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1 episodes · 24 quoted claims
Mackenzie Burnett says about 90% of payments in U.S. agriculture still go through paper check because digital payments can be expensive for producers.
“90% of payments in U.S. agriculture still go through paper check. And it's not because they're behind the times. It's because digital payments can be expensive for a lot of these producers.”
Ambrook began by helping farms access working capital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“And we had started by trying to help a lot of farms access working capital during the pandemic.”
Many farms Ambrook worked with could not produce a balance sheet, which lenders require for a loan.
“They couldn't produce a balance sheet, which you need for a loan.”
Agricultural lenders often drive to the farm and build the balance sheet with the producer at the kitchen table.
“So they drive to the farm and they sit down in the kitchen table and they actually put together their balance sheet with the producer.”
About 10,000 of the roughly 1.8 million to 2 million U.S. farms make more than $5 million a year in annual sales.
“Yeah, so it's about 10,000. Yeah. Yeah, which is an extreme power law.”
Ambrook's second customer was a cattle feeder operation in Arizona that had four other entities, none of them farms.
“our second customer was a cattle feeder operation in Arizona.”
Burnett says the main software customers switch from to Ambrook is Intuit's QuickBooks.
“the main competitive software that folks are switching from us is Intuit software.”
Ambrook built its app on React Native and has not needed a full-time mobile engineer.
“Even cross-platform, like a choice that we made really early on was to build on React Native, which immediately just gives you,”
Burnett says about a third of Ambrook's customers do all their bookkeeping and accounting exclusively on mobile.
“about a third of our customers use exclusively mobile to do all of their bookkeeping and accounting, which is insane for the level of complexity that they're dealing with.”
Burnett says carbon credit payments require maintaining the same farming behavior for about ten years or face clawback provisions.
“Carbon payments are on very long time frames, and they require you to maintain the same behavior over about a 10-year period. Otherwise, you get clawback provisions.”
A producer at a sustainability conference told Burnett that carbon programs must show a 3 to 4x payback to be worthwhile.
“it's not enough to have a 1x payback. You have to prove that these programs can have a 3 to 4x payback.”
Burnett says tighter immigration reduces the seasonal labor that farms and processing facilities rely on.
“there's a lot of immigration-related issues that a lot of folks are kind of facing right now.”
Many meat processing facilities shut down during the pandemic, creating problems for livestock producers.
“And that was the issue in the pandemic, too, because a lot of processing facilities shut down, right?”
Burnett says her top policy wish would be stronger open banking rules giving farmers structured access to their own financial data.
“I'm really interested in a lot of the stuff that's happening with open banking regulations”
Ambrook describes four layers of accounting: cash, accrual, enterprise and managerial.
“actually, I think the way that we talk about it internally is there's four types of accounting. The first layer is just cash.”
Ambrook decided early not to offer below-market loans or subsidized payments, which Burnett says slowed early growth.
“we decided actually early on not to give away free money.”
Burnett says she built Ambrook around a target of roughly 70% gross margins.
“I thought we were supposed to be building for like 70 % gross margins.”
Burnett's team took about 50 pounds of pork home on Amtrak after participating in a pig harvest at a farm that later became a customer.
“We ended up butchering the pig at the end and we took home that meat. It was like 50 pounds that we carried on the Amtrak.”
Joshua Kushner of Thrive Capital made an early investment in Ambrook.
“Josh Kushner at Thrive, who took a really early big bet on me and the vision that we were building for the team.”
Dylan Field recently led a large investment in Ambrook.
“Dylan Field who just led a big investment in Ambrook”
Off Range, Ambrook's editorially independent media publication, began as an experiment called Ambrook Research.
“Offrange started out as an experiment called Ambrook Research.”
Burnett says Ambrook is using the Stripe Treasury network to offer instant, free payments within its deposit ecosystem.
“I think actually something that we're building with because of the Stripe Treasury Network is the ability to do these instant free payments within the deposit sort of ecosystem.”
Burnett's grandfather immigrated from India to the U.S. and built his own engineering practice.
“My grandfather believed in it when he immigrated from India to the U.S. And he built up his own, he was an entrepreneur, built his own engineering practice.”
Burnett says rotational grazing, which moves cattle regularly, can rebuild soil but takes a lot of labor.
“Yeah, so it can be. There is such a thing as overgrazing, right? But I think a lot of what people talk about with rotational grazing”