Leaving CEO position of Laduchi Consult
Lado Sheroziia
Ph.D. EMBA. | Trouble Shooter , M&A, | Creation of Boards of Directors | Business Angel Investor
Why did I leave
I have been developing and leading the Laduchi Consult project for 4 years, and I have been working in the consulting business since 2005, but still decided to leave. Where to?
In 2021, my team and I completed major projects related to the jewellery business: the great Carrera y Carrera jewellery house and the equally unique Magerit house. We conducted them for 2.5 years — it was a complex task that required a lot of knowledge, professionalism and a lot of time, concentration and immersion in all the details not only of business processes, but also in the intricacies of jewellery.
How the projects ended can be read in our cases:
Over the past 1.5 years, I have been studying the markets in search of other projects that would captivate me.
As a result, we selected 6 projects where I could direct my efforts, time, and investments. I eliminated 3 of them, and took the remaining ones to work.
Cyber Farm startup, artificial intelligence for dairy farms, may act as a flagship project. It analyses more than 200 indicators and makes a forecast for 16 months ahead. Cyber Farm helps farmers track expenses, calculates the final profit taking into account many factors, can give a signal about the deterioration of the cow's health even before it becomes noticeable.
This is a completely new field for me. It has nothing to do with my education or experience. But there were numbers and facts that showed all the prospects of the project.
The question may arise: why do I personally need a startup at all? But this is a completely separate conversation. When the time comes, I'll tell you.
Cyber Farm
Facts and numbers have always been crucial to me. Choosing Cyber Farm as one of our new projects, together with the team we conducted a thorough analysis of all indicators. As a result, we decided that this project would be the most expensive for us, because we want to invest there in addition to money, our time, knowledge and ourselves.
What numbers prompted us to make such a decision?
Steady growth
Despite all the potential problems associated with the rise in the price of livestock, environmental problems or a shortage of resources, world milk production, according to a report by the OECD-FAO (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), will grow by 3.6% annually in the period from 2022 to 2029 and will reach 997 million tons in 2029, and by 2026, according to Statista forecasts, its volume will be about 1.128 billion US dollars.
Perspective
It is expected that the estimated value of the market worldwide will grow by more than 2 times in the period from 2020 to 2030.
Competitiveness
Cyber Farm has only 4 direct competitors who also develop their solutions based on artificial intelligence: these are smaXtec, Ida.io, Dairy Data Warehouse and Dairy Enteligen. However, Cyber Farm is a much more comprehensive product that is far ahead of them in terms of functionality, can help more people and has already been able to show itself in real conditions.
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Development potential
Now the market of monitoring systems is estimated at 1.6 billion US dollars. According to forecasts, by 2030 the market will grow by more than 2 times and will approach the 4 billion mark.
There are still advantages, but it's too early to talk about them publicly. Already these 4 were enough to determine my further participation in the Cyber Farm Form.
What am I doing in Cyber Farm
When I started working on the project, I immediately encountered a couple of difficulties.
The first was the structuring of the company. We chose London to register the company. From scratch, they drew up all the documents and prescribed the main provisions of the company: memoranda, contracts with employees, partners and freelancers, issued a trademark, prescribed a business plan, an option agreement, thought out a marketing plan and a provision on cybersecurity.
It seems like everything that an entrepreneur should usually do. But all this took more than one month of work. One of the reasons is that the ideologists and its performers were scattered all over the world.
The second is intellectual property rights. I had to buy the rights from some of the original performers because they did not agree with my vision and requirements.
The next task was to attract partners and investors to the project. We had an option to present a startup in Helsinki at SLUSH — one of the most important events in the world of technology and venture investments — a big startup competition was held there.
But we have made a bold strategic decision: we will not represent ourselves in Helsinki, but will speak at the Eurotier industry exhibition in Hanover — the largest agricultural event.
It was a risky move, but it paid off. I will express this in the insights that I received as a result:
Following the results of the exhibition, we were invited at the state level to South Korea and Turkey. But we have already determined for ourselves which markets we will start with first:
Yes, it's not Europe or North America at all. But there are reasons for this: According to the latest IFCN study, the largest dairy farming enterprises in the world are located in Saudi Arabia and China. China occupies half of the top 10 list, the rest of the companies are located in Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United States. These 10 largest companies with multiple dairy farms together produced 1.1% of global milk production in 2018.
The largest farm in terms of production is located in Saudi Arabia — Al Marai. In 2018-2019, it produced 1.47 million metric tons of milk. This is similar to milk production in all of Indonesia or Norway.
What will happen to Laduchi
In October, we organized the supervisory board of the company — a group of independent highly qualified specialists who will have to ensure the stability of the company, make sure that it stands firmly on its feet and only improves its performance.
In the next article, I will tell you more about who became the new head of the company and what prospects are waiting for Laduchi in 2023.