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Robert Leclerc, co-founder of Agfunder \u2013 an online investment market place for global agriculture industry. He is a Forbes contributor and has five degrees including a PhD from Yale. Listen as Rob talks about the global agriculture industry and how important Agfunder is for the investors.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \u2013 Mini MBA
• What CEO do you follow? \u2013 N/A

• Favorite online tool? \u2014 MailChimp
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\u2014 Definitely not
• If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 N/A

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:44 \u2013 Nathan introduces Robert to the show
• 02:24 \u2013 Agriculture represents about 10% of global GDP
• 02:40 \u2013 Agfunder\u2019s idea is to create an online investment platform that made this space mainstream
• • 02:53 \u2013 Like AngelList in agriculture
• 03:28 \u2013 Agfunder focus is food and agriculture technology
• • 03:40 \u2013 Eventually, they will be able to offer farm lands and agri-business
• 03:55 \u2013 Technology is needed to centralize management and scale the opportunities
• 04:10 \u2013 Started as a pure market place
• • 04:28 \u2013 Taking the transaction fees
• 05:00 \u2013 Revenue in the first quarter of 2016
• • 05:11 \u2013 Raising capital funds
• 05:35 \u2013 Total revenue In 2015
• 05:43 \u2013 They are on venture-funding
• 06:10 \u2013 Business was founded late 2013
• 06:20 \u2013 $0 revenue for the first year
• • 06:40 \u2013 \u201cWe just need to know that the market works for the first year\u201d
• 06:58 \u2013 Number of investors
• • 07:38 \u2013 Investors seek them out
• 07:56 \u2013 Number of sellers/companies
• • 08:10 \u2013 They are series A companies
• 08:30 \u2013 Take 5% transaction fee to make money
• • 08:48 \u2013 Nathan\u2019s sample scenario how to get the 5%
  • 09:45 \u2013 They we\u2019re not taking any transaction fees for the first year
• 10:07 \u2013 \u201cIn August 2016, how many investors put money into how many companies?\u201d
• • 10:25 \u2013 There\u2019s a deal timeline
  • 10:50 \u2013 Average raise size
• 11:05 \u2013 Notes and actual equity funding
• • 11:18 \u2013 The companies set the market rate term
• 11:45 \u2013 What\u2019s so special with Agfunder?
• • 12:10 \u2013 When they started Agfunder, it was the dark ages of food and agriculture technology
  • 12:30 \u2013 Built a very progressive business model
• 13:18 \u2013 17 team members based in SF
• 13:23 \u2013 Connect with Robert through Agfunder.com
• 15:33 - The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

• It is important for customers to know things about your company \u2013 transparency is the key.
• Agriculture is as important as food.
• There\u2019s always a trial period \u2013 you either make or break it.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal\xa0\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal\xa0 for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal\xa0 developers.
• Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages\xa0 \u2013 The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Agfunder.com \u2013 Robert\u2019s business website
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives