“Don’t allow yourself to have excuses is one of the biggest things in building a business or in your life in general.”

— Aaron Magenheim

Agtech has been used as a buzzword a lot lately as the farm industry moves to digitalization. But there's more to this than just growing food with the latest technology and equipment. Advanced technologies can also be used by farmers to gain an edge when it comes to attracting customers and building relationships with them over time.

Aaron Magenheim, an ag-tech veteran, has been helping farmers and entrepreneurs around the globe leverage this arena. Along with his co-founder and partners, Aaron built Agtech Insight and Growers Insight as a consulting platform to help agribusinesses, food companies, and investors navigate the evolving food industry with less risk and more profitability.

Listen in as Justine and her co-host Lisa Johnson as they interview Aaron on what agtech means and how it impacts the food industry, the importance of traceability, how blockchain can be integrated in the food space, how to be culturally competent, benefits and challenges of having a startup accelerator, and the three factors that can help you build a market.

Connect with Lisa:

Lisa Johnson is a leader in food loss and waste - focused on agricultural production. She is a seasoned horticulturist with a broad range of experience in local, organic, sustainable, conventional and biotech food and agriculture. Lisa’s research has aimed to understand the loss of edible vegetables. Understanding constraints from the growers’ perspective has been critical: always encouraging people to incorporate more growers' voices in their work. Lisa is fortunate to be able to work with some of the most forward-thinking specialty crop growers in the country, as well as non-profits, governments, start-ups, industry and the academy.

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Connect with Aaron:

Aaron is an entrepreneur working globally across the Agriculture and technology nexis specializing in Go-to- Market strategies; farm operation innovation planning; and advising corporates, investors, governments, NGOs, and startups through successful AgTech integrations and best farming practices across the supply chain. Aaron has been a co-founder of AgTech startups in both hardware and software development with global operation as well as has become a leader in the AgTech movement and speaks to groups around the world.

Connect with Agtech Insight:

Connect with Growers Insight:

Website

Episode Highlights:

01:16 Finding Global Opportunities in Agtech

07:43 Defining Agtech

11:31 Blockchain in the Food Chain

14:09 The Importance of Product Traceability

18:57 Looking at the Picture

22:09 Execute and Achieve Results

27:25 All in the Attitude

33:02 No Excuses

37:48 Building a Market in Agtech

40:08 Benefits and Challenges of Startup Accelerators

Tweets:

@jreichman is joined by her co-host, Lisa Johnson and this week's guest Agtech Insight CEO, @AaronMagenheim to talk about leveraging agtech to build a thriving market and a competitive business. Listen in! #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #foodtech #agtech #biotech #blockchain #accelerator #successfulfarming #digitalization #peopletransformation

Inspirational Quotes:

08:22 "Agtech is all about anything digital and agriculture in food." —Aaron Magenheim

18:37 "When they don't know where a product came from, it affects the entire industry, sometimes for weeks at a time. It's very difficult to challenge so traceability is super important." —Lisa Johnson

21:12 "As an industry, we're typically reactive instead of proactive on these things… A lot of times we're running at the things that we need and we have to keep our business in check instead of looking at how this fits into the bigger picture of where our business is going." —Aaron Magenheim

27:18 "Business is done differently and it's important to be culturally competent to be able to understand how they do business." —Justine Reichman

28:26 "Don't worry about what people say and accept the culture and go in with the excitement of a new experience." —Aaron Magenheim

32:38 "Sit back, watch, and learn, and then participate because it's so important to be mindful of other cultures and routines and the way that people do things." —Justine Reichman

33:27 "Don't allow yourself to have excuses is one of the biggest things in building a business or in your life in general." —Aaron Magenheim

34:18 "You always got to try everything twice. Not once— it's got to be twice because the first time you might have a bad experience and the second time might have been great." —Aaron Magenheim

39:16 "It can be a challenge but you have to have a process in place to get to that financial piece and then leverage the relationships that are out there." —Aaron Magenheim

Transcriptions:

Justine Reichman Good afternoon and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman, with me today, as my Co-Host is Lisa Johnson. She is a consultant and researcher. And I'm so pleased to have you with me.

Lisa Johnson Thanks Justine. Nice to be here.

Justine Reichman Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me. And as our guest today is Aaron Magenheim and he is a Global Food and Ag Tech consultant.

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Justine Reichman So are we. It is great to have you here. I'm excited to talk about Ag Tech and Food Tech and all things that go within that scope, so there's a lot to talk about as we started to talk before this podcast. So I'm excited for you to get to know everybody for them to get to know you. And maybe before we start just so our listeners can get a better idea of who we're talking to, you can maybe tell them a little bit about who you are, and what Global Food and Ag Tech consulting does.

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. Great. Thanks. Aaron Magenheim, I grew up in my family's irrigation business in Salinas. I started selling Ag technologies about 12 years ago and kind of opened up a unique opportunity to start traveling around the globe, as Ag and Food Tech started becoming a popular thing in 2014. I've been able to travel to Asia about 70 times and Latin America 15 plus times, Israel, Europe around the globe, consulting, speaking at events, working with governments and clients, really just getting to know what's going on how people solve problems in different parts of the ecosystem and different parts of the world. And, you know, today we have two businesses, ag tech insight, we do kind of that global ag tech, food tech consulting side of things, we have a global team work across the ecosystem. And then we have a newer business called growers insight, where we focus on really helping and building operational strategy for larger farmers, food companies, and governments and just larger entities to help them actually utilize all these great tools that wehave today.

Justine Reichman Wow, that is all encompassing.

Aaron Magenheim You know, we just find opportunities that build teams and expertise to be able to, you know, help fill holes in the industry. And so it's been a fun and unique journey and built a lot of friends and things along the way.

Justine Reichman So you said your parents-- you said this is your family business? Did you say?

Aaron Magenheim My family had an irrigation business and lead us. And so I grew up in that which exposed me to everything, farming, food, but I've been able to kind of I exited that really 12 years ago and I've been able to kind of expand, you know, outside of Central California to this global opportunities.

Justine Reichman Wow, and it seems like you've grown this astronomically, like three fold, two fold.

Aaron Magenheim Well, you know, I went to the first Silicon Valley Ag tech conference 2014. And the only reason I was there was because I was at a conference in Salinas a couple of weeks before that. They said, "Hey, you need to come to Silicon Valley." And I said, "I don't go to the city. I don't like, you know, it's just too much to deal with. I'm a country boy." They got me to come. And I set up a booth with all this stuff that I was reselling at the time. And I had, you know, all these Google people and startups and VCs, I didn't know what a VC was. I was like, what's a VC and you know, it's a new world to me. But they came to me and said, the stuff you're selling is, you know, 10, 20 years old technology. Do you know what a smartphone is, like, what's wrong with you? I go, Yeah, I know, what's going on in my personal life, but you know, our industry like, yeah, you know, this is your coding with MS DOS. And, you know, that's been out of the picture for 20 years. So anyways, it's been just a unique opportunity to take kind of my roots, but then, you know, expand significantly beyond that.

Justine Reichman That's amazing. That's great. So now you've been doing this. And so how did you go from, you know, you were in this sort of backwards world, right? And you took a leap of faith and you went to this new world, because you got a little sort of peek at it in Silicon Valley, where you felt like you-- it sounded like, where am I, right? So what was that transition like for you?

Aaron Magenheim The wave just kind of took me. I was not expecting it at all. Like I said, I show up to this event, you know, a week beforehand, they said, "Hey, there's like 50 people registered." I don't know if anybody's going to show up. They sent out 70,000 emails. And we had like, almost 300 people show up because it was really the first like, Ag tech focused event around the globe. And so, you know, next thing you know I'm getting calls and emails and I mean, I said, I have to start a new business to separate my existing businesses and what I know from this whole crazy world and I don't know what it's going to look like. So the next thing I know, hey, can you come and speak at this event in Japan and then in Latin America and just kind of expanded. So it was just things coming in to me. And at that point, Ag Tech was pretty much Monsanto at the time buying Climate Corp for almost a billion dollars in late 2013. So all of a sudden, everybody says, "Ooh, there's muddy here." I was one of two people from Ag at this Ag tech event. And it was like that until maybe three or four years ago. None of your food companies had VC, ARBs, or, you know, nobody was looking at this technology thing from the industry. And so it just kind of pulled me along, I said, Well, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I'll put someone to run my current businesses, and, you know, just learn and work with hundreds of startups and hundreds of VCs, just to understand what's going on. There's not much money in any of that we found, but you know, it's a great learning curve. So a lot of it's just kind of pulled me along. And so, you know, we call ourselves the OGs of Ag tech, you know, because we've been in it like, 8, 10 years now. And so, you know, those of us have been in this industry for such a long time, there wasn't a whole bunch of people around this. So if you were from the field, or new farmers, like everybody wanted to talk with you, so I was just kind of a lot of right time, right place, and I was homeschooled from fourth grade through high school, which gave me a lot larger opportunity to look at the world in different ways. My dad started his business when I was 13. So I was his first employee, and, you know, so I was able to kind of say, hey, this makes sense. I'm gonna do that, that does it. And so I was able to just kind of jump on the wave and say, you know, I'm in a good place. Let's see where this goes.

Justine Reichman Wow. I love that. And it's so fun how, I mean, my mom started her business in our dining room table when I was a kid. And I worked in every aspect of her business until I was VP, right, for years. So I mean, I can see that. I can see you doing that, then that kind of resonates with me. But getting back to food tech and Ag tech, and all things having to do with this, you know, for those listening, and those watching, and Lisa coined it when she said, you know, we got to ask what is Ag tech? And what is food tech for the people listening? So, you know, I'm gonna give it to Lisa here, because she was the one that said, you know, we really got to start at the beginning here.

Lisa Johnson We probably need to do that. Yes.

Justine Reichman So, you know, if you could, would you humor us for those listening and those watching? Because, you know, I think sometimes we take it for granted that we know what we're talking about but we got listeners and viewers that sometimes want to chime in and listen, because we create a level playing field for everyone. So if you would.

"Agtech is all about anything digital and agriculture in food." —Aaron Magenheim

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. So I mean, Ag tech, you know, it means a lot of different things. Ag Tech is a newer term, Precision Ag is an older term. So Precision Ag came around maybe 30 years ago with GPS on tractors, it was Precision Ag. So they're still you know, depending on where you go in the world, and if you go to Latin America, it's Agro, if you go to Asia, it's agri tech, you know, and a lot of Europe is agri tech, and here's just Ag Tech. We tried to get a copyright on it in 2014 and decided that we probably wouldn't be able to coined the phrase for ourselves but, yeah. So it can mean a lot of different things to us. So until about three years ago, I said ag tech is all about anything digital and agriculture and food, anything digital, that's ag tech, that's food tech. It's creating, collecting information, it's using different tools to aggregate and understand what it means and presumably make decisions off of it. But now, you know, you also have this biotech so I still call it biotech seed breeding, chemicals, fertilizers, bio pesticides, all of that. I call that biotech for agriculture, but you know, biotech of course goes into people and animals and other things as well. So some people say ag tech is, you know, all encompassing animal or animal breeding seeds, genetics, etc, including the digital space, some people just consider the digital space. Sso for this conversation, I think let's say ag tech is, you know, anything kind of in the digital realm that has to do with, you know, food animals food tech would be, you know, anything in that same realm that has to do with more post processing side.

Justine Reichman So wait a second. So where is food tech as it relates to Ag tech.

Aaron Magenheim So we perfectly say food tech is like post farm gate. So ag tech is going to be anything that happens on the farm. Once it gets into a processing facility, once it's bagged, once it's in a clamshell now becomes food tech because it's being stored. It's not on the plant anymore. It's not a live animal. It's being transitioned to something else. And so that's where you know, we consider food tech. Some people will say, you know, food tech isn't going to be chopped lettuce. Well, it's going through a transformation. So it should be, you know, it should have a different term, but typically it's pre-- it's like to farm gate or post farm gate would be more food tech. And so there's a lot of gray areas. I mean, you know, a lot of these industries, you're growing lettuce, you're chopping lettuce, you're wasing lettuce, you're, you know, packaging it. And there's different pieces in that supply chain as well.

Lisa Johnson So if you're a supply chain or logistics company, and you're using blockchain, that might be considered food tech?

Aaron Magenheim I would consider it food tech, unless they work outside of agriculture and food as well, then they might just call it supply chain technology or something along those lines. And so that's where there's some, you know, distribution, like, you know, there's a lot of crossover that can happen there. But you can dissect this stuff, a billion different ways but from a high level, you know, if you say whatever, once it's done being grown, and it's being moved to some sort of different process or a different location, then, you know, let's give it a new name.

Justine Reichman Okay. So before we move on, Lisa, I gotta ask the integration of blockchain in this for those that are unaware of what blockchain is. How would that integrate.

Lisa Johnson Yeah. I would love for Aaron to talk more about that, because it's not even in my realm.

Justine Reichman You brought it into the conversation I had to ask.

Aaron Magenheim Blockchain is fun, because, you know, like drones and robots in 2016, everybody thought it was going to just take over our entire supply chain, and we've seen it fail multiple times. Blockchain is a very heavy technology. It's very hard to implement, takes a lot of technology, a lot of tools, it's very cumbersome. So we look at-- we have traceability, like, Okay, you want to have an idea of where your lettuce was grown, you know, which lot it got, you know, washed with, and so if you have a problem with the store, you can trace it back reasonably well. Blockchain would just be another level of that. It's not any more information necessarily. It's just saying that when it got washed, it's not just someone saying that it got washed, writing it on piece of paper that going into a system, it's actually having like a read write ledger in the back, basically, you know, guaranteeing that this happened. And so there's a lot more kind of technology mechanisms that go into it. And you know, there's some places I think the biggest opportunity for blockchain and Ag is more developing countries and using it to verify that product was the right product that it's real honey, and it wasn't, you know, cut or paying people were in places like Argentina where you don't have a stable current. So blockchain and cryptocurrency work together. YouTube search, and I'm sure you can find a lot to dive into it further. But, you know, traceability, blockchain is basically just add another level on top of that, but the thought that we're going to go in and blockchain in the end, every part of our supply chain, or our business is just not feasible today.

Justine Reichman So Aaron, you just led me to like another really curious topic, traceability.

Aaron Magenheim So this is fun, because there's some government regulations for traceability that are supposed to be in place by 2026. And so everybody's like, Oh, that do, you know, traceability deals. And what it comes down to, is that a majority of the traceability for fresh produce that they want, is already being done, because, you know, you could pretty much figure whatever the government does, it's already been done by the industry a few years beforehand. Because, you know, I mean, they had to protect themselves if there's E. coli outbreak you didn't have anything in place, well, you know, you're gonna get sued for a whole lot more buddy, if you can't pull this stuff off the shelf and don't know where it came from. So

Lisa Johnson Farmers go out of business for that reason, right?

Aaron Magenheim Exactly, and lose consumer trust and things along those lines. So, you know, industries put a lot of this stuff in place, but every organization, you know, uses different types of traceability. So there's food safety traceability, you know, there's global gap, there's primus. Tthere's these different food safety traceability, auditing and kind of platforms that are used by certain grocers. So a lot and if you go send to the EU, or you're sending to China, there's a whole nother kind of suite of requirements that they have. So, you know, IBM has tried to get into the deal with Walmart, that's, you know, not gone as well as they thought over the last few years. But so everybody's kind of trying to rethink it. So, you know, traceability and it can mean something different, like as a consumer, I'm happy to pay double for certain products. And you know, my wife will bring home, you know, there's some crackers a few weeks ago, she brought home, they tasted great. It said, you know, full visibility, transparency, you know, this and that traceability. And so number one, I don't have a QR code, so I have to type in their email address or their web address, which is just crazy in today's world. So putting a QR code on the package, so I could just snap it, and then it takes me to their website. Okay, great. So to them traceability meant that I could go to their website, they would have, you know, their commitment. Okay, well, that doesn't mean anything to me, really. I mean, it's great to say that, but show it to me, prove it to me, and then they source everything. So they had a list of 10, 15 different farms that they sourced stuff through. So you could see a little picture of the farm and, you know, a couple sentences on why they're sustainable, and what there's, you know, traceability stories, and then I went to each one of those farms. I mean, it was hard to even find what state these places were located in. Nonetheless, I couldn't tell which field, which crop, when it was harvested, you know, what was it like, I want to know more information. So to be as a consumer, and we're seeing this more and more, especially follow Asia, if you want to see consumer trends, Europe used to be, but it seems like Asia is kind of taking the consumer trend thing over, but I want to know, at least which field that came from, give me a picture of it, tell me who harvested it like, you know, connect me with the people that own it with, you know, with the people that harvested it, and things along those lines. So traceability can mean a lot of different things. And sustainability, it could be Hey, you know, sustainability metrics, but you know, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors that can be put in there as well, and a lot of it comes down to we just don't collect the information well enough from the farm, or anywhere in the supply chain to be able to, you know, share that information. So traceability, again, it could mean a lot of different things but I think fundamentally, you know, it's getting better and better. It's being driven by the consumer by retailers.

"When they don't know where a product came from, it affects the entire industry, sometimes for weeks at a time. It's very difficult to challenge so traceability is super important." —Lisa Johnson

Lisa Johnson Yeah. Historically been a term used in food safety. I think it's probably most importantly used in food safety. So for example, if there's an outbreak of illness, and the FDA can relate that to a fresh produce item through giving the people affected a lot of surveys. Let's say all the people ate tomatoes from a certain restaurant chain. Well, you know, that's important. But unless they know where that tomato came from, they have to shut down the entire tomato industry, which involves the loss of all the tomatoes already on trucks and route arriving at stores and everything in the field. So in order to avoid having that happen, traceability is in place. And like Aaron said, it started with the industry to ensure that that happens less frequently. So they can actually pinpoint, you know, those tomatoes went to this restaurant via this truck. It's from this field from this farm. And in some cases on very sophisticated farms, you can even tell who was involved in the harvest. And in that way, you know, maybe that field and everything associated can be shut down. It's a more targeted recall. But, you know, when they don't know where that produce came from, it affects the entire industry, sometimes for weeks at a time. So it's very difficult challenge and traceability, super important.

Justine Reichman I'm curious, do you find that the need or the quest for that was driven by the consumer or by the business.

"As an industry, we're typically reactive instead of proactive on these things… A lot of times we're running at the things that we need and we have to keep our business in check instead of looking at how this fits into the bigger picture of where our business is going." —Aaron Magenheim

Aaron Magenheim it's been mostly driven by the retailers, you know, the grocers, and, you know, some of the bigger food companies because, you know, the reality is that they have insurance to cover those types of situations. But if you have a couple of problems, and insurance has to pay out more, and nobody wants people to get sick. So, you know, it's been mostly driven. I don't know that, you know, I mean, I guess a bit by consumers because it's in a newspaper, you know, when we have big E. coli outbreaks like we did, you know, like we have in the past, you know, that everybody knows that that's a problem and then nobody wants to go eat at Chipotle because, you know, they figure that that was the deal. The hard thing with traceability is that most companies look at it as sunk costs, especially at the food safety side, like well, we just have to do this to satisfy our buyers so the next people down the street, and we're going to do that, you know, pretty much the bit above that we have absolutely have to do to get our insurance and keep people happy. What they don't look at and what we spent a lot of time looking at is getting better information and tracking better, like this lettuce came from this lot, like this five acres of this 200 acre ranch in this region that grows lettuce. To get that level of information and to track it better, as well as how many people were harvesting, you know, and what inputs were put, you know, when we sprayed, when we did certain cultural things like there's business value around collecting that information as well, as an industry were typically reactive. So Walmart says, if you want to sell us leafy, you have to use IBM's food trays platform that happened a few years ago, nobody knew what it meant. I don't know if they still know what it means, but you know, that was a requirement. So all the farmers said, Well, okay, well, we have to use this, what does it mean, nobody really knew what it means, but they're being reactive to it. Instead of saying, "Hey, we know that these things are coming down the pipeline. If we collect better information, we'll get better analytics for our business, we can make better decisions around different activities that we're going to do, it will actually make us money." But as an industry, we're typically reactive instead of proactive on these things. So there's a lot of opportunity to actually, you know, leverage these regulations, or these requirements, or even suggestions to, you know, improve our organizations. But, you know, a lot of times we're just kind of running at the things that we need to and we have to keep our business in check, instead of looking at, hey, how does this fit into the bigger picture of where our business is going?

Lisa Johnson Right. I want to pedal back for a second and hear about if we can, Aaron, how did you feel confident shifting from, you know, a career in irrigation to suddenly being a global leader in animal ag tech, fresh produce, and all these other, you know, dairy, all these other areas? What steps did you take or who did you lean on to make that shift?

Aaron Magenheim I've, you know, just come across lots of mentors through the years. I also, you know, so that's one piece is just finding people that you connect with. And typically, it's randomly, it's not like, I'm going out looking for a mentor, like, it's just someone you click with. And it's interesting, because I kind of reflected on this a few months ago, and I said, Yeah, seems like I end up having, you know, 1, 2, 3, close mentors and I work with them for eight months, a year, maybe two years, a couple of them, I still talk with a little bit more. But as I evolved ans my businesses evolve it up, have a kind of, you know, different conversations. And so people just kind of ended up showing up. I guess another, you know, another thing is just I really look at how can we help solve a problem, and who are the best people to do this. When we started consulting full time, six years ago, I said, you know, I don't want to just bring a team in that says, hey, here's your problems, half of the time we spent was for us to learn your business and, you know, now you know your problems. And here's a couple big ideas on how to fix them. I wanted to really build a team with the best subject matter experts around the globe to solve problems, not just point them out, but actually build, you know, build a step by step process to execute and show results. And so I think it's been a cumulation of building that global tea with, you know, people like yourself, Lisa, to bring in as very best specific subject matter experts in different areas, instead of me saying, Well, yeah, I know a little bit about food waste, you know, I could figure it out. And then that combined with our growers inside businesses just focused on let's execute, like, we don't need to tell you, I was on a phone with a new client earlier. Someone in their organization that's not real excited about us coming to work with them in a month. He's like, consultants come in here, just tell us 90% of what we already know, but how do you fix it. I go, well, we focus on how to fix it. So I think it's just been a lot of listening, understanding where the opportunities are, vetting those out and then surrounding myself. You know, my philosophy and our businesses are built around building good ecosystems and people and businesses, we're not going to do everything but we bring in the right tools or the right people to make sure to execute. So I think a lot of it also came from growing up in my family's business and having to figure out resources and growing up, you know, and four h and homeschooled where I had all these different resources I want to go learn about that. It wasn't pick up a textbook it was go to library. Let's find the books that are interesting and then let's go find Someone that's a subject matter expert and talk to them about it. So, I mean, I started learning that at fourth grade. And so I think that's a lot different, just where I go to. I pick up the phone and call people to get questions answered, rather than look at Google. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, where do you go for your information. So, yeah, it's just been a bit of a journey, and, honestly, I mean, you know, I like to push myself way outside of my limits, and my comfort zone. And those are just things that I think my parents helped instill in me, and, you know, I've had people around me that support that as well. So whether it's personally sports activities, or business, you know, kind of pushing beyond that stuff. Like if you're comfortable, you're doing something wrong in my book, like, Yeah, but that's not normal for our, for our culture, especially this country is kind of pushed a little bit, you know, but at the same time, I really just like to kind of ask some of the crazy questions. And some of the stuff that we talked about years ago, people were like, you're crazy and now it's, you know, I said, Hey, 2014, atleast 7, 10 years before robotics could even be close to be commercialized. It's been eight years, they're getting closer. Yeah. Another interesting thing as three years ago, if you walked into any farm or food company pretty much, and tried to talk about company culture, and, you know, people behind the business, you will get laughed out the door. And now, I mean, 90% of our conversations, like just in that two, three year period, so things are shifting, and you got-- I think it's just a lot of it's just like global traveling, and not just being stuck in a box and, you know, and just really understanding what's happening out there. And then looking at how it can affect your own life.

"Business is done differently and it's important to be culturally competent to be able to understand how they do business." —Justine Reichman

Justine Reichman You know, to that end, I'm curious, because you've traveled, I think, somewhere in Asia 70 times and somewhere else, I kind of lost track on that. But I know that it was a lot. You know, how did you prepare to go there to become culturally competent to understand their traditions and understand the way that they do business? Because working in Asia, whether it's Japan or China or going to Mexico, business is done differently, and it's important to be culturally competent, to be able to understand how they do business.

"Don't worry about what people say and accept the culture and go in with the excitement of a new experience." —Aaron Magenheim

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. You know, it's interesting, because me growing up, you know, in California, we have Hispanics, and we have white people for the most part. You know, so I kind of grew up in a bit of a sheltered lifestyle. I did farming and I didn't leave the country till I was 26 years old. And, you know, and once I did, I said, this is great, you know, and so I can pick up and if I need to, I mean, end of the year, I had a partner say, hey, you need to come to Puerto Rico for our one hour meeting. And I'm like, you know, Puerto Rico is not a far stretch, but it's still different. You know, within a week I was there. I mean, I booked a hotel. Uber is like, the best thing around, because, you know, you could get around, but it's really just that, I mean, I go to places that I have, I don't know, a single person, maybe I'm seeking an event or, you know, I have an agenda but I guess it's just been a don't watch the news. Don't worry about what people say and just, you know, I mean, if you accept the culture and go in, under, you know, with the excitement of, hey, this is gonna be a new experience. It may be good and may be bad, I've had both but, you know, I'm gonna go experience something different. I'm gonna go check this out and, you know, I'm going to do and hopefully it turns out, and that's about it, you know, which is interesting, because I came from a family that my mom would plan every minute of every vacation. What we were doing, just overplan it a year and ahead of time, which is great for some things, but I'm like, hey, yeah, let's-- last two years ago, my house burned down and I said, you know, I've had enough, next day I was in Mexico, I just flew down to Mexico. Yeah, so it's just like, I think it's just a matter of not, you know, not having to worry a bunch and not having super high expectations either because if you go into something with really high expectations then you might get disappointed but if you go ahead and say hey, this is gonna be cool, I'll learn something and you know, worst case scenario, I lose something that you know, that's just that's how it goes.

Justine Reichman Okay.

Lisa Johnson All in the attitude.

Justine Reichman All in the attitude. I mean, I know from like, certain experiences that like when you go to some places are more formal, right. You know, you need to wear a tie in Mexico City just for example, you know. I know that when you, you know, they go like this in some parts of the country as a hello versus this. Simple things like that, and I know that like, you know, the way that they do things in some parts of Asia, you know, it's a little bit different than here. So that was kind of, I mean, I haven't done, you know, I've done some business there, but I found it to be, you know, I was stepping back a little bit to kind of listen to see how I should respond. That was my-- that was just the way I did it. Because I wanted to hear how people were speaking to each other. You know, as a New Yorker, I'm not from California, I'm not quite as late and I can just be a little bit-- I can be direct, you know, and that can be oftentimes perceived as abrasive or a little bit more, not as friendly, you know, just a little bit more get abrasive, right. So I watch myself because I know myself like that. But when you're laid back, like yourself, you're probably already waiting to, you know, being more laid back and a little bit cooler and just want to get to the point, you know,

Aaron Magenheim It's a lot of personal growth. I mean, I'm, you know, typically very leader, very forward. And I realized that when you travel like this, no, you step back, and you just let--

Justine Reichman You did the same thing I did.

Aaron Magenheim I had to do the same thing. Because, you know, I mean, I would typically come at, hey, this is what we're doing. And then I look around, like, wait a minute, they're like, yeah, that guy's not from around here, you know. And so, I mean, in other things, like, you know, Asia is Asia when you're in America, but my wife is from the Philippines. I met her when I had a business over there. But Philippines is similar to Thailand, similar to Vietnam, but there's still some big differences. But id you'd go to Japan was the hardest place that I've been to in Asia, because, like, it's just so proper, like, I felt like I could walk down the street the right way. And then you go to China, and it's kind of in the middle. And so you know, it's like we kind of until you start traveling, you think that Asia is Asia and Latin America is Latin America, you know, there's so many differences. And so I think it's the big thing, you know, they say this about weddings all the time, and I think it goes with anything is that nobody else knows what is expected and what's supposed to happen. And so if you just kind of go into it, like let's watch, let's learn, and then I'm going to start picking things up, you know, you could get a lot of ways. But you can't be hard on yourself because, Oh, I said hello the wrong way. Like, people are happy to communicate with you and figure things out.

"Sit back, watch, and learn, and then participate because it's so important to be mindful of other cultures and routines and the way that people do things." —Justine Reichman

Justine Reichman I think exactly what you said was like, you know, you sit back you watch and learn, and then you kind of participate. Because it's so important to be mindful of other cultures and routines and the way that people do things. So I think that was really important. You know, your perspective on the way that you shared it, because I thought it was me, because I was an abrasive New Yorker.

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. You know, I don't know, I once I started traveling, I just kind of got hooked. And I mean, I think it's something that everybody needs to spend more time doing. I mean, don't because the airline flights just keep going up. But you know, the other side, I don't have excuses. I mean, you know, I have four kids, I, you know, my youngest, he was a year and a half old, and we took him to Costa Rica. And so you can do things like, I think it's also like, just don't allow yourself to have excuses is one of the biggest things just in building a business or just kind of, in your life in general. It's really easy to say, well, it's snowing outside, I don't want to go get on my bike, or, you know, when I travel a lot people say, Oh, have you looked at the, you know, the state website that tells you, you know, what the level of terrorism is or something in different states, you know, or in different countries. Like, oh, you're going to the Philippines, you know, they've had bombs and, you know, it's a red level, and I'm like, Okay, so I've done that a couple times. You look, okay, they're red, come back and look at the US were red too. So, you know, you can go and worry about all of these different things that are going on. So, you know, I think it's just, you know, really just having the interest and the let's go try it. You always got to try everything twice, not once, it's got to be twice because the first time might have just been a bad experience, and the second time might have been great.

"Don't allow yourself to have excuses is one of the biggest things in building a business or in your life in general." —Aaron Magenheim

Justine Reichman Well, before we wrap up, I'm just curious. So you know, you have these two consulting companies, if you will, that, you know, you have, and I'm curious in the food tech and the Ag tech space, where are you see things are headed in the next few years? And I don't know what else Lisa, you know, wanted to talk about, but I know that we are, you know, just we have just a few more minutes. So I just wanted to make sure that we talked about what the future looks like, and what your thoughts are on that and anything else Lisa wanted to discuss.

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. You know, the crystal ball things interesting. I mean, there's so much opportunity and it depends on where you're at in the world. We have a very long, long supply chain in the US, it's been over consolidated. So we actually have to decentralize our food supply chain and most of our supply chain in the US. Whereas a lot of other countries like Philippines and Colombia, you know, they're very short. What's grown at a 30 mile radiu is at the season. And so in general, you know, there's lots of different things going on in digitalization and I think the biggest change that we're going to see is people transformation. So it's kind of, you know, starting to hand the, you know, businesses and leadership from the traditional kind of people have been running these businesses for the last 30, 40 years, and transitioning. And so agriculture, food, we typically, it's an art, you know, it's an art form. How do you make decisions, it's an art form. How do you make decisions it's using your gut. We're transitioning to a situation where we're using data to make our decision. So it's kind of going from an art to a science. And so that's the biggest shift and with that is a people aspect of younger generation coming in, we want to look at the digitally, we have to, you know, you can't learn to paint the Picasso and in a couple of years, it takes a long time to do it. So kind of using data to help that people transition. You know, that's really where we see opportunities. And then once we get our data structured and our traceability figured out a little bit better, then we can start using AI and machine learning and that type of stuff. But, you know, at this point, most of its number one is huge opportunities to connect with people through social media that weren't there 10 years ago. Most organizations don't know how to leverage that. And then the other piece is just I think, building brands and getting consumers closer to people and all of that entails digitalization and change management.

Lisa Johnson Yeah. Well, I just wanted to hear Aaron about how you build a marketplace or a market or demand for ag tech products. I feel like, you know, Justine has talked to so many people in the food space, who create a new category, and then they have to build up demand for that new food product. And I wonder if it's similar in ag tech, I've heard that the biggest hurdle is uptake, this new technology, whatever it might be.

"It can be a challenge but you have to have a process in place to get to that financial piece and then leverage the relationships that are out there." —Aaron Magenheim

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. So I mean, our growers, that type business, all we do is help with that adoption piece. And I would love to see more companies doing similar types of things. We're happy to collaborate, we're collaborating with different organizations to do that. But you know, the reality is, you know, that we need a focus-- if solving a problem is good, but at the end of the day, it has to solve a financial, it has to have a financial benefit. I'm sorry we love the world, we love to do these things, but at the end of the day, everything takes money, and you have to get money from someone to do these things. And so, in order to get uptake, you have to have the right processes in place, the right people in place and then not just that, we're going to reduce your irrigation usage or your fertilizer usage by 20%. Because you're talking to people that don't know what that number is. They don't know how much their costs are, like we went back to traceability on that block of lettuce. So you have to look at everything from a financial standpoint, is one piece. The other piece is go through trusted advisors, go through the organizations that are there. It's got to be a different model. And they're starting to realize that they have to change their agronomy model, they have to change, you know, what they've been doing for a long time to kind of work in the new world. But, you know, it really comes down to what is that ROI, and you hear that all the time, but you know, it's it can be a challenge, but you have to have a process in place to get to that financial piece, and then leverage the relationships that are out there. Those are really the two key pieces. And then the last one is just collaborate, find two to three companies upstream and downstream. So you do this, buy a couple of companies this way that you could collaborate with and a couple companies this way because you're all talking to the same people. People have different problems that they-- is at the top of their list today. So even if you're not solving that problem, introduce them to someone that could and then you know they'll come right back to you.

Lisa Johnson There's one quick question I had for you too. You have worked together with a bunch of startup accelerators and I have wondered, you know, what do you feel is the benefit of those accelerators, and you know, how does that work in general,

Aaron Magenheim It shifted over time 2014, there was like three accelerators in the world for ag tech. Now, there's like almost 100 that we track. So it used to be that if you could make it into an accelerator, then VCs would look at you and want to invest in you, because they figured the accelerators were kind of doing the weeding for them. Over time, they've realized that's not the case. A lot of the accelerators have shifted more towards kind of corporate innovation strategy. So being able to have, you know, a dozen corporates that are interested in certain tools and technologies, and then bringing companies that could fit that into that so, you know, I think that it's good for exposure but the problem that that has been created is that if you're a bear, and you're a bear leaps, and you're focused on innovation, and you're invested, you're focused on these, all the different accelerators and stuff, that's great, but you're not necessarily as connected to and have the feedback loops with the operational production side of the business that's going to be using these tools. So that's the challenge today. So I think that it's beneficial just from a recognition like you know, put it on your wall and maybe tell people but from an industry standpoint, most people that you're going to sell something to do not care that you've-- they don't even know what an accelerator is and if they do, that's not a rite of passage. So it used to be a rite of passage for investors. Today, it's a little bit more of a rite of passage for larger corporates to at least kind of get into their cycle. But there's still a big disconnect between that innovation team and the other 99% of the business that will actually use those tools. So don't think just because you got an innovation team to invest in you, or you're a part of an accelerator that this company is involved in that, that's a shoo in. You still have to work the operational side of that business, because that's where you're gonna get your next proposals.

Justine Reichman I will say, though, and I hear what you're saying. And I think that that's probably all valid, not probably, I mean, I hear from your experience, I'm sure that's all valid. I do think for the individuals in the accelerator, many solo founders do it, and it gives them community, and it gives them boundaries, and it gives them a footprint to use. So I think there's value in that which they may not get elsewhere. It's like giving them structure. So, you know, there's different values to different things. So where it may not give them the same value it did years ago, the cache to get the financing of the VCs, you know, I think that it will still give them value many times with the community, it may help them find a co founder, it may help them find, you know, a lot of other resources that they may not have otherwise find.

Aaron Magenheim Absolutely agree. I mean, it's, you know, from a personal growth standpoint, it's super helpful. I've mentored lots of different organizations or lots of different startups through accelerators, we built accelerators. So, I mean, you know, there's a lot of other pieces to it. But you know, most people want to get into an accelerator, it seems like for the funding aspect, or for the market, you know, exposure aspect, but there are a lot of really good mentors and different other processes and tools and collaboration and stuff, you know, that's involved in it as well. So yeah, thanks for adding that because it is a big piece.

Justine Reichman I think there's lots of different things that can go into it. So yeah. So anyway, Lisa, did you have any other questions before we wrap up?

Lisa Johnson I could talk with Aaron all day long.

Justine Reichman I know, me too.

Lisa Johnson There's a lot of information, but we will have to maybe have him on again, because he's--

Justine Reichman We'll definitely have him on again. I think there's lots to talk about. But Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. If folks wanted to get in touch with you to learn more about you and your consulting organizations. How might they do that?

Aaron Magenheim Yeah. I'm super active on LinkedIn, just Aaron Magenheim or Ag Tech Insights on any other social networks. Visit our Ag Tech website, we have some good, different tools and just kind of research information there and then Growers Insight, we've launched some new data graphics recently. They got a whole lot of--

Lisa Johnson Yeah. They were great.

Aaron Magenheim -- a lot of people asking questions and stuff. So everything's on-- can be connected through LinkedIn as well but Growersinsight.com Agtechinsight.com or any of those business.

Justine Reichman We'll make sure to throw that in the show notes for you. Thanks so much Aaron for joining us. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much for co -hosting with me as always a pleasure.

Lisa Johnson Thank you both.

Aaron Magenheim Thank you for this opportunity.