated in the execution. I will write more about it in detail but for now having found an exit through an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://blog.farmart.co/farmart-acqui-hires-subjimandi-app-to-scale-its-food-supply-chain-across-india-63ac7278bb66">acqui-hire</a>, my role from a founder has transformed into an operator contributing in agri-space. We stuck to the spirit of punching above our weight by constantly <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.subjimandi.app/blog/why-we-are-building-a-new-mandi">writing in public about our work</a> and thought process. This helped us find a bunch of fellow participants who have cheered our wins and supported us in tough times.</p><p><img src="https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/b6e33657-ec83-4336-a717-16862dff4508.jpeg" alt="Pipehaul Journey"></p><p>I would not say that we were successful but we also <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.subjimandi.app/blog/team-which-built-subjimandi.app/">didn't die a silent death</a>. It was a journey that gave <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.subjimandi.app/blog/team-which-built-subjimandi.app/">each one of us more than we would have thought and helped us become part of agri-space</a>.</p><hr> Tags: #startups #subjimandi #agriculture #entepreneurship #published