Allison Kopf

Founder of Agrilyst

(Forbes 30 Under 30)

10 May 2019 7 Min Read

Allison Kopf: Innovator Revolutionizing Agriculture and Farming

Meet Allison Kopf, the person behind Agrilyst, a company that uses data analytics and machine learning to help farmers to manage their crops and improve their yields. Agrilyst aims to minimize risk and optimize profitability, which helps farmers reduce their labor hours through automation. Her work landed her a spot on Forbes’ 30 under 30 US & Canada 2019: Food and Drink.

Allison has been highly successful in her field, having been recognized as the Entrepreneur of the Year by Technical.ly Brooklyn in 2017, as well as Changemaker of the Year by The Association for Vertical Farming that same year. She is also involved with XFactor Ventures.

Allison shows us how she manages to bridge technological barriers. She also talks about diversity as a competitive advantage, which I find extraordinary to learn. Join me in hearing more about how she started her company, her views on failure and success, and her life motto!

The Logician

Would you mind introducing yourself? Who is Allison Kopf, and why did you choose your current career?

Allison Kopf

I am the Founder and CEO of Agrilyst, a company I built after spending years working with large greenhouse companies to expand their operations profitably and efficiently.

I am motivated by large, legacy industries saddled with old technologies, and often no technology, hindering growth as a result.

Imagine trying to do any job without access to something as basic as Microsoft Office. This is the world I live in.

I have an obsession with helping growers remove technological barriers so that they can operate profitably, efficiently, and safely.

I also fundamentally believe no one should be at risk when they eat a berry or tomato or consume cannabis.

We are building a platform to help farm owners guarantee their growing future and de-risk the business.

My work also allows me the opportunity to advocate for women in agriculture and tech, both of which I’m incredibly passionate about.

The Logician

Your business idea, I must say, is not really an ordinary one. In fact, it is something people kind of neglect these days. Can you tell us more about Agrilyst? Why is it important?

Allison Kopf

I’ve spent my career working alongside growers, farm owners, and farm workers. It’s not easy to run a farm. Margins are low, the risk is high, and everything from weather to public policy affects your business each year.

That’s where Agrilyst comes in; we’re an integrated software solution for indoor, greenhouse and high tunnel farms. Our platform provides tools and insights that help minimize risk and optimize profitability.

Agrilyst is an all-in-one system that integrates with sensor hardware growers already use (like airborne pathogen detection or climate control systems), manages crops and labor, and records all your data in one place.

We’ve set out to help growers expand their profit margins, manage and maintain compliance, and scale efficiently.

The Logician

Congratulations on being among Forbes’ 30 under 30! How was that experience for you? Have you ever dreamed of being where you are today?

Allison Kopf

It’s a rewarding feeling to be recognized for the work I feel so passionate about and I’m very proud to be counted among the other leaders. It’s encouraging to see just how far Agrilyst has come in the past few years… but we’re not done yet.

What I want – far more than recognition – is to enable every single grower the opportunity to run their business with confidence. We need more growers to enter the industry, to grow their businesses, so we can create a world that sustains itself.

The Logician

Not only a founder, but you also are the CEO of your company. As a young and successful leader, what is most important in a company? Why?

Allison Kopf

My job is to ensure we have the right people on our team, we have enough capital to grow the way we want, and to set the company’s vision.

Most importantly, my job is to then step back and allow our team to operate.
It’s critical to value your team — to spend the time to vet candidates and hire the absolute best people.

We place huge importance on setting employees up for success and then trusting them to do their job.

I had the vision to build Agrilyst, but I could never have done it alone — nor would I have wanted to.

The experience and knowledge base that different team members across different disciplines bring matters greatly to our growth. Diversity is a huge competitive advantage.

The Logician

According to you, what matters in life? How would you define success? Is it related to money and fame?

Allison Kopf

I fundamentally believe there is a massive opportunity for technology to create the next generation of farming.

If I’m successful 50 years from now, it’s because I helped to do this – to create a more efficient agriculture system, a safer supply chain, a system that values its workers and treats them with dignity.

The Logician

Have you ever failed before succeeding in business? If yes, how did you recover from failure? What are the best ways of improving the mindset?

Allison Kopf

Honestly, no. I don’t have room to fail. It’s not in my DNA. Failure occurs when you reach the end of your options and have to stop.

Think about a system failure — if an app crashes on your phone. Something on the backend failed and caused your app to stop working. Failure is losing. It’s inherently not succeeding at something.

I’m not sure when or why we decided to glorify and celebrate startup failure. Perhaps we’ve accepted this because statistically, most startups will fail. I think if you believe it’s ok to fail, you set yourself up to fail.

Don’t accept failure. It’s not OK for me to fail. I made a promise to my shareholders, to my employees, to my customers not doing everything in my power to succeed would be breaking that promise.

This is not to say that we don’t fail on a daily basis. Some failure is necessary for business. Experimentation is important. You have to constantly test ideas, test your path. Inherently you will run into an idea, into paths that don’t work.

Startup success is built upon tiny failures. Let’s embrace those failures, but let’s not glorify overarching failure. Let’s drive toward success instead.

The Logician

If you had to come up with three words to describe a healthy work environment, what would they be? What values do you want to install in your team members?

Allison Kopf

Trust, respect, and alignment.

I believe a healthy environment is one where team members are aligned toward a goal, they’re accountable and trusted to do their job, and we all respect each other.

The Logician

Do you have a life motto? Who is your biggest supporter? What motivates you daily?

Allison Kopf

As a kid, my aunt and mother used to tell me over and over again, “a girl can dream.”

At the time, I’m pretty sure they said it with slight sarcasm toward all of my crazy ideas, but it also encouraged dreaming.

No one ever shut my ideas down, and that’s perhaps one of the things I hold most dear to me.

Starting a business is one of the most difficult things you can do; entrepreneurs are out of their mind to do it, and the challenge of it, the struggle, the ambition to truly dream motivates me every day.

My biggest supporters are my parents and my fiancé. Both my mother and father are entrepreneurs.

My father started his own accounting practice all while managing a demanding career in government accounting. My mother runs a travel blog that takes her on experiences all around the world, all while managing a career as the COO of the town we grew up in.

This year marked a fun year because our company is officially worth more than the businesses my parents have built, which has been really fun for all of us to experience together.

There is a lot of mutual pride and respect in our family. My fiancé also can’t get enough credit. It is not easy to be in a relationship with an entrepreneur. He gives me the space to do crazy things and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

The Logician

Let’s say it is the year 2025. Where do you see yourself and your business? Do you have any plans?

Allison Kopf

We are using technology to create a world that sustains itself.

We believe that no one should ever get sick from consuming plants, farmers should make a good living, farmworkers should be treated with dignity, and profitability is the key to scaling our agriculture system.

To do this, Agrilyst has to be massively deployed across farms globally.

By the year 2025, we will be the global system of record for greenhouse and high tunnel operational data.

The Logician

Lastly, is there something I did not ask you yet you think is important to talk about? What is the best advice you were ever given that you do not mind sharing with the readers?

Allison Kopf

Another point I’d really like to drive home is the importance of valuing people, not just data.

Many assume that the future of agriculture is reliant only on replacing human labor with robots, but that’s a misguided notion.

The digitization of a farming operation should not just be about automating routine tasks, it should also focus on helping workers be more efficient, more productive.

Growers and their teams remain a crucial element in the success of any farm.

The Logician

Thank you, Allison, for sharing your story and showing us a new way technology can be used to help optimize the experience of farmers and consumers. Your words on how startup success is built on tiny failures have motivated me and hopefully my readers to take on my future projects and never accept failure as an option! I can see you achieving your goal of providing a safe, optimized way for farmers to continue their work. I wish you the best of luck in the process!

The Logician

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Allison Kopf

Allison Kopf: Innovator Revolutionizing Agriculture and Farming

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