I applied to YC twice(unsuccefully) with the same idea. And I am a farmer. Just not a PhD from MIT. I would love to know they came up with that number. Really. Would love love love to know how..
If you can you'll have (good) technical talent lining up around the block and subsequently interest from YC.
Chide away. We are not built delicate.
And yes, I am focusing on the 'chiding' comment because it's condescending and not helpful.
You wouldn't believe how much condescension and lack of respect a non technical/non SV person has to endure to be heard. From people who haven't a clue what they are doing...it seems that an inclusive incestous valley club wants to give opportunities to their in group. I get it. I see how their minds work.
But I am telling you that they will fail. We are facing a shortage of labour and land.
Why did the green revolution fail? Why can't farmers in Punjab grow wheat anymore? Why is there disappearing water tables? And poisoned watersheds? Why are cotton farmers killing them selves? Why is the US producing more soy and corn not for human consumption and import our food? Why is Monsanto contributing to shrinking genetic diversity in our seeds? Why are we losing top soil? Why is our food production so dependent on fossil fuels? Why are farmers hiring Eastern European hackers to bypass John Deere's expensive DMCA restrictions to tractors they paid for and don't actually really own.
Because 'scientists' are condescending towards 'peasant farmers' and don't listen to their 'ideas'. We are not uneducated hillibillies that need techies kindness and be rescued by Silicon Valley.
Engineers have no business coming up with ideas for farmers just as farmers have no business coming up with new ways to cure cancer.
I wish people would stop saying that 'it's just an idea'. An idea is the most valuable seed. This is like kids playing in the sandbox and not wanting to share.
There will be a price for this. We are already paying it. Farmers are not children who need to be rescued. We need help from other areas od expertise we don't possess.
"Modular Science – Outdoor robot farming: Elon Musk may be concerned about robots taking over the world, but Modular Science just wants robots to farm our vegetables. The startup, which currently has robots out in the field (!) in Petaluma, CA, is aiming to automate 99 percent of the processes involved in vegetable farming within the next six months with their specialized farming bots. Modular Science is looking to charge $2,000 per acre, which they say is half of what farms are currently paying to for human labor."
How come a biotech company doing lab automation can pivot into building a farm bot but a farmer is useless to building a farm bot? I am not a modest person. Neither am I vain. I am a pragmatist. The evolutionary basis of being modest rests on being AWARE. Of impact, pros and cons. I won't ever venture into a field where I have no expertise..like as a roboticists. Or a doctor. Or a biotech scientist.
To ask a farmer to learn more than their area of expertise and demand that they also be a 'technical' person is to set them up for failure. If a surgeon wants to build a robotic arm for delicate surgery, do you make him go to engg school? But can you make the surgery bot without the surgeon's input.
It's disregard. It's disregard for the work we do and disregard for what we create. It's disregard for our expertise and knowledge. It's disregard and disrespect for the earth for which we are stewards.
No. This stings. Bitterly.
Colour me bitter..but my biggest weakness is that I am not 'technical' enough...but why is someone who has never tilled a field or known the rhythms of growing food in the natural world and knows the diff between dirt and soil be better qualified to make what we need?
And keep us suckling on the giant teat(or whatever) of tech? Like Monsanto does..like John Deere and dmca..we are ok trying to adapt nature to tech. Would tech people dare invent something medical without input or participation of doctors and surgeons? Look at the water..the obesity rates..the degraded soils..the poisons in the environment..that's the hubris of science and tech and the power of $. Because peasants have no value, right? Right now..I would rather be a witch riding a broomstick than a farmer or a fan of science/tech.
And don't be so bitter, it's not VC's fault that you lack technical skills.
Such robots could potentially improve soil and food quality: they could manually remove weeds, making chemicals unnecessary, and they could possibly also replace the current, heavy machinery that requires large monocultures for efficiency. Imagine strawberries picked by a robot from almost-wild plants grown in between the natural vegetation on terrain that was previously inaccessible to farming. Or growing any number of crops in a chaotic mix on current fields.
I am not worried at all that they will replace the farmer. I just have a dim view of certain things and people that were shiny earlier.
If you want to build robots, you need to have a working prototype to show that you or your team has the technical skills and the passion to build something with your own money to pull it off. That's how you get investors.
Getting into YC does not mean that Modular Science is going to be a success. They still need a good tech team, people with domain knowledge, and a market to sell to. Your farming knowledge is definitely important to a project like this, but there is a much greater supply of it. It wouldn't be that hard to hire a couple farmers to be subject matter experts. It is and continues to be insanely hard to put together a team that can build autonomous robots.
Don't give up on your dream, but you need to realize that a farming robot is technology. That's what you're selling. You need people who can build the technology. Find them and build the company. Make a prototype. Use your domain knowledge to make it better than the competition's product. Don't just be a guy with an idea, be a guy who builds things.