When a piece of tech breaks in the city, you can find help within minutes. When it breaks on a farm, you may be in for a long wait.

Farming involves way more technology than most people realize, and it can be an unfortunate situation for farmers when that tech fails. Rural locations mean the person with the expertise to fix it might be hours away. Even a simple repair could result in a farmer losing a day’s work. The Dallas Center, IA, startup AgriSync is trying to cut that down to minutes.

AgriSync founder Casey Niemann grew up on a Kansas farm and got his start with the biotechnology company Novartis before spending 15 years with Microsoft. During that time he saw great advances in tech solutions for farmers, but he was also frustrated that farmers didn’t have easy access to them.

How AgriSync works

AgriSync aims to do for farming what Zendesk did for the business world. It’s a cloud-based software that gives farmers free access to professional experts who can diagnose technical problems by syncing up with the camera in a farmer’s smartphone or tablet. AgriSync generates revenue by charging those experts a subscription fee.

“If an advisor can see it, they can typically solve the problem in five to 10 minutes,” Niemann said. “AgriSync can save them time, travel costs and allows them to scale their expertise to help more farmers for less cost.”

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Most farmers have a network of four or five experts they turn to, depending on their problem. With AgriSync, Niemann wants to put those problem solvers in one place. A farmer opens a ticket on their device and AgriSync finds someone who can help. The fixes can usually be completed by the farmer when they have someone to talk them through it.

Niemann’s goal is to cut down on “hand-holding” trips to farms for issues that can be addressed and fixed remotely.

“When I noticed there were expensive, inefficient communications going on, I started looking at the possibility of a cost-saving tool,” Niemann said. “There was a niche, and it seemed like the kind of opportunity a startup should tackle.”

AgriSync preparing to reap a big harvest

Since launching its service in January, AgriSync has raised $450,000 in seed money, and the startup was selected as one of four finalists for the American Farm Bureau Federation Entrepreneurship Challenge.

Niemann said AgriSync currently has 80 companies in the United States and Canada using its software. He sees good opportunities for growth, especially since AgriSync is the first company focusing on this kind of support for agtech.

“We’re fortunate to be tackling a space where we’re first to market,” Niemann said. “We have to work hard to define that market.”

While AgriSync is currently available on tablets and smartphones, Niemann said version two of the service will focus on integration with products made by companies like John Deere. Think of something like General Motors’ OnStar, but for tractors, combines and harvesters.

Looking beyond the Midwest

Farming is big business in the Midwest, but the United States is only ranked No. 3 in food production worldwide, behind China and India. The US is AgriSync’s main focus at the moment, but down the road Niemann has an eye on the global market.

“With startups, part of our job is to disrupt the status quo,” Niemann said. “In our case, we want to be the No. 1 support tool in agriculture, and we want to do that globally. To be able to do that, we have to not only establish the market, but create an innovative service that is easy to consume and provide a great ROI for everyone using our service.”

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Joe Lawler is a freelance reporter based in Des Moines.