Disqus - Latest Comments for chrisbaggott

Re: The List: 17+ Restaurants Offering Take-Home Options for Christmas

chrisbaggott — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:40:35 -0000

Don't forget ClusterTruck, downtown and in Dublin. www.ClusterTruck.com

Re: How to Choose a Startup Name that Reduces Marketing Friction

chrisbaggott — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 09:00:04 -0000

Spot on. I can trace all of my successes & failures to good vs bad company names! ExactTarget, Compendium, ClusterTruck.
The failures were names that were too literal & lacked vision (like the business models) Sanders Cleaners, Husk Foods, Sous Vide Tonight

Then there were some names I loved but just couldn’t get any energy behind the businesss. They weren’t worth pursuing: ExpenseApp, FarmersMarket.com BlackinBusiness

Re: What’s The Password?

chrisbaggott — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 12:58:41 -0000

The number of women startups that are funded is disproportionate. But without sounding too defensive, there are many stories of funded women who've founded or co-founded Startups in Indy.

As an investor, I might have thought the same thing about WhatFriendsDo, and I can also tell you that even a grizzled old man like me gets shut down by investors that don't understand (or I'm failing to communicate) that what I'm doing has scale, and that I'm capable. But the examples of funded women startups isn't dismal.

Alison Sales was Co-founder at Compendium. As you reported, Compendium had one of the most significant exits in the past decade when it was acquired by Oracle.

Megan Glover is killing it right now at www.120WaterAudit.com and as recently reported giant enterprise wins. (and about to launch another funding round) The company is tackling a brand new market in Consumer Facing Technology that also can meaningfully address a piece of the massive water infrastructure and health issues in this country.
( http://nyti.ms/2neAxnN )

Tyner Pond Farm was called a lifestyle business until we recruited a new CEO to move here from Boulder Colorado; Catherine Compitello. Catherine's vision and leadership is transforming what many considered (simply) a "farm" into a technology play that really has the potential to put a dent in the food universe...and is also completing a successful raise.

Haley Altman is co-founder and chief executive of Doxly and has raised over $2mm in funding from Scott Dorsey & Eric Tobias' High Alpha and Tim Kopps Hyde Park Venture Partners.

Scott Dorsey is also a backer of Founder and CEO of Bee Corp; Ellie Symes

Scott McCorkle has been a major investor in Susan Marshall's startup Torchlight. http://torchlite.com/our-team/

Is it enough? I'm not sure. But I can say with certainty that we ET alum are putting our money to work in Indianapolis and none of us are stupid enough to pass up on great opportunities based on something as shallow as gender.

Re: Baggott launches food-tech company ClusterTruck

chrisbaggott — Wed, 27 May 2015 15:30:07 -0000

Interesting take Greg. Our thinking is that using the vehicles already on the road (Uber & Lyft Drivers not to mention bikes & scooters in the city) and possibly cutting down on folks trips going out to restaurants we might actually have a positive impact on traffic.

As for the food trucks, we all totally look on this as a win win. I've decribed it like a rock star with a record deal. The Food Truck is the Concert. They are going to play live. But not everyone can hear them so we will actually pay them each time one of their recipes is ordered. My thinking is that if you are up in Fishers and taste something amazing from a particular food truck coming from ClusterTruck, you might be more inclined to go visit that truck live :-)

As for healthy food, Well everything we serve with be sourced as locally as possible. We plan on sourcing this just as we do with The Mug

https://www.facebook.com/pa...

As healthy as preparing yourself? Probably not, but a big step up from what comes from most restaurants.

My email is chris@farmersmarket.com We are wide open to thoughts and ideas from everyone. Please feel free to share anything with me.

Re: The Future Of Grassfed Beef In Indiana | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 16:32:10 -0000

That's a tough one Rob. Like so many things (saturated fat and health for example) the studies are skewed by who is sponsoring them. I saw a Perdue study a couple of years ago that would have you convinced that grass fed beef was dirtier than Chernobyl. LOL

I can tell you from my experience and research nothing sequesters carbon like grass. Mobbed Rotationally Grazed Cattle is the best possible thing you can do for soil and grass health, so score one for Grassfed Beef.

Because they don't eat corn they don't get ulcers. The meat industry always defends antibiotic use on "sick" animals. Right? It would be inhumane not to treat a sick right? Who could argue with that?

Except the dirty secret is THEY ARE ALL SICK. They get ulcers from acidosis. Rumins are PH Neutral unlike Omnivores (Humans, Pigs etc...) Our stomachs are high in acid so we can naturally break down things like corn.....Cows can't process corn easily, and therefore get sick from eating it.

They need to be treated with antibiotics because corn gives them infections (talking feedlots here). Additionally, their general living conditions make them sick. Think of a crowded kindergarten class. One kid sneezes an everyone gets sick. They stand in poop all day.

Outside in fresh air rotationally grazed cattle are given a clean area every day. The paddock they rotate out of has usually more than 30 days of rest to sanitize in the sun and let the microbes and bugs do their job cleaning up all that poop and turning it into soil nutrients....increasing pasture health, carbon sequestration with every pass and from an economic standpoint, stocking density....the land literally increases in value every time it's properly grazed.

Clean environment, clean animals and no disease...so no need for antibiotics. Score two for grassfed beef.

What are the costs of that feed? So there you have all the input costs of seed, fertilizer, pesticides and diesel fuel. Now in todays agricultural environment a lot of these costs are subsidized, but it doesn't make them go away...it just shifts them onto society vs. the individual businessman/farmer.

Labor. No question grassfed wins here too. Consider the cost of labor in growing, harvesting transporting, storing, transporting again, converting to feed, transporting again, loading into feeders....vs a farmer walking across a field once or twice a day with a spool of polywire and a few step in posts.

So I'm not answering your question directly because I don't know. I can tell you that we serve a 100% grass fed burger at The Mug for $2.00

Re: Good Fat vs. Bad Fat: Where Does Lard Fit In? Not Where You Think... - Learning to Cook Local | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:05:34 -0000

I just attended an event put on by the Indianapolis Zoo with the worlds leading expert on orangutans.

80% of the talk was about the evils of palm oil on habitat. Jungle is being cut down in amazing numbers. Here is an article: http://www.orangutan.org.au...

So move palm oil to the negative column.

This is what is so awesome about focusing on LOCAL first. There are lots of ways to get the job done for almost everything in our own local communities. Including frying in lard :-)

Re: Why Don't We Cook Any More? - Learning to Cook Local | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 10:32:01 -0000

I've also read "Cooked" and what struck me was the fact that America spends more time watching cooking shows than actually cooking. Not a judgement, but sure is an interesting statistic.

Re: Why can't we get a local restaurant in Greenfield? - Sustainable Farm Journey | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:48:45 -0000

i wish i did Mike.... Move home

Re: The Premature Death of Outbound Marketing

chrisbaggott — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 18:16:31 -0000

Really great point Doug! Inbound works when you get in front of people who know they have a problem. But most people don't know they have a problem until they see an alternative to a current state. That's what outbound does for you. In our business, Facebook is an amazing way to do outbound marketing. With FB we can easily target people who are either friends of our existing customers or folks who share the characteristics of our existing customers.

Great post and insight.

Re: Are Nitrates The Biggest Evil in Cured Meats? - Sustainable Farm Journey | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:43:48 -0000

Understood. You will be happy (I hope) to know that we are in the process of building our own processing facility here on the farm.

To date we have been at the mercy of our outside processors and their methodology regarding curing. Fortunately for us all one of the best spice & curing supply companies in the world is located right here in Indiana.

Beginning in January all of our pork will be cured using this: http://www.americanspice.co...

Hope this helps :-)

Re: 4 Must-Have Tools for Food & Recipe Marketing

chrisbaggott — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:03:05 -0000

Don't forget the two other key players in this: Facebook and Email. At Tyner Pond Farm (www.TynerPondFarm.com) our blog serves as our launching pad for content that is mostly delivered through Facebook and Email. Blogs provide the Content Hub.

Try Promoted Posts on FB they work great. Yesterday we launched our first Facebook Offer. It went live at 5:30am and we were at capacity for the offer by 7:00.

We followed that with an email and were completely sold our of the product by noon.

With Husk (www.HuskFoods.com) we use a very similar strategy. Rather than selling directly to our customers like Tyner Pond Farm, we sell our Frozen Sweet Corn through retail outlets including all Marsh Stores. http://huskfoods.com/grocery/

In this case we leverage Facebook for advertising and of course promoted posts to drive demand into the stores. Trust me, it works.

Re: Did you know you can shop at our farm every day? - Chris Baggott blog | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 11:10:03 -0000

Sure. Tyner Pond Farm is located a little south and east of Greenfield. IN 7408 E 200 South, Greenfield Indiana, 46140

Hope to see you soon!

Re: The Content Marketing Race Is On: Oracle Acquires Compendium

chrisbaggott — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 17:01:56 -0000

Thank you Amanda! You are right these are exciting times :-)

Re: The Day Content Marketing Software Arrived

chrisbaggott — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 12:29:44 -0000

Great post and terrific points. We used to sit around in 2000 ExactTarget startup days and try to imagine what kind of business wouldn't be using email as a marketing tool ("hmmm....maybe Auto Body Shops") Of course all businesses are now using email marketing today.

We all have the same discussions around Content Marketing. This is bigger because content covers all channels and the requirements to be successful are massive compared to where we have been.

Thanks for the post Toby. A rising tide lifts all boats :-)

Re: The Key to Scalable Content Creation: May Your Editorial Calendar Never Be Empty Again

chrisbaggott — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:03:48 -0000

Thanks for the credit! Most companies aren't repurposing and its a gigantic missed opportunity. Saw a session today from Cisco at #mpb2b where the speaker said that they have a rule of at least 20 tweets for every whitepaper.

Re: Please Help Us Win A $250,000 Grant from Chase & Google - Chris Baggott blog | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 08:57:21 -0000

Thank you both for trying!

Appreciate the support

Re: The Hidden Cost of Factory Raised Meat - Chris Baggott blog | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 17:08:12 -0000

Just found this from Michigan State about a study they did last year with the USDA:

"Published in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the comprehensive study focused on understanding the effects of conventional, in-feed antibiotics in U.S. farms.

For decades, many producers of pigs, chickens and other farm animals have used antibiotics not only to protect their livestock from disease, but also to boost growth rates and enhance feed efficiency, a measure of how well animals convert feed into weight gains.

Scientists don’t know precisely how antibiotics enhance growth rates and feed efficiency, but they are concerned that on-farm use of these medications may contribute to the development of strains of microbes resistant to conventional antibiotics, which are potentially harmful to humans and animals, said James Tiedje, MSU University Distinguished Professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and of crop and soil sciences."

- See more at: http://msutoday.msu.edu/new...

Re: The Hidden Cost of Factory Raised Meat - Chris Baggott blog | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 16:59:21 -0000

Thank you for the update. I'm going to have to dig deeper into this. I had to assume the Center For Disease Control was reliable in these matters. My suspision is that there is something in between and I'll absolutly look into it.

Please know that I'm sincere in appreciating your comment. Too much vitriol in this kind of discussion and we all need to get to the facts.

Re: Be Authentic or Die: Why Marketing Starts with HR

chrisbaggott — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:58:11 -0000

This is my favorite line Jeb: "Brands must accept that marketing starts with HR"

We see amazing examples of this here at Compendium. ExactTarget is one example where pretty much everyone is empowered to create & publish content. If you let people interface with customers, send email or even talk on the phone, why wouldn't you empower them to participate in content marketing?

Bass Pro Shops is a great retail example where every store employee is encouraged to write content about the local hunting, fishing and camping scene in their community. This content then powers the three legs of their Content Marketing Strategy: Search, Social and Email.

Re: A Really Great Grilled Chicken Recipe! (video) - Shutterbug on the Farm | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:51:31 -0000

Hi Teresa,

Did you try it? I'd love to hear what you think!

Re: Why can't we get a local restaurant in Greenfield? - Sustainable Farm Journey | Tyner Pond Farm

chrisbaggott — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:50:46 -0000

I'm not trying to knock Carnegie's. Ian has done a great job building a really nice restaurant. But it's much more formal, has limited hours, buys very little locally and has no bar or social ambience. It's a great place to take my parents for their anniversary, not a great place to meet with friends after a movie.

The great news is that we have room for a few more local restaurants here in Greenfield. Even Shelbyville has three outstanding local restaurants.

Re: No-Cost Content: Free Alternatives to Content Creation Tools

chrisbaggott — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 14:37:03 -0000

Well of course I'm going to recommend Compendium to everyone who's serious about content marketing. It's more than clipping, its editing, scheduling, repurposing across various channels including back to email....forever.

How else can you quickly pull a dynamic content piece you might have published to your blog 2 years ago....but is perfect for a lead management system email right now?

Re: No-Cost Content: Free Alternatives to Content Creation Tools

chrisbaggott — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 09:00:34 -0000

Look at your Outlook or Gmail. This is a great and mostly overlooked source of great content that's usually wasted. We have clients that literally import business email directly into their workflow. A couple of edits, add a photo and a link and bingo. Great content.

Source your Customer Service, Help Desk & Salespeople for this. They are answering questions and solving problems all day long and a lot of that communication takes place via email.

Re: And the Hack // Meat SV Challenges Are…

chrisbaggott — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 10:00:25 -0000

is it possible to add to this list? As a farmer and a software entrepreneur we have a few ideas on specific tools that my not be so grand but also tackle real problems that add to cost and inefficiencies for the farmer.

Selling tools for one. At the end of the day the biggest problem in this space is a selling problem. Most farmers are good farmers and poor salespeople. Current tools are not 'farmer centric' and require duplicate work.

Inventory control is another big one. with farmers markets, wholesale, direct marketing, food clubs....inventory is a nightmare.

Pasture management. With rotational grazing most farmers have no idea their stocking density when creating paddocks....an app that could take a picture of the grass and collate data could help optimize the right time to move as well as paddock size. Increasing stocking rate increases farmer sustainability.

Animal record keeping is another area that is stuck in the 1800's. Keeping track of breeding records, that tie fertility to final sale is just about impossible. "Who is my most profitable sow?"

Anyway. I'd be happy to offer my own funding to anyone who would be willing to tackle these very tactical problems.

Re: Reasons to Celebrate The ExactTarget Acquisition - Indiana Technology News | TechPoint

chrisbaggott — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:41:48 -0000

Right Jeb, you might have heard about a new food packaging business in Hancock County. Not exactly what you would call 'tech' but is the first food processor to be built in Indiana in over 40 years.