Eight startups have reached the final phase of the Agrytech Accelerator Batch 3. Berytech reached out to hear from the founders themselves about their journey in the program so far.
Smart Land created a smart controller to control the irrigation of the crops according to its needs automatically, and according to weather changes – temperature and wind speed. They also created a fertigation machine that controls the fertigation process automatically. Smart Land have a mobile app that allows the user to control and monitor the irrigation process, and to control the fertigation machine.
According to co-founders Khaled Alabbass and Saad Alabbass, “We applied to the Agrytech Accelerator Program to develop our idea into a successful product expecting help in business development and funding. We are working to create the best solution to the irrigation and fertigation problems, to minimize farmer costs and maximize profit after using our solution.
For now we created an MVP and installed it in a client’s land for testing and we are taking results. We got traction from farmers and we signed 8 MOUs so far. We learned how to go to the market with our product and the way to sell it, we learned how to create a successful company and how to work with the current crises, and finally we learned how to develop our business. The key success factor is: have a product, make traction, signing MOUs, sell our first system, and brand awareness. Our best achievement is that we managed to sell our first system, because the feedback of the client proved the importance of our solution. We now have a testimonial for our product that helps us get more traction.
The economic crisis raised the price of our product since our raw materials are outsourced and paid for in dollars, while farmers were selling their crops in LBP, which makes our product expensive to them. COVID-19 prevented us from meeting more farmers physically to discuss with them their problems and showing them our solution, so our marketing is limited to social media. COVID-19 also delayed our operation process making us lose our sales in Q3. Beirut blast weakened our operation process, since we have vendors that were affected by it.
Learn more about Berytech’s Agrytech Accelerator program.
