Robert Leclerc, co-founder of Agfunder – an online investment market place for global agriculture industry. He is a Forbes contributor and has five degrees including a PhD from Yale. Listen as Rob talks about the global agriculture industry and how important Agfunder is for the investors.
Famous Five:
Favorite Book? – Mini MBA What CEO do you follow? – N/A Favorite online tool? — MailChimp Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Definitely not If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? – N/A
Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:44 – Nathan introduces Robert to the show 02:24 – Agriculture represents about 10% of global GDP 02:40 – Agfunder’s idea is to create an online investment platform that made this space mainstream 02:53 – Like AngelList in agriculture 03:28 – Agfunder focus is food and agriculture technology 03:40 – Eventually, they will be able to offer farm lands and agri-business 03:55 – Technology is needed to centralize management and scale the opportunities 04:10 – Started as a pure market place 04:28 – Taking the transaction fees 05:00 – Revenue in the first quarter of 2016 05:11 – Raising capital funds 05:35 – Total revenue In 2015 05:43 – They are on venture-funding 06:10 – Business was founded late 2013 06:20 – $0 revenue for the first year 06:40 – “We just need to know that the market works for the first year” 06:58 – Number of investors 07:38 – Investors seek them out 07:56 – Number of sellers/companies 08:10 – They are series A companies 08:30 – Take 5% transaction fee to make money 08:48 – Nathan’s sample scenario how to get the 5% 09:45 – They we’re not taking any transaction fees for the first year 10:07 – “In August 2016, how many investors put money into how many companies?” 10:25 – There’s a deal timeline 10:50 – Average raise size 11:05 – Notes and actual equity funding 11:18 – The companies set the market rate term 11:45 – What’s so special with Agfunder? 12:10 – When they started Agfunder, it was the dark ages of food and agriculture technology 12:30 – Built a very progressive business model 13:18 – 17 team members based in SF 13:23 – Connect with Robert through Agfunder.com 15:33 - The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
It is important for customers to know things about your company – transparency is the key. Agriculture is as important as food. There’s always a trial period – you either make or break it.
Resources Mentioned:
Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Agfunder.com – Robert’s business website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives