OFI 999: An Agricultural Match Maker, Connecting Farmers & Ranchers With High Quality Labor

SHOW NOTES I love it when ideas spring from actual life experience and people have the courage and tenacity to follow through on making those ideas a reality.  That is absolutely the case on today's episode, featuring the founder and creator of Ag Butler, Kevin Johansen. Kevin and his wife, Jamie, raise cattle in Lebanon, Missouri.  They both grew up ranching cattle in the "Show Me State", and they continue this way of life as a couple.  You may recognize Jamie's name, as she was the featured guest on episode #772 of the show when we profiled her business, Honey Creek Media, almost exactly one year ago today. Kevin has always been involved in entrepreneurial ventures.  One of those was working as a freelancer, clipping cattle for people in preparation for shows and sales.  During his time doing this work, he noticed how antiquated and awkward the process was for finding help.  Kevin's particular skill is just one of the many different skill areas that farmers and ranchers need help with at certain times of the year.  And Kevin noticed that when people discovered that their workload rose to the level of needing additional help for a certain project or time of the year, that finding the correct people was ominous. Kevin described how farmers and ranchers might have a name stored in a phone or on a piece of paper somewhere.  If they could find that name and give them a call the number might not be good any longer, the person may no longer be freelancing or they might have already agreed to work for somebody else because everyone tends to have the same needs at the same time when it comes to clipping and fitting for livestock shows. For the farmer or rancher who needs help, this creates a real problem.  Their entire network of freelancers that could help them was limited to who they had used before.  If these people were unavailable they would have to start over from scratch on finding someone.  This would be done by calling around and asking for referrals.  And, these referrals might have first-hand knowledge of the person's skills and reliability, but possibly not.  So, it was a gamble as to whether or not this person was going to work out well for the farmer's needs. Kevin decided to try and figure out a way to solve this problem.  After giving it deep thought, he came up with the idea of Ag Butler.  Ag Butler is both an app and a website that a farmer and a freelance laborer can sign up for.  With the information that they input, the right two people can get matched up.  Also, the farmers and ranchers that hire these individuals can rate them, so that farmers and ranchers in the future have less of a gamble when hiring.  There are real-world testimonials on the app to help farmers and ranchers determine who is correct for them. Kevin launched Ag Butler in August of 2020, and it has been working well.  They have steadily had more and more people signing up for the service and it is already helping farmers and ranchers who need extra help as well as freelancers looking to work in agriculture. I believe that there is a significant difference in the quality of a service or product that is determined by the experiences of the founder or those people brought in to help develop it as compared to somebody with an idea who has never worked in the field.  Kevin has seen this problem from both sides, and that has made him uniquely qualified to create this product and solve this problem.  And, I think he has done it! Connect with Ag Butler, and  Kevin Johansen at: Website: agbutlerapp.org Facebook: facebook.com/AgButlerApp Instagram: @agbutlerapp Twitter: @AgButlerApp Email: [email protected]