Plantalytics co-founder Nikki Ridenour had an interesting journey into tech.
Then she had an interesting journey away from tech. Now, she has had another interesting journey back.
Ridenour’s story began when she attended startup weekend in 2012 and found herself hooked. She eventually became a self-taught user experience designer, completing freelance gigs until she was on the team that ultimately developed Lisnr.
It's a data-over-audio technology that's proved one of Cincinnati's most headline-grabbing startups, having raised more than $14 million dollars via various rounds after the team initially pitched at South by Southwest. It was there, at the beginning of Lisnr, that Ridenour realized she could quit her day job and commit to tech full time.
As Lisnr grew, Ridenour used gardening and farming as a way to unplug and destress. While she went through career transitions during this time, her outdoor hobby — and her penchant for startup work — continued to flourish. She found herself taking summers off, and eventually it became year-round work.
During that time, Ridenour found that farmers don’t always keep great records, which surprised her. Farming requires great attention to detail, especially if you are growing multiple crops that require different growing seasons and the time needed to grow.
“There’s a lot of math and timing that goes into it,” she said. “I grow cut flowers, so I might need grow a hundred different types of cut flowers. I might need different flowers at different stages at different times to build a bouquet. I could sit and do all that math in a spreadsheet, but it got tedious.”
She found that farmers do this time-consuming work year after year, and that it could be easily remedied with tech.
Enter Plantalytics, a software that looks to save farmers up to 30 hours per week via a simplified record-keeping system. It incorporates automatic entry creation, a reminder and scheduling system and customizable options so users can optimize the tool for their needs.
Currently, Plantalytics is in a closed beta, with a couple of farms signed on, and it graduated from The Brandery and gener8tor's new gBeta accelerator on June 21.
Ridenour found the program extremely helpful, especially since the Plantalytics team plans on applying to other accelerators in the future.
Also on the docket? Getting the company organic- and food-safety certified and preparing for the Food Safety Modernization Act that launches in January of 2019 and will be fully implemented by 2020.
It's a mandate from the FDA that will require farmers to keep better track of their farming records. It will help prevent bad produce, meat and dairy from entering into the consumer marketplace.
Farmers are worried, as this is going to add to their already busy workload.
“A lot of farmers are going to have to keep up on those records, and they’re pretty detailed,” she said.
Plantalytics hopes its software will help make the transition easier.
