The Potato Problem and Curating Perceptions in AgTech
If you make the best agtech product ever, but nobody else agrees, is it really the best product?
If you make the best agtech product ever, but nobody else agrees, is it really the best product?
No, it's not.
In business and in life, perception is largely reality.
Think of the story of King Frederick the Great.
When the king demanded that his Prussian subjects grow potatoes, they revolted.
In fact, there are accounts of farmers choosing death over planting this undesirable vegetable.
One particularly defiant village in the kingdom wrote to the king, “The things have neither smell nor taste; not even the dogs will eat them, so what use are they to us?”
So Frederick changed his approach.
He pulled back the supply of seed potatoes and instead planted them in his own private garden. Then he had it guarded around the clock.
If there's one thing you knew as a Prussian serf in the 18th century, it was that the king guarded valuable things.
But Frederick directed his soldiers not to guard his garden particularly well.
Suddenly, the townspeople began digging up and stealing the king’s precious potatoes - a significant black market for the crop emerged, and it became one of the leading foods across the region.
The perception of your product is not just an important part of your commercial strategy, IT IS your commercial strategy.
There is no such thing as an inevitable commodity.
Product commoditization is a choice we make when we stop telling relevant stories or allow others to frame the value of our solution for us.
- Products only become commodities when we succumb to undifferentiated competition in the marketplace.
- Products become commodities when we force them into the unnatural position of leading our entire commercial push.
Left to speak for itself, your product will languish in ambiguity.
Don’t let it.
Do something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.