But it turned out no single downloaded happened from this visit. 0 of 19 doesn't sound right.
What did I do wrong? Or there is something I missed.
What is your so-called elevator speech for this product?
As RogerL indicated, the site does need a lot of work. But, I think a deeper problem is that I don't really see a clear business model here. I see something that looks like this type of thinking: "1) make app 2) talk to vendors 3) (something happens here 4) Profit!" and I will suggest that vendors at farmer's markets are not there to try to make you rich. You have got to offer something of value to them.
Best of luck.
Bigger farmer's tend to work with bigger distributors like Costco or safeway for their product. Smaller farmers go to farmer's markets to sell their goods.
For example, one of my favorite farmers is located in the central valley. They do about 6 markets a week driving to a different city every time.
Basically at least in California and in most of the nation there is some type of farmer's market infrastructure so to speak. This infrastructure makes it easier for the farmer to find buyers by only specifically targeting certain markets/cities.
In terms of farmers finding buyers specifically I don't think there is an existing model of b2c directly (at least yet). The closest thing I can think of is you are kind of similar to a CSA.
Lastly the best thing to do is put yourself in the farmer's shoes and look at it in their perspective. Is there a problem you actually are solving for them?
I am sorry you are offended. I was not challenging your intention. I was telling you what the product looks like to an outsider who has no idea what your intention is. It is your job to make it clear what the intent is by how you frame it. Bill Gates said "Your unhappiest customers are your greatest source of learning" (or something close to that). You have to learn to take constructive feedback for what it is: Useful information. If you get upset with people for trying to give you feedback, it gets less likely you will continue getting it and that is a much, much bigger problem than being told something you aren't happy hearing.
Again: Best of luck.
Repetition is key-- visit these same people again, and again. Get to know them and their business. Question: are the vendors the true decision-makers or just helpers?
Focus on getting just ONE conversion as a pilot project. Hold their hand till it gets traction. All the other vendors will take note if this thing works. Mindset is helpful, this is part of the market discovery process.
It's a simple page that asks users to take a core action - choose the market in their area. You can then view all items that you can have ordered to you from farmers/producers.
They have been gaining a lot of traction which is why I told you to look at them.
Putting myself in the mind of a vendor, I can't imagine wanting to try to enter anything significant via a phone. You don't seem to have any web presence besides this landing page. Do you have any customers, any traction? I probably already work from sun up to after sun down; do I really want to take extra time for this for completely unproven benefits? How many more people will I reach by just posting on Facebook? Why aren't you linked to Facebook? Do I have to do something on Facebook, then come to your app and do it again? No thanks. What if I get a bad review? Is it there forever? Can I protest it?
If it was already the one and only app for farmer markets, I could see maybe signing up. But putting all that effort and risk into a start up? Nah. What's in it for me vs going to Facebook?
As a customer - what is in it for me? I want to wander around and look, not be checking my phones for updates ('honey now 20% off. Come see our scones'). There is marginal value in discovering farmer's markets, but they are scheduled well in advance; a 10 second google tells me all the farmer's markets in my area. If there is one near me that I am interested in, I'll just 'like' it on Facebook.
Finally, the website confused me. You start by talking to the farmer. Then you seem to be saying consumers can sell their own extra produce. I'm not sure. Can I sell my garden vegetables? And this brings us back around to the poor English.
I'm not saying all those objections are correct, but I think you need pretty good answers to them if you want people to download your app.
https://medium.com/@michalbohanes/seven-lessons-i-learned-fr...
I'd recommend a lot more customer feedback development/interviews (to use the Steve Blank term) For example, It should be more like 5 to 10 people per day rather than 20 people in total. Farmers and people that visit farmer's markets, are generally polite. They're going to say yes to you and then just not download it, rather than say, "I hate this." You'll will have to dig deep, but politely dig, and do a lot more interviews.
For me personally, I just don't understand what value this gives me or what hair-on-fire problem I need this to solve. (I've also thought about building an app for the farmer's market too, but with a very different approach/business model focused on questions and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) problems I've encountered.)
You wanna narrow down exactly where the problem is. Did people fail to visit the site at all? Did they visit then fail to follow the links to the app store? Did they go to the app store and then fail to download? These are all very different problems. Pay close attention to the browsers/devices people are actually using on your site, and make sure you're testing/emulating those experiences (so you can see what they see). There might be a bug somewhere. Once you rule these kinds of things out, then it might be worth revisiting your strategy/pitch, but I don't think you're quite there yet.
Personally, I don't think you understand the dynamics of the small farm market, or what the people involved (as growers or buyers) want and need. My two closest friends recently launched their rural Indiana farm, and I've spent time with them on farms in VT over the past several yeas. I've had lots of conversations with farmers about the potential of technologies and apps, and discussed problems they face. In a dozen conversations, no one mentioned problems selling to their neighbors or unloading product at local markets. This is probably because most farmers aren't earning their main income from those sources, and instead they go there to maintain a presence in their communities.
However, all of the farmers I spoke with had difficulties finding steady income selling bulk to restaurants or other large buyers on a regular basis. Go solve that problem, and I'm sure you will get your downloads.
Generally speaking a farmer hits X # of markets per week to sell their produce. Selling small scale to individual consumers wouldn't work well for their time.
However I have heard of some restaurants in LA where they accept extra produce from neighborhoods for their restaurant (not sure if they buy it necessarily).
Talk to them in their terms - tell them that you'll help them to sell more and reach more customers. Tell them how much more specifically - even though it's a very rough estimate.
Let them ask "how" and go from there.
