Progress and setbacks...

Ayrstone is up and, well, limping, if not running. The product is available, the store is online, payment processing is going fine, but the product just isn't selling as quickly as we had hoped.

The "big idea" was to try to reach farmers who aren't yet tied into the web to find information, and who may want independent advice and assessment instead of just swallowing what the GPS vendors say. So we decided to focus on direct mail, using lists from the major farm magazines - a sales rate of 1% would have gotten us to cash-neutral, and 2% would make us profitable.

After two mailings, we have a sales rate of significantly less than 1%. The majority of growers are out in the fields now, so there's no real point in trying to sell them now - they're not going to pay attention to anything.

It's disappointing, of course - the product itself is no great shakes in terms of production values, but it's a valuable resource in terms of information, and the "buyers only" website is excellent. Most of all, it's an attempt to start a business based on honesty and openness - the information, our approach, and the product itself is portrayed honestly, the subject we discuss is approached in the most objective way possible, and we are completely independent of the various GPS vendors we discuss. Given how important it is to most growers to get an independent view and not trust what the salespeople tell them, one would think they'd be crowding in to get what we have. But they're not.

In the meantime, I'm using Google AdWords to bring traffic to Ayrstone.com and looking at other revenue sources. I went to a Meetup last night and met the founder of Rateitall.com. I think they have an interesting site that may be useful for some ideas I have. Check out their widget on this blog.