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Comment by chimi | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for this. It's a field I've considered many times. I'm an urban homesteader and programmer, so I see the value. I want you to succeed. Please understand my criticism is meant only to further your progress. I love what you're doing.

My concern is that your product looks like a toy. Farmers are serious about their work. They aren't playing a Zynga game or... Agricola. That farm equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Farmers across the nation have lost $20 Billion worth of crops this summer. http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/03/news/economy/drought-crop-in...

Please, get a more sophisticated look. Let farmers know you are serious. If I could look at your website and believe you are serious, I may not need someone else to tell me you are serious.

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Their design looks gorgeous and serious to me. Maybe what I think does not count because I'm not a farmer. They could A/B test this with a more enterprise-y looking site, who knows.

I like their site because it looks so simple to use and shows it could be very valuable very quickly, kind of like an iPhone. I'd be surprised if they don't see some considerable adoption, esp among the newer generation of farmers.

I am a farmer and I think it is fine. Some of the interfaces I have seen for farm-related software are hilariously bad. The big farms already log all this information (and more) automatically, so it seems that the target market is really smaller hobby farmers where a "fun" interface probably isn't so bad anyway.

And that is exactly how all great companies start (by flying under the radar until it is too late for the incumbents).

I am a farmer

This makes me curious. What brings you to HN? :)

I wish I had some elaborate story for you, but I'm also a software developer.

Which career came first?

I have been around the farm my whole life, but my first real job was doing design/development/general IT work in high school. I've worked in software-related roles ever since, primarily on the programming side. About four years ago I established my own farming operation. It is still small, but I'm working on slowly growing it.

How can I contact you? Email?

Are you talking about the icon sets? They seem nice to me. There isn't anything cartoony about them and they are very clear and easy to understand. Honestly it's better than many icon sets I've seen in web applications. The site looks fine to me.

I'm not sure anyone thinks "I'm losing money and dammit this web app isn't reflecting my mood at this moment."

Thanks for the feedback.

Something that might interest you re: Australian agriculture -

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3511968.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2012/s3501665.htm

there's been keen interest in computers and software in agriculture for a good 30 odd years that I'm aware of, the first thought that crosses my mind when reading about your software is it's apparent dependence on the internet and regular cell towers.

I'm nor sure how widespread good Internet is across the US farming areas, in Australia nothing is taken for granted in most farming regions - telephone, power, cell phone coverage, gas supplies, etc are all more or less present in many places but all are subject to accidental cut out from a few hours, to a few days, to sometimes a few weeks.

There's always been a strong interest in solutions that continue to function when connections to the rest of the world are lost for a bit.

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