June 26, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode of the Predictable Revenue Podcast, we spoke with Patrick Zelaya, founder of HeavyConnect, about one of the cleanest early traction stories we’ve heard.
He didn’t start with code. Or funding. Or even a finished product.
He pitched a room full of farmers with nothing but a pain point, and walked out with 15 checks and two years of runway. No VC. No sales team. Just real demand.
Highlights include: From Hackathon to Industry Leaders (04:36), Building Relationships with Major Clients (09:01), Navigating Compliance and Functionality Challenges (11:14), The Role of Software in Training and Compliance (13:27), and more...
Stay updated with our podcast and the latest insights in Outbound Sales and Go-to-Market Strategies!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome back to the Predictable Revenue Podcast. I'm your host, Colin Stewart. today I'm joined by Patrick Zelaya. He's the founder and CEO over at HeavyConnect. We're going to talk about product market fit. Before we jump in, this episode is brought to you by our Founder Coaching Program. Founders, let's be real. Scaling a company is tough. You're juggling product, revenue, hiring, and a million other decisions. But what if you had a proven framework and expert guidance to help you navigate the chaos? That's where our Founder Coaching Program.
founder coaching program comes in. Whether you're trying to find your first customers or fine tune your go-to market, we're here to help you build a business that scales, well, predictably. Now to the episode. Patrick, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:25.236)
I'm looking forward to diving into this. I want to start with talking about where the idea came from and maybe the genesis of the name because, you know, we were talking a little bit before the where you where you are is not necessarily representative of what the name suggests.
Yeah. So my first career was at Deere and Company and I worked in different John Deere manufacturing facilities, globally. over in, Germany's Weibrucken and Mannheim Germany down in, South central and South America and throughout the U S and a lot of the activities that we would do would be more kind of corporate facing in a, in a controlled environments with a conference table.
but then out in the field is a very different, operating structure. And so a lot of the, the daily activities and the workflows, did not go as smoothly as what you would see in the office. And so I thought that there would be a good opportunity at some point to, create more synergy and collaboration and facilitate it. the last place that I was with.
with Deering Company was in the Salinas Valley in California where Heavy Connect is based. And the combination of people, so many people in the field, so much equipment and the locations changing throughout the day was the most complex food production environment that I had ever seen. we've seen it in different countries.
(00:31):
And the need for collaboration between a centralized facility, the office or the headquarters and the teams out in the field was most severe at that time. When the idea came about 2014, 2015, there was a lot of regulation and requirements around compliance.
Speaker 2 (15:33.058)
for these food producers, especially around food safety, which Heavy Connect is probably most known for. But there weren't a lot of simple tools. And so everybody defaulted to using paper, paper that would get muddy, paper that would get lost, paper that would get turned in late, paper that was written illegibly and would result in a lot of errors and confusion and increased risk. What was written on the paper, I wasn't completely sure about. I'm not an expert in.
And we learned that all of that paper was for compliance. I explained to people that if you look back to the high school math test, you could write every answer correctly, but if you didn't show your work, you wouldn't get any credit. That's the same in the food supply chain. You have to show what you're doing in the field through documentation. And this is the same time where
smartphones started to really become reliable offline. And I thought if you could take a mobile app that was very simple, big, colorful user experience, intuitive, rounded buttons, icons, no typing required, make it simpler and faster than paper, you'd be onto something. You'd have something that could actually replace paper. There'd been technologies in the field for decades.
but they just really were meant more for an office worker than the field worker. Coming from Deere and Company, my thought was we're gonna help people understand the status of their equipment. So fuel logs, equipment checks to make sure that there weren't any leaks or the lights were working and so forth. And if there was, the earlier you can address those problems, the lower the cost is. And so we wanted to connect the equipment
but also coming from deer, we worked in different industries. We worked in construction, oil and gas, forestry, so forth. And I saw potential and didn't really want to close the door to other industries if we were successful in agriculture. And so instead of having some name around farming or ag or food, we wanted to focus in on heavy equipment.
Speaker 2 (17:54.912)
And so heavy connect was the original idea for equipment, inspections and logs. And that is it, started there and evolved. We thought about changing the name a few times, but by that time, the industry knew us as heavy connect. So we just, we just stuck with it.
(00:52):
Right on. And so you had this insight from working in the, maybe not necessarily working in the field, but being out in the fields and seeing the equipment and seeing the workers and seeing all the paper with mud on it. What was your process for going from, okay, I've got this idea to, you know, the making the decision to do something about it?
Yeah. So, so we started, so I'm not a software engineer myself. So I started working with a team from Cal State, Monterey Bay, which is right next door to Salinas, as well as Hartnell college inside of Salinas. They have some great computer science programs and we did a, a hackathon that was put on by tech stars called the startup challenge. and we built kind of the, an early prototype of the business and it started to.
to get a lot of interest in that way. So we knew that the beachhead of the Salinas Valley would really be kind of this propulsion agent to Heavy Connect's growth. So when we came to the industry, we said, all we're gonna do is build the app. You tell us what it needs to do. And from there, learned about, Driscoll's told us about food safety and
Dole told us about QA and Cisco Foods and it just kind of grew from there of like, what is Heavy Connect gonna do? And so when you look at these compliance requirements, it is food safety, it is QA, it's time and attendance for your harvesting employees so that you don't get hit with the lawsuit, the Department of Labor doesn't come knocking, that you document everything that you're doing right. Don't change what you're doing, keep doing it, but document it more easily. And so we started building in all this functionality
Speaker 2 (20:06.594)
And our North star was let's build this for the farm worker. Let's make it easier and faster than paper. And let's help them demonstrate their expertise and knowledge about their work in a way that translates to the office that translates to large data analytics for optimizing operational efficiency, things that really matter to the C suite, but they don't have that visibility to it.
It's super interesting. I'm curious, how do you go from university hackathon to selling to two of arguably the biggest food producers in America? It seems like we may have skipped a step, so I'd love to zoom in on that piece. Are you just that good?
No, no, it's actually attributed to the Salinas Valley because they're that close to each other. So we did the hackathon. There was some natural local interest and we actually went up to Silicon Valley and we tried to get into Y Combinator, 500 startups. And 500 said, if you guys can go and get letters of intent from some of these companies that you're talking about, we'll consider you for our next cohort.
(01:13):
And so we did, and then, and then they said, well, can you get, prepaid agreements? And I thought, well, if I could do that, what do I need you for? Right. And, and. But it was a great idea. So I went to a friend of mine, Norm Groot at the, at the Monterey County farm bureau and presented to their board. And I thought, you know, what, what this shaped up to be was like an informal Kickstarter. And I said, look, here's what we want to do.
We know that paper is a problem. If, if you help us, if you partner with us by funding this, we will build whatever you say you need with the caveat that we can sell it to anyone after this. becomes not yours. It's not custom software, but it helps start this business. And the benefit is you're getting exactly the kind of software that you want without the cost. And,
Speaker 2 (22:19.31)
That's when people really started signing up for it. We signed up about 15 farmers, large, large companies, and they said, well, what is this gonna cost? And standing there at the Farm Bureau in front of them, I said, $500 a month, prepay for 12 months, so give me a check for 6,000. I got 15 of those, and that funded our development for the next two years.
And then eventually we got a call from 500 asking us if we'd to join their cohort in, in 2016. was, things really started picking up and it was because the, uh, the brands were so recognizable and it was more of a, well, if these folks say they need it, then it must be important for the industry. it took off from there.
Talk to me about Norm, because this sounds like maybe a non-standard ask. I haven't seen somebody go to a company like this and say, hey, you pay for the first one, and then we'll go resell it to everybody else. So what was that relationship? What was their company, their organization?
Yeah, so Norm and I were friends because I've been in the ag industry for a while and there is a bit of a tight knit community in agriculture, even regionally and locally where you start to know each other. And so a lot of the folks in the room knew who I was at the time. I had been in the Salinas Valley for a couple of years by then. And so I think I was talking to Norm at a chamber of commerce mixer.
And I said, Hey, can I present to the board? Here's what I'm thinking. He's like, yeah, come on in. And so I told him about the hackathon and, and, we entered a business competition that the school put on that was sponsored by tech stars and we won that. And, uh, that was an extra 20,000. were in the paper, um, the local paper, the Californian. Um, and, and then the, the awareness started to grow. were, we were a feature on PBS is news hour because the idea was coming from.
(01:34):
Speaker 2 (24:28.718)
a core, not just of a great startup idea, but really it was the people who are building this, software engineers are children of farm workers. And the product that they're building is highlighting the careers of farm workers and getting that more into the light beyond just the value of compliance. So there was a really good story to go with it. And we had some brands behind us.
Very cool. so Driscoll and Dole, did they come from that? Were their farmers among the first 15? Or how did you get them into the fold?
They were on, they had seats on the board at the farm bureau. So they were in that meeting and the next week they called me into their offices, Driscoll up in Watsonville and Dolan Salinas. And they said, you know, what do you need to get going? And I said, well, I mean, really, I know you're good for the money. I just need to know what you want me to do. And so they connected me to the farming managers and they brought out the...
Dolph and Driscoll's both brought out their food safety compliance manual. And it was this four inch thick binder that they couldn't use the three rings on it anymore. And they said, this is what we have to maintain continuously for compliance. And we dove in and started replicating that. think early on, it was a very simple like Fisher price version of Google forms. And with that, we were able to, to
build a more complex, complete mobile platform.
Speaker 1 (26:09.806)
That's super interesting. I love the starting place. It's such a... I had never considered going to like a chamber commerce or a farm bureau quite like that. Obviously not quite as connected in a particular industry, but that's such a unique way to start.
Yeah. And it wasn't until afterwards that I realized, that was kind of a Kickstarter campaign that I did, just, like offline and, and we, we let them kind of drive the innovation and, and, know, what, what it needed to do. So we learned about compliance, you know, when you get into like, time and attendance, the piece rate calculations, double time, overtime, different worker types where, you can have a wage.
(01:55):
paid to an H2AV guest worker doing the exact same work, but you have a domestic worker next to him that is paid differently. They're doing piece rates, so they're paid differently based on that. They might even be doing two different crops in the same field. They're paid differently on that. And then an hour later, after their break, they're moving from the Arizona border into California, and there's a different requirements there. And so you've got this payroll engine working in the background.
making sure that all the clients is met and they're paid correctly for their net pay. But when they see the folks see on the mobile app that they download any device, you you go to Google play store for Android or your Apple app store for your iPhones. It's so simple. It just says break or, you know, piece rate clock in. And so, and then it follows the language of the device. So you're not going to see it in, you're not going to see, you know, break and lunch and
And in California, you won't even see like Descanso y Al Muerto, which is proper Spanish. You'll see Breyque and Lonche, which is what we speak in California. So it's very tailored for the farm workers.
Speaker 1 (28:06.764)
That's amazing. think the phrase I've heard you say a couple of times that I think was probably pretty key is, you know, I'm here. Tell me what you need. I think one of the mistakes I made early in my career was saying, I'm smart. This is what I've built. Look, isn't this great? And everybody went. But nobody actually handed over any money.
Well, in agriculture, and I have seen this across the country, is you really have to come on the scene hat in hand and ready to learn. Because every environment is different and you will find some patterns. But there's way more to learn and challenge your assumptions when you really dig in.
I love that. So first customers came from the Chamber of Commerce or the Farm Bureau. then you've got obviously Driscoll and Dole in there. I imagine they don't have that. I think I've heard of these companies. I think I've probably eaten some of their food before. I imagine they have farms elsewhere. Was it just you land these once and then this is, you you quickly expand or, what did that look like?
We thought that was the case because you're right. There's thousands of suppliers that make up this brand. So they all centralized into a cooling facility or a packing shed, a storage facility under the logo of Driscoll's nature ripe, well-picked, gem pack and so forth. each time we had a meeting, even when it was a referral,
(02:16):
It was a brand new discussion. They didn't know us. We had to start over. And I think actually Cisco is a good example that they're so proud of what we have built together, but they're also such an enormous global company that really getting the reach of our product throughout their enterprise is a continuous effort.
Speaker 2 (30:12.364)
you know, through, no fault of, of anyone, it's just, it doesn't, the doors don't fly open. You really have to push them. and it takes time to do that.
Interesting. So the first customers came from this initial group in the valley there. Where did your first kind of repeatable customers start coming through?
Yeah. So, so when they signed up, we started to get other large brands, as well. And everything was word of mouth because we didn't really have a marketing budget. Everything was going to engineering. but the, the, the, interconnectedness of the food supply chain chain is what really drove things. So we found when, you know, when we would sign up, a logo like Dole.
there's someone who grows for Dole and that farm needs to do compliance paperwork as well for different purposes. So that's where we start that meeting. And then the folks that harvest is called a farm labor contractor or an FLC, they need to do time and attendance for their employees. And so we're getting to talk to all these folks and understand the different functionality and we're getting all of these, the platform.
grows very quickly. That was, we had a lot of growing pains there because once you started saying you're a paperless compliance platform for the food supply chain, there's so many parts to it when you come to compliance. And, you know, in California, there's regulation, there's department of pesticide regulation, the DPR, they have to turn in pesticide use reports to the county and all of this has to be tracked.
Speaker 2 (31:54.922)
and documented. And so we're building and building as quickly as we can as that customer base diversifies, even though they're super interconnected. And so when you look at the platform today and see all the different things that Heavy Connect can do, and people say like, this just seems like such a mixed bag. What brings it together? And what brings it together is the user, is the person in the field or the front line in the office, your payroll team.
(02:37):
just like Microsoft Office, they're gonna use Docs, Excel, they're gonna use PowerPoint. It's the same thing in the field. They need the fuel logs, they need the pesticide scouting checklists, they need the restroom cleaning logs, they need the quality data to make sure that their buyers know what great quality is coming out of the field and in what amount. So all that data is needed.
And that's kind of where the growing pains came from. So we had to build really fast.
I like it. And so it sounds like you started with this one kind of niche use case around the farmers in the fields and then kind of got pulled into these other kind of up the chain and down the chain and maybe into like adjacent areas where they also needed, they had the same job to be done, but for a different context.
Yeah. And we had to say no a lot just so that we could maintain that focus. One thing that we did anticipate was the geography of it is that we knew coming out of the Salinas Valley that California was next to take notice. then as you know, California fresh produce and the operational environment really drives what is needed in the rest of the United States. So that when we do start talking to growers down in Florida,
Speaker 2 (33:43.106)
They've heard about us from California and we're basically like taking away features and functionality of compliance because there are less regulated geography. And then we do this globally. And that's something that I kind of took away from deer is like how innovation flows globally. You know, the world looks at the U S the U S looks at California, California looks at Salinas when it comes to fresh produce. And so it was this perfect beach head for, for expansion.
Wow. I'm super, I mean, I didn't quite realize it. It makes sense now that you've kind of walked me through it. Talk to me about some of the things that you said no to.
Yeah, so it's funny because at first the requirements do become very simple and you're replacing Excel spreadsheets or Google Docs. And so it's not hard to say like, hey, we have that, we can do signatures, we drop GPS pins, the app opens up the camera and we'll scan barcodes and QR codes to verify your traceability and your load tags.
(02:58):
once people started to understand that the mobile app could do so much and that they didn't need to think, well, it's technology, it's going to be hard. Once they started opening up, they just kind of became these, these innovation futurists where they're like, well, can it, you know, can it run robots for us and can it pull data from a field sensors? And if there's not cell signal or wifi, can it connect to satellite and
That's when we had to start saying no and realize not just the functionality in terms of managing our roadmap, but things like, like geofencing. People would say, I don't want people to use, to be able to clock in if they're in the wrong field. I don't want them to do a food safety report for the wrong crop. And so we did all this actually. And when we tested it, we, found that they were cultural barriers to a lot of this innovation.
Speaker 2 (35:50.572)
where if you started to try to train, use technology to train the behaviors of your employees, they would reject it. And they'd say the app doesn't work. Well, actually you were in the wrong place when you were trying to use it. So the app did work and it prevented you from using it. But the communication, they say like, if it's not going to work for me, I'm not going to do it. And so we started to realize some of these barriers that we needed to say no to like geo-fencing. did not want to prevent people from using the app. So.
We'd say, if you can do it on paper, the app will let you do it. The difference is we're going to bring this to your attention on the dashboard, how things are done incorrectly. And then for the company, for the organization, it's a training opportunity for your company to train the fields folks on what they don't know. Also biometrics was a big one. Early on, there were some really innovative vineyard companies that wanted retinal scanning. Well, first they wanted facial recognition.
Well, first it was fingerprints and fingerprints are dirty or they're wearing gloves. And then they wanted facial recognition and facial recognition. They wear masks in the field to cover their face. And then it was retinal scanning. then we started to see what, how people reacted to the retinal scan and not wanting their eyeball scan. And it wasn't an issue of immigration. was just, they thought it was unsafe for their vision. And so there seemed to be these kinds of cultural barriers to adoption of your user.
and really helped us understand that we're addressing two needs, the needs of the folks who are signing the checks and renewing the subscription and the folks who are using the product in the field. And they're not the same with any of our customers.
I think a really important piece that you just kind of mentioned there that I wanted to highlight is that software itself is not training. Software is a piece that enables people that are already trained on the right process. What you built just enables what exists already, as opposed to saying, I'm coming in with this ideology. You must follow the app. The app is the way.
(03:19):
Speaker 2 (37:58.466)
Yeah, and that's right. It is going to make your workday easier because you're going to have less risk of compliance mistakes and lawsuits. It's going to be more efficient. You don't have to drive paperwork to the office. And then the office folks start making phone calls to say, can't see if this is a three or a five or an eight. I can't read your handwriting. It's going to make that part easier, but it's not going to overnight make your employees better employees.
that's going to be a bit more work. And we can help with that by showing you, giving you more visibility to what's going on in the field. But please don't try to employ the technology to be your disciplinary.
It reminds me of a branding exercise, funny enough, that we did years ago when we first started starting the company. And the facilitator came to us and said, listen, we want to talk about what your values are today and what it currently exists, not what you aspire to be. Don't give me these things that, we want to be X. Let's talk about what you do now. And that kind of seems like exactly what you're doing is, tell me what your process is now, not
the next step in that process because software won't make that leap for you. Good training will make that leap for you. Good people will make that leap for you, but you can't leave it up to the piece of software to train the people.
Yeah. And what's interesting in the food supply chain with these large enterprises is that they don't fully understand their own processes, their own workflows that happen in the field. And so we might have a discussion with Taylor Farms and they have a subscription going and we start deploying them and we realize that what's going on in the field is not as we understood it early. And this happens with every large company. There's just so many moving parts to it.
Speaker 2 (39:51.17)
that the implementation of technology can really be the heaviest lift of all. And so we find with the smaller organizations that are more horizontal and smaller acreage, it's far easier. And so it's funny because it's kind of this, you get really excited because you landed a huge name, but then the deployment process quickly calms you down and you have to refocus on the task ahead.
Totally. I'd love to zoom in on the moment where you realized, hey, we might have some product market fit here.
(03:40):
Yeah, it actually was told to us. We started to see, we worked so closely with the users and spent so much time in the field, we had to turn away from kind of our peers and what else was going on in the Ag Tech scene. And it makes it kind of lonely and disorienting when you come up for air.
We, in 2018, we went through the Tech Stars Farmed a Fork program in the Twin Cities. And it has mentored some great companies. But we started to realize that when we would talk to the, you go through this group of mentor madness, and you're talking to like 200 different mentors, that they were really keying in on the traction that we had. And we could see kind of the surprised look that these investors had in
we would have to ask them like, what is surprising here? And they said, well, you guys are pretty far along. Like you guys have a platform, you're in market. It seems like your customers are happy because we have all of these testimonials and we try to pair up anyone who's interested in Heavy Connect with at least three existing users to help them understand what they can expect to be a customer. so we started to learn
Speaker 2 (41:57.614)
from kind of looking up and around how things are going, that we are, I don't wanna use the word successful, but we're on the right path. every time that we had done that, we were surprised to realize how far along we've come. Kind of like going on a journey or climbing a mountain when you turn around, you're like, wow, I thought I had only gone very little and it turns out that you're pretty high up.
And so it was the investors in these presentations after Mentor Madness that were saying, hey, you've got product market fit. And that was the.
Yeah, our customers never said that and there's never been a shortage of feature requests. And so we keep building, but I will say like one thing that I've noticed. So we don't have any salespeople or Mark. don't do any marketing. So I often have to explain, you know, everything is a hundred percent referral for us. I have to explain, you know, what heavy connect is. but also in those discussions, there'd be at least 10 to 15 requests for, you do this? Can you do that?
And I, when it started to change of the answer from no, but, or, or we will, if you sign up was right around 2018, 2019. And the platform started not only to have product market fit. I don't think you get like early product market fit in the food supply chain. You have to have enterprise grade software to have these kinds of customers using your product. And so.
(04:01):
You either have it or you don't. And they let you know because they, you know, they just won't sign up. But I started to realize though, that in these discussions, the answers to can you do this? Can you do that? They all started to become yeses. And when that happened, those discussions became less stressful and it was more just a getting to know you. And in that moment for me, I felt, okay, this is product market fit. The answer.
Speaker 2 (44:02.988)
I can, they can start describing their problem and I'm, I'm trying to like not be too obvious of the smiling that's going on. Like, Yeah. So it's, I think it was probably that, but then also you, you, you see how, how the, ag tech industry and you know, it's, it's ebbed and flowed. and we've been able to continuously grow, not, not at a, you know, tech crunch newsworthy clip.
So it's not that obvious, but we keep growing and the stress has come down over time.
Imagine not having sales or marketing folks might have a part of that stress or part of that reduction in stress because smaller team, it's all you. And having all of your customers come from referrals sounds like a great place to be. I'm curious what comes next.
Yeah, and we wrestle with that. So the geographic trajectory has really driven us and getting the phone calls saying, I've got another department. What I think, you know, they're still using paper for, you know, we started dabbling in fleet management for a few of our farm labor contractors that have hundreds of tractors and trucks and trailers and bathroom trolleys. So.
know, tracking all of their work orders and inventory levels of chemicals. it continues to kind of expand that way, but it's all in the same core documentation functionality and then leveraging that documentation for data analytics and business intelligence. You know, early on, I did go to some of these farmers and say, you know, I'd like to optimize your operation and...
Speaker 2 (45:53.57)
I want to use big data analytics. And I think this could be like the Palantir of farming and the food supply chain. And without exception, they said, get the hell away from, but when we started talking about like, well, same product, but we're to get rid of your paper. Then the checkbook started to come out. And so we stay true to that documentation piece and, find that there's no shortage of opportunity as we continue to grow globally.
(04:22):
We now have companies like Horta Fruit based down in Chile who started off using Heavy Connect through their association with Natureripe and other one of our customers. They started using it in Europe and Middle East and it never touched American shores until recently Horta Fruit USA is using Heavy Connect. And so we see that continual expansion and as we keep translating the app into Thai and Mandarin and it just keeps growing geographically.
we see that we kind of want to stay there. The one thing that I think is a big opportunity now is we should be getting the word out more than we are. I'd say we're almost doing ourselves a disservice today by not letting people know what Heavy Connect is.
You know, it's funny, normally I run into founders that they have a few customers and they're like, I need a sales development team. Let's get 10 SDRs on this. I think the slow approach of like letting referrals be the number one source for a while, while you figure things out, while you develop and get something that is you're getting referrals, you're getting happy customers, you're getting the longevity, I think is an amazing approach.
Not to say eventually sales and marketing folks won't help, but I don't think you can. Listening to the story here, you have just kind of breezed by where a lot of people struggle and a lot of the pitfalls where people go and sink a bunch of time and add a lot of risk to their companies. So congrats, man. I really enjoyed getting a chance to learn more about you and Heavy Connect. If people are curious about the platform, they want to reach out to you for advice.
Speaker 1 (48:09.86)
trying to get something going in the X base, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
Patrick at heavy connect.com or just go to heavy connect.com.
Is that with a K? Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Patrick.
(04:43):
you
Speaker 2 (48:27.842)
Thank you. Have a great day.
Thanks. Thanks to everybody for listening. We'll catch y'all next time.
Welcome back to the Predictable Revenue Podcast. I'm your host, Colin Stewart. today I'm joined by Patrick Zelaya. He's the founder and CEO over at HeavyConnect. We're going to talk about product market fit. Before we jump in, this episode is brought to you by our Founder Coaching Program. Founders, let's be real. Scaling a company is tough. You're juggling product, revenue, hiring, and a million other decisions. But what if you had a proven framework and expert guidance to help you navigate the chaos? That's where our Founder Coaching Program.
founder coaching program comes in. Whether you're trying to find your first customers or fine tune your go-to market, we're here to help you build a business that scales, well, predictably. Now to the episode. Patrick, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:25.236)
I'm looking forward to diving into this. I want to start with talking about where the idea came from and maybe the genesis of the name because, you know, we were talking a little bit before the where you where you are is not necessarily representative of what the name suggests.
Yeah. So my first career was at Deere and Company and I worked in different John Deere manufacturing facilities, globally. over in, Germany's Weibrucken and Mannheim Germany down in, South central and South America and throughout the U S and a lot of the activities that we would do would be more kind of corporate facing in a, in a controlled environments with a conference table.
but then out in the field is a very different, operating structure. And so a lot of the, the daily activities and the workflows, did not go as smoothly as what you would see in the office. And so I thought that there would be a good opportunity at some point to, create more synergy and collaboration and facilitate it. the last place that I was with.
with Deering Company was in the Salinas Valley in California where Heavy Connect is based. And the combination of people, so many people in the field, so much equipment and the locations changing throughout the day was the most complex food production environment that I had ever seen. we've seen it in different countries.
(00:31):
And the need for collaboration between a centralized facility, the office or the headquarters and the teams out in the field was most severe at that time. When the idea came about 2014, 2015, there was a lot of regulation and requirements around compliance.
Speaker 2 (15:33.058)
for these food producers, especially around food safety, which Heavy Connect is probably most known for. But there weren't a lot of simple tools. And so everybody defaulted to using paper, paper that would get muddy, paper that would get lost, paper that would get turned in late, paper that was written illegibly and would result in a lot of errors and confusion and increased risk. What was written on the paper, I wasn't completely sure about. I'm not an expert in.
And we learned that all of that paper was for compliance. I explained to people that if you look back to the high school math test, you could write every answer correctly, but if you didn't show your work, you wouldn't get any credit. That's the same in the food supply chain. You have to show what you're doing in the field through documentation. And this is the same time where
smartphones started to really become reliable offline. And I thought if you could take a mobile app that was very simple, big, colorful user experience, intuitive, rounded buttons, icons, no typing required, make it simpler and faster than paper, you'd be onto something. You'd have something that could actually replace paper. There'd been technologies in the field for decades.
but they just really were meant more for an office worker than the field worker. Coming from Deere and Company, my thought was we're gonna help people understand the status of their equipment. So fuel logs, equipment checks to make sure that there weren't any leaks or the lights were working and so forth. And if there was, the earlier you can address those problems, the lower the cost is. And so we wanted to connect the equipment
but also coming from deer, we worked in different industries. We worked in construction, oil and gas, forestry, so forth. And I saw potential and didn't really want to close the door to other industries if we were successful in agriculture. And so instead of having some name around farming or ag or food, we wanted to focus in on heavy equipment.
Speaker 2 (17:54.912)
And so heavy connect was the original idea for equipment, inspections and logs. And that is it, started there and evolved. We thought about changing the name a few times, but by that time, the industry knew us as heavy connect. So we just, we just stuck with it.
(00:52):
Right on. And so you had this insight from working in the, maybe not necessarily working in the field, but being out in the fields and seeing the equipment and seeing the workers and seeing all the paper with mud on it. What was your process for going from, okay, I've got this idea to, you know, the making the decision to do something about it?
Yeah. So, so we started, so I'm not a software engineer myself. So I started working with a team from Cal State, Monterey Bay, which is right next door to Salinas, as well as Hartnell college inside of Salinas. They have some great computer science programs and we did a, a hackathon that was put on by tech stars called the startup challenge. and we built kind of the, an early prototype of the business and it started to.
to get a lot of interest in that way. So we knew that the beachhead of the Salinas Valley would really be kind of this propulsion agent to Heavy Connect's growth. So when we came to the industry, we said, all we're gonna do is build the app. You tell us what it needs to do. And from there, learned about, Driscoll's told us about food safety and
Dole told us about QA and Cisco Foods and it just kind of grew from there of like, what is Heavy Connect gonna do? And so when you look at these compliance requirements, it is food safety, it is QA, it's time and attendance for your harvesting employees so that you don't get hit with the lawsuit, the Department of Labor doesn't come knocking, that you document everything that you're doing right. Don't change what you're doing, keep doing it, but document it more easily. And so we started building in all this functionality
Speaker 2 (20:06.594)
And our North star was let's build this for the farm worker. Let's make it easier and faster than paper. And let's help them demonstrate their expertise and knowledge about their work in a way that translates to the office that translates to large data analytics for optimizing operational efficiency, things that really matter to the C suite, but they don't have that visibility to it.
It's super interesting. I'm curious, how do you go from university hackathon to selling to two of arguably the biggest food producers in America? It seems like we may have skipped a step, so I'd love to zoom in on that piece. Are you just that good?
No, no, it's actually attributed to the Salinas Valley because they're that close to each other. So we did the hackathon. There was some natural local interest and we actually went up to Silicon Valley and we tried to get into Y Combinator, 500 startups. And 500 said, if you guys can go and get letters of intent from some of these companies that you're talking about, we'll consider you for our next cohort.
(01:13):
And so we did, and then, and then they said, well, can you get, prepaid agreements? And I thought, well, if I could do that, what do I need you for? Right. And, and. But it was a great idea. So I went to a friend of mine, Norm Groot at the, at the Monterey County farm bureau and presented to their board. And I thought, you know, what, what this shaped up to be was like an informal Kickstarter. And I said, look, here's what we want to do.
We know that paper is a problem. If, if you help us, if you partner with us by funding this, we will build whatever you say you need with the caveat that we can sell it to anyone after this. becomes not yours. It's not custom software, but it helps start this business. And the benefit is you're getting exactly the kind of software that you want without the cost. And,
Speaker 2 (22:19.31)
That's when people really started signing up for it. We signed up about 15 farmers, large, large companies, and they said, well, what is this gonna cost? And standing there at the Farm Bureau in front of them, I said, $500 a month, prepay for 12 months, so give me a check for 6,000. I got 15 of those, and that funded our development for the next two years.
And then eventually we got a call from 500 asking us if we'd to join their cohort in, in 2016. was, things really started picking up and it was because the, uh, the brands were so recognizable and it was more of a, well, if these folks say they need it, then it must be important for the industry. it took off from there.
Talk to me about Norm, because this sounds like maybe a non-standard ask. I haven't seen somebody go to a company like this and say, hey, you pay for the first one, and then we'll go resell it to everybody else. So what was that relationship? What was their company, their organization?
Yeah, so Norm and I were friends because I've been in the ag industry for a while and there is a bit of a tight knit community in agriculture, even regionally and locally where you start to know each other. And so a lot of the folks in the room knew who I was at the time. I had been in the Salinas Valley for a couple of years by then. And so I think I was talking to Norm at a chamber of commerce mixer.
And I said, Hey, can I present to the board? Here's what I'm thinking. He's like, yeah, come on in. And so I told him about the hackathon and, and, we entered a business competition that the school put on that was sponsored by tech stars and we won that. And, uh, that was an extra 20,000. were in the paper, um, the local paper, the Californian. Um, and, and then the, the awareness started to grow. were, we were a feature on PBS is news hour because the idea was coming from.
(01:34):
Speaker 2 (24:28.718)
a core, not just of a great startup idea, but really it was the people who are building this, software engineers are children of farm workers. And the product that they're building is highlighting the careers of farm workers and getting that more into the light beyond just the value of compliance. So there was a really good story to go with it. And we had some brands behind us.
Very cool. so Driscoll and Dole, did they come from that? Were their farmers among the first 15? Or how did you get them into the fold?
They were on, they had seats on the board at the farm bureau. So they were in that meeting and the next week they called me into their offices, Driscoll up in Watsonville and Dolan Salinas. And they said, you know, what do you need to get going? And I said, well, I mean, really, I know you're good for the money. I just need to know what you want me to do. And so they connected me to the farming managers and they brought out the...
Dolph and Driscoll's both brought out their food safety compliance manual. And it was this four inch thick binder that they couldn't use the three rings on it anymore. And they said, this is what we have to maintain continuously for compliance. And we dove in and started replicating that. think early on, it was a very simple like Fisher price version of Google forms. And with that, we were able to, to
build a more complex, complete mobile platform.
Speaker 1 (26:09.806)
That's super interesting. I love the starting place. It's such a... I had never considered going to like a chamber commerce or a farm bureau quite like that. Obviously not quite as connected in a particular industry, but that's such a unique way to start.
Yeah. And it wasn't until afterwards that I realized, that was kind of a Kickstarter campaign that I did, just, like offline and, and we, we let them kind of drive the innovation and, and, know, what, what it needed to do. So we learned about compliance, you know, when you get into like, time and attendance, the piece rate calculations, double time, overtime, different worker types where, you can have a wage.
(01:55):
paid to an H2AV guest worker doing the exact same work, but you have a domestic worker next to him that is paid differently. They're doing piece rates, so they're paid differently based on that. They might even be doing two different crops in the same field. They're paid differently on that. And then an hour later, after their break, they're moving from the Arizona border into California, and there's a different requirements there. And so you've got this payroll engine working in the background.
making sure that all the clients is met and they're paid correctly for their net pay. But when they see the folks see on the mobile app that they download any device, you you go to Google play store for Android or your Apple app store for your iPhones. It's so simple. It just says break or, you know, piece rate clock in. And so, and then it follows the language of the device. So you're not going to see it in, you're not going to see, you know, break and lunch and
And in California, you won't even see like Descanso y Al Muerto, which is proper Spanish. You'll see Breyque and Lonche, which is what we speak in California. So it's very tailored for the farm workers.
Speaker 1 (28:06.764)
That's amazing. think the phrase I've heard you say a couple of times that I think was probably pretty key is, you know, I'm here. Tell me what you need. I think one of the mistakes I made early in my career was saying, I'm smart. This is what I've built. Look, isn't this great? And everybody went. But nobody actually handed over any money.
Well, in agriculture, and I have seen this across the country, is you really have to come on the scene hat in hand and ready to learn. Because every environment is different and you will find some patterns. But there's way more to learn and challenge your assumptions when you really dig in.
I love that. So first customers came from the Chamber of Commerce or the Farm Bureau. then you've got obviously Driscoll and Dole in there. I imagine they don't have that. I think I've heard of these companies. I think I've probably eaten some of their food before. I imagine they have farms elsewhere. Was it just you land these once and then this is, you you quickly expand or, what did that look like?
We thought that was the case because you're right. There's thousands of suppliers that make up this brand. So they all centralized into a cooling facility or a packing shed, a storage facility under the logo of Driscoll's nature ripe, well-picked, gem pack and so forth. each time we had a meeting, even when it was a referral,
(02:16):
It was a brand new discussion. They didn't know us. We had to start over. And I think actually Cisco is a good example that they're so proud of what we have built together, but they're also such an enormous global company that really getting the reach of our product throughout their enterprise is a continuous effort.
Speaker 2 (30:12.364)
you know, through, no fault of, of anyone, it's just, it doesn't, the doors don't fly open. You really have to push them. and it takes time to do that.
Interesting. So the first customers came from this initial group in the valley there. Where did your first kind of repeatable customers start coming through?
Yeah. So, so when they signed up, we started to get other large brands, as well. And everything was word of mouth because we didn't really have a marketing budget. Everything was going to engineering. but the, the, the, interconnectedness of the food supply chain chain is what really drove things. So we found when, you know, when we would sign up, a logo like Dole.
there's someone who grows for Dole and that farm needs to do compliance paperwork as well for different purposes. So that's where we start that meeting. And then the folks that harvest is called a farm labor contractor or an FLC, they need to do time and attendance for their employees. And so we're getting to talk to all these folks and understand the different functionality and we're getting all of these, the platform.
grows very quickly. That was, we had a lot of growing pains there because once you started saying you're a paperless compliance platform for the food supply chain, there's so many parts to it when you come to compliance. And, you know, in California, there's regulation, there's department of pesticide regulation, the DPR, they have to turn in pesticide use reports to the county and all of this has to be tracked.
Speaker 2 (31:54.922)
and documented. And so we're building and building as quickly as we can as that customer base diversifies, even though they're super interconnected. And so when you look at the platform today and see all the different things that Heavy Connect can do, and people say like, this just seems like such a mixed bag. What brings it together? And what brings it together is the user, is the person in the field or the front line in the office, your payroll team.
(02:37):
just like Microsoft Office, they're gonna use Docs, Excel, they're gonna use PowerPoint. It's the same thing in the field. They need the fuel logs, they need the pesticide scouting checklists, they need the restroom cleaning logs, they need the quality data to make sure that their buyers know what great quality is coming out of the field and in what amount. So all that data is needed.
And that's kind of where the growing pains came from. So we had to build really fast.
I like it. And so it sounds like you started with this one kind of niche use case around the farmers in the fields and then kind of got pulled into these other kind of up the chain and down the chain and maybe into like adjacent areas where they also needed, they had the same job to be done, but for a different context.
Yeah. And we had to say no a lot just so that we could maintain that focus. One thing that we did anticipate was the geography of it is that we knew coming out of the Salinas Valley that California was next to take notice. then as you know, California fresh produce and the operational environment really drives what is needed in the rest of the United States. So that when we do start talking to growers down in Florida,
Speaker 2 (33:43.106)
They've heard about us from California and we're basically like taking away features and functionality of compliance because there are less regulated geography. And then we do this globally. And that's something that I kind of took away from deer is like how innovation flows globally. You know, the world looks at the U S the U S looks at California, California looks at Salinas when it comes to fresh produce. And so it was this perfect beach head for, for expansion.
Wow. I'm super, I mean, I didn't quite realize it. It makes sense now that you've kind of walked me through it. Talk to me about some of the things that you said no to.
Yeah, so it's funny because at first the requirements do become very simple and you're replacing Excel spreadsheets or Google Docs. And so it's not hard to say like, hey, we have that, we can do signatures, we drop GPS pins, the app opens up the camera and we'll scan barcodes and QR codes to verify your traceability and your load tags.
(02:58):
once people started to understand that the mobile app could do so much and that they didn't need to think, well, it's technology, it's going to be hard. Once they started opening up, they just kind of became these, these innovation futurists where they're like, well, can it, you know, can it run robots for us and can it pull data from a field sensors? And if there's not cell signal or wifi, can it connect to satellite and
That's when we had to start saying no and realize not just the functionality in terms of managing our roadmap, but things like, like geofencing. People would say, I don't want people to use, to be able to clock in if they're in the wrong field. I don't want them to do a food safety report for the wrong crop. And so we did all this actually. And when we tested it, we, found that they were cultural barriers to a lot of this innovation.
Speaker 2 (35:50.572)
where if you started to try to train, use technology to train the behaviors of your employees, they would reject it. And they'd say the app doesn't work. Well, actually you were in the wrong place when you were trying to use it. So the app did work and it prevented you from using it. But the communication, they say like, if it's not going to work for me, I'm not going to do it. And so we started to realize some of these barriers that we needed to say no to like geo-fencing. did not want to prevent people from using the app. So.
We'd say, if you can do it on paper, the app will let you do it. The difference is we're going to bring this to your attention on the dashboard, how things are done incorrectly. And then for the company, for the organization, it's a training opportunity for your company to train the fields folks on what they don't know. Also biometrics was a big one. Early on, there were some really innovative vineyard companies that wanted retinal scanning. Well, first they wanted facial recognition.
Well, first it was fingerprints and fingerprints are dirty or they're wearing gloves. And then they wanted facial recognition and facial recognition. They wear masks in the field to cover their face. And then it was retinal scanning. then we started to see what, how people reacted to the retinal scan and not wanting their eyeball scan. And it wasn't an issue of immigration. was just, they thought it was unsafe for their vision. And so there seemed to be these kinds of cultural barriers to adoption of your user.
and really helped us understand that we're addressing two needs, the needs of the folks who are signing the checks and renewing the subscription and the folks who are using the product in the field. And they're not the same with any of our customers.
I think a really important piece that you just kind of mentioned there that I wanted to highlight is that software itself is not training. Software is a piece that enables people that are already trained on the right process. What you built just enables what exists already, as opposed to saying, I'm coming in with this ideology. You must follow the app. The app is the way.
(03:19):
Speaker 2 (37:58.466)
Yeah, and that's right. It is going to make your workday easier because you're going to have less risk of compliance mistakes and lawsuits. It's going to be more efficient. You don't have to drive paperwork to the office. And then the office folks start making phone calls to say, can't see if this is a three or a five or an eight. I can't read your handwriting. It's going to make that part easier, but it's not going to overnight make your employees better employees.
that's going to be a bit more work. And we can help with that by showing you, giving you more visibility to what's going on in the field. But please don't try to employ the technology to be your disciplinary.
It reminds me of a branding exercise, funny enough, that we did years ago when we first started starting the company. And the facilitator came to us and said, listen, we want to talk about what your values are today and what it currently exists, not what you aspire to be. Don't give me these things that, we want to be X. Let's talk about what you do now. And that kind of seems like exactly what you're doing is, tell me what your process is now, not
the next step in that process because software won't make that leap for you. Good training will make that leap for you. Good people will make that leap for you, but you can't leave it up to the piece of software to train the people.
Yeah. And what's interesting in the food supply chain with these large enterprises is that they don't fully understand their own processes, their own workflows that happen in the field. And so we might have a discussion with Taylor Farms and they have a subscription going and we start deploying them and we realize that what's going on in the field is not as we understood it early. And this happens with every large company. There's just so many moving parts to it.
Speaker 2 (39:51.17)
that the implementation of technology can really be the heaviest lift of all. And so we find with the smaller organizations that are more horizontal and smaller acreage, it's far easier. And so it's funny because it's kind of this, you get really excited because you landed a huge name, but then the deployment process quickly calms you down and you have to refocus on the task ahead.
Totally. I'd love to zoom in on the moment where you realized, hey, we might have some product market fit here.
(03:40):
Yeah, it actually was told to us. We started to see, we worked so closely with the users and spent so much time in the field, we had to turn away from kind of our peers and what else was going on in the Ag Tech scene. And it makes it kind of lonely and disorienting when you come up for air.
We, in 2018, we went through the Tech Stars Farmed a Fork program in the Twin Cities. And it has mentored some great companies. But we started to realize that when we would talk to the, you go through this group of mentor madness, and you're talking to like 200 different mentors, that they were really keying in on the traction that we had. And we could see kind of the surprised look that these investors had in
we would have to ask them like, what is surprising here? And they said, well, you guys are pretty far along. Like you guys have a platform, you're in market. It seems like your customers are happy because we have all of these testimonials and we try to pair up anyone who's interested in Heavy Connect with at least three existing users to help them understand what they can expect to be a customer. so we started to learn
Speaker 2 (41:57.614)
from kind of looking up and around how things are going, that we are, I don't wanna use the word successful, but we're on the right path. every time that we had done that, we were surprised to realize how far along we've come. Kind of like going on a journey or climbing a mountain when you turn around, you're like, wow, I thought I had only gone very little and it turns out that you're pretty high up.
And so it was the investors in these presentations after Mentor Madness that were saying, hey, you've got product market fit. And that was the.
Yeah, our customers never said that and there's never been a shortage of feature requests. And so we keep building, but I will say like one thing that I've noticed. So we don't have any salespeople or Mark. don't do any marketing. So I often have to explain, you know, everything is a hundred percent referral for us. I have to explain, you know, what heavy connect is. but also in those discussions, there'd be at least 10 to 15 requests for, you do this? Can you do that?
And I, when it started to change of the answer from no, but, or, or we will, if you sign up was right around 2018, 2019. And the platform started not only to have product market fit. I don't think you get like early product market fit in the food supply chain. You have to have enterprise grade software to have these kinds of customers using your product. And so.
(04:01):
You either have it or you don't. And they let you know because they, you know, they just won't sign up. But I started to realize though, that in these discussions, the answers to can you do this? Can you do that? They all started to become yeses. And when that happened, those discussions became less stressful and it was more just a getting to know you. And in that moment for me, I felt, okay, this is product market fit. The answer.
Speaker 2 (44:02.988)
I can, they can start describing their problem and I'm, I'm trying to like not be too obvious of the smiling that's going on. Like, Yeah. So it's, I think it was probably that, but then also you, you, you see how, how the, ag tech industry and you know, it's, it's ebbed and flowed. and we've been able to continuously grow, not, not at a, you know, tech crunch newsworthy clip.
So it's not that obvious, but we keep growing and the stress has come down over time.
Imagine not having sales or marketing folks might have a part of that stress or part of that reduction in stress because smaller team, it's all you. And having all of your customers come from referrals sounds like a great place to be. I'm curious what comes next.
Yeah, and we wrestle with that. So the geographic trajectory has really driven us and getting the phone calls saying, I've got another department. What I think, you know, they're still using paper for, you know, we started dabbling in fleet management for a few of our farm labor contractors that have hundreds of tractors and trucks and trailers and bathroom trolleys. So.
know, tracking all of their work orders and inventory levels of chemicals. it continues to kind of expand that way, but it's all in the same core documentation functionality and then leveraging that documentation for data analytics and business intelligence. You know, early on, I did go to some of these farmers and say, you know, I'd like to optimize your operation and...
Speaker 2 (45:53.57)
I want to use big data analytics. And I think this could be like the Palantir of farming and the food supply chain. And without exception, they said, get the hell away from, but when we started talking about like, well, same product, but we're to get rid of your paper. Then the checkbook started to come out. And so we stay true to that documentation piece and, find that there's no shortage of opportunity as we continue to grow globally.
(04:22):
We now have companies like Horta Fruit based down in Chile who started off using Heavy Connect through their association with Natureripe and other one of our customers. They started using it in Europe and Middle East and it never touched American shores until recently Horta Fruit USA is using Heavy Connect. And so we see that continual expansion and as we keep translating the app into Thai and Mandarin and it just keeps growing geographically.
we see that we kind of want to stay there. The one thing that I think is a big opportunity now is we should be getting the word out more than we are. I'd say we're almost doing ourselves a disservice today by not letting people know what Heavy Connect is.
You know, it's funny, normally I run into founders that they have a few customers and they're like, I need a sales development team. Let's get 10 SDRs on this. I think the slow approach of like letting referrals be the number one source for a while, while you figure things out, while you develop and get something that is you're getting referrals, you're getting happy customers, you're getting the longevity, I think is an amazing approach.
Not to say eventually sales and marketing folks won't help, but I don't think you can. Listening to the story here, you have just kind of breezed by where a lot of people struggle and a lot of the pitfalls where people go and sink a bunch of time and add a lot of risk to their companies. So congrats, man. I really enjoyed getting a chance to learn more about you and Heavy Connect. If people are curious about the platform, they want to reach out to you for advice.
Speaker 1 (48:09.86)
trying to get something going in the X base, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
Patrick at heavy connect.com or just go to heavy connect.com.
Is that with a K? Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Patrick.
(04:43):
you
Speaker 2 (48:27.842)
Thank you. Have a great day.
Thanks. Thanks to everybody for listening. We'll catch y'all next time.
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