Newsletter pivot....

For those that don't know, I sold a SaaS software company called Harvest Profit to John Deere in November 2020.

After leaving that business early last year, I challenged myself to do something every day. I asked myself: what do I love doing that also adds value to others?

And the answer was to share my passion for companies, business models, and financials with a broader audience. To-date, that's what Nerd Out on Business has been all about.

But over the last few months, two things have changed:

1. I've been building more and more software and tools with AI.

2. I launched an AI tools course for farmers/ranchers called AI on Your Farm that was very warmly received ($100k+ in sales with a waiting list of 600 people).

At the same time, I've developed a growing conviction: in the era of AI, people are going to need and want to connect with "their people". I find myself talking to my smart friends less and less often because I have a couple of smart friends in my pocket 24/7 (ChatGPT/Claude). And I don't really like that.

So I am working with a handful of smart and motivated people to launch a community for tech-focused farmers, ranchers, and ag business people called Fullstack Ag. I am going to use this newsletter at least temporarily to provide weekly updates on the launch and progress of this community.

The 150+ company profiles that I've done so far have reinforced in me the power of network effects and distribution.

But I've also spent a fair amount of time talking about the difficulty in getting a double-sided marketplace flywheel spinning. Because a community has a lot of similarities with a double-sided marketplace

I had a few realizations that led me to want to launch Fullstack Ag.

• We have 300+ people who signed up for the AI on Your Farm course that we can use to seed the community and get the flywheel of engagement spinning.

• I have a ton of passion for helping farmers as well as working with the A.I. tools that have come out in recent months.

• The landscape is changing so quickly that any one person is going to have a hard time keeping their thumb on the pulse of best practices.

The combination of these factors makes me excited about the potential to build a valuable paid community for the agriculture industry.

So I'm either going to write one or two emails per week that track the progress, metrics and learnings of launching this community.

Furthermore, I'm incredibly excited about helping others build communities, as I think this is going to be important for society going forward.

It's likely that I'm going to come back to writing these company reports at some point. It is something that I enjoyed actually more than I thought I would. But, for now, I want to focus on getting this community off the ground and adding value to others.

I'd love to have you stand this list and follow my progress, but I understand if it's not for you. Feel free to unsubscribe and come back to the website at some point to see if the content is compelling

I’ll report back in a few days with an initial progress report.

Nick

PS. I'd love it if you could vote below on how you feel about the change in direction of this newsletter.