Marcus Richards
Glas Data combines any data source in the agricultural sector to provide a snapshot of the health of a farming business.
Tell us about yourself?
I am a farmer’s son but have a passion for technology. I saw the inevitable direction in which the agricultural sector was moving and wanted to make a product that would help agri business owners be able to make the most of new technologies and devices being introduced.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Focus on simplicity and scalability. It is challenging to make a complex product and issue into a sequence of simple pieces of software to use but it is achievable.
What problem does your business solve?
There is rapid expansion in the agri sector, not only in the adoption of new technology but also in the sheer volume of data sources (think sensors, machines, other software).
Currently there is a significant lack of compatibility between sources / devices and this causes a massive headache for business owners trying to extract value from this technology.
Glas Data’s product alleviates this headache by curating the data and making it appear together as if it has come from a single source.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Is this not a repeat of the above question? My inspiration born of a love of rural life and agriculture and a desire to help people in that sector. As for the problem. See above.
What is your magic sauce?
Our combination of 3 features makes us unique:
- we are IoT device compatible. Whilst others can do this, it is very important.
- we are able to connect ANY data source into our platform as we have a very very flexible data model. What this means in practice is that ANY sensor can push data into our platform.
- we are “out of the box” – we provide solutions that can be posted to a user, read to go. Think amazon shopping but for data in agriculture.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We will be rolling out our online store so that people can painlessly purchase popular packages with 0 predicaments or perplexions.
We will be releasing updates to our product that will make it possible for users to plug in custom hardware / sensors – even if we have never come across it before.
We will be investing heavily in AI and our statistics pipelines to bring the power of big data to everyone.
We will be translating our product for several different markets.
We will investigate our product in augmented reality.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Initially our largest challenge was the design of a system that was capable of merging any data source, regardless of structure, especially in the face of disbelief in its feasibility. Once that challenge was overcome the difficulty was how to make something that is inherently complex, seem simple to use.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We are always open to working with others, our product and therefore ethos, is collaborative by design. We are currently raising funds so people can literally buy in by purchasing shares and we welcome any agri business owners who either want to manage their existing sources more effectively or want to start the journey to get in touch.
