You can build something that works and still watch it sit unused.
Adoption isn't a product problem. It's a question about how growers decide, who they trust, when in the season they'll even look at it, and whether the thing can physically be sold, delivered and serviced where you're selling it. We answer that before you've spent the money finding out.
Tell us what you're buildingThe product was validated with people who already liked it. The pricing was set against competitors rather than against what a grower gives up to buy it. The route to market is a slide that says "distribution partnerships."
None of that is incompetence — it's the normal condition of a company that has been heads-down building. But it means the riskiest number in the plan is the one nobody has tested: that a farmer, in season, with their own money, will change what they already do.
A country manager is a full salary package, months to hire and longer to ramp — committed before you know whether the market wants the product.
A launch that doesn't land burns a year of runway, and the credibility of your next raise with it.
A distribution agreement signed with the wrong partner can lock up a territory for years, and you'll be the one who has to unpick it.
Every one of those decisions is made on an assumption about the farmer.
A fixed-scope review of whether this lands — and what to change before it doesn't.
Send us the deck, the plan, the pricing, and whatever market evidence you have.
The diagnosis above, as a fixed-scope engagement.
We fix what it surfaced — positioning, route to market, and messaging that lands with growers and the agronomists they trust.
Fractional commercial leadership. We hold the commercial seat — route to market, pricing, channel — before you're ready to hire for it.
Most people start and finish with the Reality Check. The other two are quoted once we know what the first one found — there's no point pricing a fix before we know what's broken.
A day a week, or a couple of days a month. We hold the commercial seat: route to market, pricing, channel and partner decisions, what to say yes to, and the grower gut-check on every call that costs real money. You get someone who has run a $310 million portfolio across 49 dealers and who has also sat on the farmer's side of the table — without committing to a country manager's package before you know the market wants you.
And we'll tell you when to stop using us. The point of a fractional arrangement is to reach the day a full-time hire is obviously worth it. When that day comes we'll say so, and we'll help you write the brief and sit in on the interviews.
If there's one thing I've learned working my entire life in agriculture, it's that growing food needs all the help it can get. If your technology is going to help the agricultural community, I want to help you get it off the ground.
I've had a passion for seeing agricultural technology actually realised in the world since I was young — young enough that the first thing I ever helped get funded was an anaerobic digester on the dairy I grew up on, when I was fifteen. That story is here, and it's also why I write grant applications for technology companies, not just reviews of their plans.
Which means telling you the truth is how I help. Sometimes the truth is that the plan is close and needs three changes. Occasionally it's that this market isn't the one. I'd rather you heard it from me at the start than from the market at the end.
You're buying a judgement, and a judgement you already hold is worth nothing. So if you read what comes back and it tells you nothing you didn't know, say so and there's no invoice.
I'm the only person in this conversation who isn't paid by the outcome. No commissions, no equipment to sell, no product waiting at the end of the review. That's what makes the guarantee affordable for me to offer — and it's the same reason the answer is sometimes "don't".
You're already comparing us to these. Here they are honestly, including where we're the wrong answer.
| Option | Roughly what it costs | How long | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hire a country manager | A full package | Months to hire, longer to ramp | You're committing to the market before you know it wants you |
| A large consultancy | Significant | Two to three months | Good process, strong decks, no paddock |
| Ask your distributor | Free | Immediate | They're paid to tell you it'll sell |
| Ask your investors | Free | Immediate | They don't know either — and now they know you don't |
| Launch and find out | A year of runway | You'll know in 18 months | The most expensive option, usually chosen by default |
| Selsmeyer & Co | A fixed fee, agreed up front | Weeks | Boutique by design — senior attention on your decision, not a bench of juniors. We check the plan, and we can stay on to help steer it. What we're not is a team to hand delivery to. |
And no agenda. We don’t sell equipment, take commissions, or have a product waiting at the end of the review. The only thing we’re selling is the answer — which is why it’s sometimes “don’t.”
Cost and timing vary by market and stage — these are shapes, not quotes.
The deck, the plan, the pricing, the market evidence. However rough.
Fixed, up front, in writing. No hourly billing and no scope creep.
Growers, agronomists, dealers, the channel — the people who decide whether this sells.
What holds, what doesn't, and what to do about it. One call if you want it.
A grower in Western Australia was about to commit capital to a biochar system. He had the vendor's quote and the business case in hand. I went through it from his side of the table — what the modelling assumed, what it left out, what it meant for his carbon position.
The numbers didn't work over the payback period, and the reasons were sitting in what the vendor hadn't concluded.
That's the same analysis, pointed the other way. When I tell you whether growers will adopt your product, this is the seat I'm doing it from.
A few lines is plenty. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if we can't, we'll usually know who can.