It has been a great three years since SunCulture launched in Kenya. I’m excited to share with you what we’ve achieved and give you insights into where we’re going.
At SunCulture, year 1 was about proving the tech, year 2 was about proving the model, and this last year was about proving growth. And we grew a lot.
Team
We learned the hard way that hiring is one of the most important things a company does. A majority of my time over the last 12 months has been spent recruiting the best individuals. We’ve grown from 13 to 30 in the last year and I can confidently say that each member of our 30 person team is the best at what they do. Nobody is better. And I’m damn proud of that. Each and every person on our team is brilliant, hard working, and inspirational, and I’m honored to work beside them every day.
Geography
Not only have we experienced incredible organic growth in Kenya, but we have also started to sell our solutions outside of Kenya. We have made strategic sales in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan to customers who are potential distributors. We are formalizing our distributor program and look to build distribution partnerships in Q3 this year.
Product
One question I’m often asked is how we plan to distribute drip irrigation, as drip irrigation is bulky, complicated, and quite expensive. A farmer needs a pickup truck to transport one acre of drip irrigation, a highly-skilled technician to spend three days installing a kit, and $1,300.
Not anymore.
We have successfully designed a drip irrigation kit that will fit in the back of a sedan, take a technician one day to install, and only costs $890 which includes delivery across Kenya, saving farmers the hassle and expense of traveling to the city to collect their irrigation system.
More so, we are thrilled to announce our newest product, Mist irrigation, which will finally make irrigation affordable for millions of farmers across the continent. At only $390 per acre, Mist gives subsistence farmers access to irrigation for the first time ever. This is the most affordable irrigation kit on the continent.