Why I failed in the US

By Dwain Duxson

Written on the 13th of February 2019

I get asked by many, "how's the US one going"?

Many of you won't know, and some of you will know that I tried to get an equivalent business to Farm Tender going in the US a couple of years ago. That equivalent website is called 55 Farms, and although it's still live, it's not going anywhere, and we are not spending any money on it.

I had an itch that needed scratching, so my son and I took off to the US in the second half of 2015 to have a look around, check out the landscape with a thought of starting Farm Tender in the US. We zigzagged through the Mid West from Chicago down to Dallas getting a feel of how these guys went about it. Our take-home message on Ag in the US was "it's the same but different" so it was decided to go home, do some planning and for me to head back and try and get something going.

So in Mid 2016, I took off by myself to try and get this engine to fire. From a base in Austin, Texas I opened a bank account, established an official business and business name, signed up with the IRS (equivalent to the ATO) and got myself a US phone. With the help of my trusted web developer Chard, we went about building the website and tailoring it to the US market. After a couple of days cold calling US Farmers I soon realised that for this to succeed I needed to employ US people (they couldn't understand me on the phone). So I hired, fired, hired, fired, hired, fired and then the fourth time lucky found Frank, who was from Kansas and had a background in Cattle marketing.

So armed with this 55 Farms website, I instructed Frank to get on the phone and try an establish a database, as we did here, once we had a few thousand members and a few listing we could start to get the business flowing. I attended Ag Trade Shows in Tulsa (Oklahoma), and Amarillo (Texas) and then Frank and I went to one in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) to get some exposure.

I then went home for Christmas in 2016 and then returned with my wife Paula and son Raleigh and set up camp in Austin. It was then in mid 2017 I realised that what worked here in Australia wasn't working in the US. They didn't really have stock agents that brokered stock; they sold Machinery through unreserved auctions and Machinery Dealers who then advertise through a couple of established websites for an upfront fee. The Farmer to Farmer stuff is more done through Craigslist, an established and local online marketplace that is massive. We managed to get over 6000 Farmer and Rancher members in that time, but we just couldn't get any traction

So in mid 2017, we came home, Frank left the business, and we decided to stop funding it

The takeaway lesson are, I am happy that it failed because we tried, put everything into it and it just wasn't to be. We learnt how to live in another country, adapt to their ways, conformed to their laws and learnt so many life lessons. US Ag is the same but different to Australian Ag, the same, as in they have the same Machinery, similar Farming practices and similar problems. Different in that they have different names for things, seem to be more conservative than us, and I think less adaptable.

So even though 55 Farms is still live, we are no longer funding it and feel it's a dead duck

The itch is scratched, sorta...