When Penn State alumni Gareth Yoder (Berks 2014) and Joy Beam (University Park 2017) came up with an idea for a business, they needed some direction about how to get started so they turned to the Penn State Berks Idea TestLab for assistance. In a few short months, they launched Cedar Meadow Meats.
It all began when Yoder was helping out on Beam’s family farm and he had the idea of developing an application to determine if the cattle were healthy in real time. That idea grew into an application that could be marketed to the cattle industry.
Yoder explained, “When we entered the Penn State Berks Idea TestLab, we started with the idea of developing a health and analytics application focusing primarily on the beef cattle industry. We conducted interviews and found definite pain points our product could address. However, as we encountered hardware roadblocks and constraints on the time to market software with limited resources, it became apparent that we had to go back to our original SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and adjust our focus to a different opportunity with a new target audience. We utilized the resources we had available and the knowledge we gained from our client discovery experience to develop a revised business plan.”
The customer discovery experience that Yoder refers to is the opportunity they had to talk with and learn from potential customers. Yoder and Beam attended the National Cattleman’s Beef Association conference and trade show in San Antonio, Texas.
Beam states that they spoke with a lot of people in the industry –representatives from about 200 different companies in all – and found that some ranchers already had similar technology to what they were proposing and that the method that they were planning to use to capture data would take too long.
While they were disappointed that their idea already existed in the marketplace, they didn’t let it get them down, explained Yoder. They went back to the drawing board and attended seminars about where the beef industry was headed.