How to get around the pits of cross-border agriculture

Entering the second decade of the new century, cross-border agriculture has set off an upsurge. Looking at the development situation over the past few years, some cross-border entrepreneurs have been troubled by a logical circle: the biggest characteristic of agriculture is that the capital investment is relatively large and the product growth cycle is relatively long, which is calculated in years. Most of the cross-border capital comes from the Internet industry, accustomed to making fast money, and the requirements for business cycles in profit models are often calculated in months or even days. At the same time, the huge cross-border gap requires entrepreneurs to pay more learning costs and time costs. Thus, tolerance for trial and error becomes a bottleneck that is difficult to crack.

Liu Da, the founder of the "Egu" rice brand and a cross-border agricultural entrepreneur known as "Dago" in Jianghu, built a rice in less than five years, and then relied on the charm of rice to gather more than 10,000 Internet dealers in just 48 days. Now, he has focused on building a circle platform. How did he circumvent and crack the pits of cross-border agriculture?

To endure loneliness, have the courage to refuse capital

"My first experience is to stick to it, to be patient, to endure loneliness, and not to rush when it's time to go. This is especially important." said Dagger. In his view, cross-border agriculture must follow such a path: first step down to make its own core products, then gather some people with the charm of the products, and finally study the characteristics of the crowd to innovate a platform, so that people can take root, grow, blossom and bear fruit on the platform like seeds. At this point, we can basically complete a new agricultural development model in the Internet era. "These three big steps can't be missed, and we can't mess up the order and reverse it."

"This is the most critical first step in making a product, and many people may fall at this stage." People unfamiliar with agriculture learn in the process and form their own core values. This process must be very long, which is determined by the characteristics of agriculture, so it needs to be adhered to.

"Don't think about financing at the stage of brewing and building products, because once capital intervenes, it will speak and decide, and the rapid profit-seeking nature of capital is likely to greatly interfere with or even damage the creation of core products." said Dagger. In fact, during his years in agriculture, Dagos had repeatedly expressed interest in capital, but he always refused on the grounds that he was immature. The tens of millions of dollars he had invested came out of his own pocket. "Focus and concentration are important, and you can't let other forces that don't understand agriculture control your entrepreneurial thinking." Compared to other industries, there are fewer opportunities for trial and error in agriculture. Making products through cultivation is the right way to take root in the fields." he said.

As rice became more recognized, friends felt that Diego could make money from it. But unexpectedly, he increased his investment instead, and put a lot of free products on the marketing platform, even once appeared on the book short-term financial tension situation. "If you only consider that the money invested today has to be earned back tomorrow, such a person is not suitable for farming." he said.

We must have an open mind to operate from an optimized lifestyle.

In his view, product quality catering can attract people, while lifestyle catering can retain people. Now almost all the products on the market say that they are green, environmentally friendly and safe. Dago's experience is: not only to say so, but also to live like this; not only to live by yourself, but also to gather a group of friends to live like this.

Therefore, Dago first infected others with his green life, and then used the gathered people to influence and gather more like-minded people. "Our rice is grown in the highest quality air and soil, irrigated with the first spring water, farmed in the original way, tested to the most demanding standards of the European Union, and meets the quality of life requirements of my friends and me. Such a transmission takes on a human dimension and amplifies it to the construction level of a modern lifestyle."

"Rice is our core, but we must not have rice alone. So many fans should be able to give us greater confidence, to do a broader platform for life, relying on the power of the Internet, so that more people can find a better quality of life here." Dago believes that when cross-border agriculture reaches the platform level, it must have an open mind and operate from the level of optimizing people's lifestyle. This is the cultural realm of the future agricultural Internet.

"At the heart of the Internet is sharing, and its foundation is trust. This is even more important when it comes to agricultural products. So, if you inject sharing and trust into the brand at the product stage, it will be smoother at the platform stage." Almost every employee in Diego's company is a person who is willing to share, which is also a corporate culture he values very much.

Cross-border agriculture is not "Internet +", it is "+ Internet"

"For cross-border agriculture, it's not 'Internet +' but '+ Internet'. That is to say, we should first use agricultural thinking to do things well in the agricultural stage, and then use Internet thinking to build an innovative platform. In other words, you have to clench your fist first before you can punch it out. If you open your hand first, the greater the force, the more likely it is to break your finger." said Dagger.

He has a core philosophy when choosing products: Not every agricultural product is suitable for Internet marketing. "For small and medium-sized cross-border farmers, choosing the most suitable products for Internet marketing to focus on is probably the decisive factor for success." This is the one of the career. With this one, the zeros added after it make sense."

Dago summarized the criteria for selecting products as "three highs": high quality, high frequency and high profit. Good quality, high profit needless to say, can let the most consumers high frequency repeated consumption, is also very important. Over the years, Diego had considered many agricultural products and finally chose only this rice. On the one hand, this variety is not only exclusive, but also excellent in taste and quality, and high in cost performance; on the other hand, rice consumption frequency is the highest in both south and north.

Liu Da believes that he has come to the ultimate stage of agricultural Internet as he understands it. He is ready to enter a brand-new era of dancing with capital as soon as possible from personal solo dance.