At OpenDairy, we don’t tend to look back a lot. And whilst we have a clear goal in mind, the road towards it is not paved. As a startup, we pivot all the time, meaning we change our approach quickly when new information dictates. Sometimes however, it’s good to take a moment to look back on the startup rollercoaster. So here it is, the OpenDairy year-end review.
At OpenDairy, we don’t tend to look back a lot. And whilst we have a clear goal in mind, the road towards it is not paved. As a startup, we pivot all the time, meaning we change our approach quickly when new information dictates. Sometimes however, it’s good to take a moment to look back on the startup rollercoaster. So here it is, the OpenDairy year-end review.
Our plan was clear from the beginning; start a new company and trade whatever products we could get our hands on. It’s been done before, and it could surely be done again. We didn’t pretend our business model would be any different from the other new trading ventures, typically spun-off from large trading houses in agro commodities.
The world seemed to have other plans though. Starting a new business proved to be extremely challenging in the middle of a pandemic. The combination of risk-aversion, volatile logistics and dealing with products we didn’t have any experience with made us go off the gas and, indeed, “pivot”.
The world was changing in front of our eyes. E-Commerce was booming, hugely accelerated by the COVID pandemic. But not only the volume grew, the level of service as well. Same day delivery, 1-hour time slots of deliveries, extended payment terms determined by algorithms, it all seemed to be available in no time. It was amazing for us to see how behavior can change, triggered by an event, a change of environment.
In the beginning, we didn’t really have a plan. We were just convinced there was room for improvement. We had the strong belief that sales and purchases in business should be just as easy as for consumers. Many people found out that ordering online is more convenient and even more predictable than going to a brick-and-mortar store (is the item I need in stock?).
Digitization is not a hobby, not a slide on a 5-year strategy deck, it’s happening now.
We could have picked any market, but we had been working in dairy for the last 10 years. That, however, is a potential pitfall as well. You think you know it all.
We started a thorough validation period, speaking with many different players in the dairy market. A few observations which encouraged us to move forward with the project:
Let’s do it, was the next plan. We soon realized that knowledge of a market was not enough to turn this plan into success. Building a complex marketplace requires experience and focused guidance. We got in touch with Hans, expert in digital technology and advertising. He had already seen it happen in the advertising market. Middlemen earning huge markups woke up one day in a different world where technology was making matches between supply and demand in ads. More efficient, and of course, much cheaper.
We went out looking for a development partner and soon found Mario and Elvire of WeAreBrain. Their expertise and most of all, enthusiasm got us started. We were building software! Front end, UX, use cases, DevOps, wireframes; new terminology was fired at us with supersonic speed! We managed to roll out an early version in which producers could easily auction their “off spec” products among a group of buyers. It worked, and it worked well.
We continued to build and are now finalizing the first release. Early 2022 the dairy market will be able to trade, supported by software and first-class service providers in logistics and finance. And it’s just the beginning. We have so many cool things on our product roadmap and great partnerships to look forward to.
2021 has been a great year, but for OpenDairy, 2022 will be a real killer! We look forward to working with you!
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