Driving Innovation in AgTech: Expertise in Data-Driven Solutions and Sustainable Agriculture

Building a Comprehensive AgTech Product Suite: From UX/UI to R&D and Beyond

Project Overview

This case study explores the end-to-end development of an innovative AgTech product suite using point cloud, imagery, spectral, and satellite technologies, where I played multiple key roles in ensuring its success.

Project Goals

The purpose of this AgTech initiative was to create a suite of AgTech products, integrating advanced spatial intelligence and data science, that would give growers an advantage in being able to grow better harvests using less through crop data collection and precise, actionable insights.

Key Product Goals

• Create the ability to measure permanent crops to accurately show:

  • How much total volume of nuts or fruit would be available for harvest

  • Identify which trees created the most volume to pair together a visual map showing which trees produced the most nuts. Filters included variety and trials in order to most accurately be able to plant and treat those larger volume trees for more sustainable practices.

  • Create simple easy to use field input tools with easy to use digestible data output for users who may not be technology savvy

Shaping the Product Vision - Objectives

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Being that there was no current product, it was important to collaborate with stakeholders to be able to create clear requirements for scope and check feasibility for technical ability, timelines, and first product MVP expectations including keeping business goals and user needs in focus

• Learning - due to the nature of the product, our team was able to train together with subject matter experts to gain inside into LiDAR and Satellite systems that would help us create the first MVP

Vision Execution:

• Discuss how you translated this vision into actionable development and design plans.

• I directed the execution of the product vision by leading collaboration between engineering and creating the UX/UI design, setting front-end development standards while coding the front end product. Due to the fast paced nature of the startup needs for a full product within six weeks, many processes needed to be shed in order to have a working prototype for stakeholders or the company would no longer exist due to the tight investor deadline. The shortened process I implemented was:

  • Gather stakeholder requirements

  • Quickly study competitors in the market to see how to to create a product that would set our product apart as well as give familiarity to users already familiar with AgTech products

  • Study the industry quickly for deeper understanding of needs

Leading Product Development

• UX/UI Design and Front-End Development:

  As the UI UX Lead, one of the many hats I wore during my time working with the company. Including but not limited to:

  • Leading product vision and using those decisions to create all products

  • Scaling and hiring both the UI UX team as well as developers

  • Influential with hiring of new team members outside of product and engineering such as Data Scientists and Agronomists

I was tasked with creating easy to use software products for input and output centering around agriculture data where complex ideas and subjects could easily be understood by different levels of users. I was also in charge of scaling the UI UX team when there was a need after company growth. I very much enjoyed being able to channel the direction of the product and own the product in a way where my decisions for the product had a large impact on all users to make the input and output platforms easy and enjoyable to use.

I also took on the task of coding the front end so that the backend developers could go faster in order to create our products. Our main AgTech output platform for point cloud crop data needed to be scalable for as many device types as possible so that growers could check their crops with boots on the ground using technology in the field, as well as open up their desktop or laptop computers in their offices to comfortably digest the data feedback.

Product Direction and R&D Leadership:

I directed key aspects of the product’s development, focusing on integrating cutting-edge technologies and leading R&D initiatives to explore future enhancements that would keep the product competitive.

Products that I created from 0 to 1 included:

• Full Products in Production

  • Native Android tablet application to capture yield from windrows in the field

  • Web based output application from cloudpoint data to show data insights through both map as well as readable data where growers could make informed decisions on what actions to take with their crops

  • Machine learning based platform for crop models where crop data maps could be optimized both with data from the crops as well as with an auto-cad like process, use cross sections to slice and correct crops by section, row, and individual plants

  • Jupyter Notebooks application for data scientists to be able to work with compete data for determining crop trials and to be able to make informed decisions around crops based on data

• R&D Products - the R&D products were important for fundraising as a startup to show the potential of what was possible. These items were important tools for working with board members and investors. With enough funding and initiative, these products may also have become full production products as well. Many ideas from some of the R&D products became components included within the data output platform which helped to sell the product due to the desirable innovative features. My role with R&D was to lead the team members through bi-weekly reviews for progress and ideas. I would then present the ideas to the larger leadership group when we had viable demonstrations of the R&D ideas in which many features or possible products would evolve. Some examples of R&D features and products:

  • Oculus goggles to virtually visit crops so that large companies with vast farms could virtually view crops for insights and decision making

  • 3D point clouds where you could turn and examine crops by block, row, and individually with spectral data coloration selections for insights

  • 3D native Android tablet crop map where you could view crops as you would like Google’s 3D building maps

• Products Designed - Backlogged for Production

  • Robot Swarming LiDAR data collection system for sending ground robots with mounted LiDAR collecting systems into crop fields so as to collect data more rapidly with one operator vs. a two person driven vehicle one crop row at a time

  • Drone data collecting system where inhouse created LiDAR system would fly fields to capture LiDAR quickly vs. a two person collection vehicle. This would alleviate issues with navigating row ruts, danger of driving through permanant crops, as well as speed up collection systems

• Scrum Master and Agile Leadership:

  • As our company expanded and matured, I took on the role of Scrum Master. I was excellent at leading teams and became the touch point contact for all product design, development, and R&D. I led the team through all Agile ceremonies and used insights from sprints to inform leadership of successes and risks. I became a pivotal member of our products and progress. As Scrum Master, I ensured that the team followed agile practices, maintaining a steady development pace and adapting quickly to any changes in project scope or stakeholder feedback. I also took on training members on Agile practices if not familiar as well as trained team members on using Azure DevOps. I set schedules, goals, and used my work with leading products to pair with keeping development on track and within scope.

Sales, Investor, Client, Board, and Marketing Support

Presentations and Marketing Materials:

• Sales - During my tenure working with AgTech, I created all sales one sheets, presentations, and any visual based items needed to support our sales team

• Client Support - I became the touchpoint for demonstrations of our product to clients as well as the touchpoint for clients if they needed help or had issues. I worked with clients for product walkthroughs as well as troubleshooting. Any issues reported I documented and escalated to leadership members where I could lead our cross-functional teams to implement fixes when necessary or add improvements for customer support

• Investor Presentations and Marketing Materials - I developed compelling investor presentations and marketing materials that effectively communicated the product’s capabilities and competitive advantages, supporting the team in funding rounds:

  • Investor Presentations

  • Company website

  • Social Media

  • Convention Show Booth Banners

Alignment with Product Vision:

By aligning investor, sales and marketing materials with the product’s vision and capabilities, I helped to create a consistent message that resonated with investors, clients and stakeholders alike.

Product Suite Integration and Compatibility

Ensuring Cohesion:

I led efforts to ensure that all components of the product suite were compatible, creating a cohesive system that provided users with a comprehensive toolset for data-driven agriculture. This included making sure the products were on brand, simple and easy to use, and that each product worked with other products to create an effective program for the company.

Testing and Iteration:

Being a startup, like many there was no funding for testing. I took on the testing role in order to make sure all products were working as expected. Any bugs or issues were reported, documented, and I was able to make decisions as to which bugs should be worked and which bugs could be backlogged for future iterative improvements. Being a front end developer, the designer of the product, as well as the product leader, I was able to easily facilitate improvements through directing the development team to conduct rigorous testing and make iterative improvements based on user feedback and bugs found ensuring that each product component met our high standards for functionality and usability.

Challenges and Solutions

Technical and Managerial Challenges:

• Balancing my responsibilities as UX/UI lead, Scrum Master, and product direction presented unique challenges. I overcame these by fostering strong communication across teams and maintaining a clear focus on the project’s strategic goals. Breaking down my work by priority and need was instrumental in helping to maintain that balance.

• Hiring and scaling teams - when we were able to fund new positions, hiring team members and scaling the company also alleviated workload. I was able to more so lead and direct vs. creating the work.

• I worked to keep my teams on track with our product roadmap

Adaptability and Problem-Solving:

Working with cutting edge tech, there can be many technical challenges. New third party technology may be innovative, but also riddle with incompatibilities with coding languages, limitations due to maturity of products, limited libraries and capabilities, as well as unexpected surprises. When working with these technologies I led the developers to investigate any risks or limitations. I compiled information and presented with the lead developers to leadership teams to let them know the risks and limitations before implementation. I created pathways to pivot if items did not work so as so be able to fail fast and move to a new solution quickly for a successful outcome.

I was able assess project issues to communicate to leadership members when items may be a long term heavy lift project where developers would need to be able to focus on creating the projects with less interruption and context switching in order to complete needed work.

There were many in field demonstrations with newly developed tech which required the ability to pivot and fix quickly based on field trials. I led initiatives for quick fixes and implementing solutions when unexpected issues happened live during testing or demonstrations.

Results and Impact

Project Outcomes:

• Building the first tracker of yield in permeant crops with LiDAR scans of windrows was a true product success as the first product successfully created by myself and developers in order to keep the company funded and land our first client.

• At a larger scale, project culminated in a fully functional suite of AgTech products that provided precise, actionable data for sustainable crop management, significantly improving operational efficiency for users.

Metrics and Feedback:

1. As a result of the tools I helped to lead and build, we were able to provide clients with high precision accuracy in measuring their crops which in turn gained more company funding as well as more happy clients onboarded. Stakeholders were extremely happy with end results of the accuracy.

Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Lessons Learned:

A lesson learned from working with this company is that I would more strongly advise leadership to be open to and employ user surveys upfront to discern product direction, needs, and uses. Without a larger base of clients willing to pay for high precision tech tools for growing crops, the product no matter how amazing is hard to sell. User surveys would also be able to help decide direction of products as well as which products may be sellable and at what scale.

This project reinforced the value of wearing multiple hats in driving a project’s success, and underscored the importance of adaptability, cross-functional collaboration, and iterative development.

Visuals and Supporting Documentation

Project Work Examples for Applications:

• Main Data Output Platform:

  • Links:

    • Link to video demo

    • Link to Personas

Conclusion

Summary:

This case study demonstrates my ability to lead complex, multi-faceted projects from concept to completion, wearing multiple hats to ensure the delivery of a groundbreaking AgTech product suite.

Let’s Connect!

If you’re looking for a versatile project leader who can turn visionary concepts into reality, let’s discuss how I can bring your next project to life.