ANNUAL LETTER

2022

Playing the Long Game

This is the second of what we hope will be a long-running annual Silver Fern letter. Our goal with the letter is to provide a review of the past year, share our expectations for the upcoming year, and publicly process what we're thinking about at Silver Fern.

Playing the Long Game

In our 2021 Letter, we shared that in building Silver Fern we are running an ultra-marathon. Taking this long-term approach fits our personalities and goals best and results in a better outcome for our customers because we're able to build products and services undistracted.

Our approach was tested this year, however, by a barrage of emails from investing suitors, great-on-paper recruiting candidates, and shiny "opportunities". This left us battered, but more resolved than ever to build for the long-term. We started calling it building in perpetuity, in contrast to the "don't start until you have an exit strategy" mantra echoing in the startup and investing worlds.

Our strategy - and, more importantly, our culture - is built to redeem horticulture professionals' time, and that does not require an exit strategy. It does require patient investment in product development and thoughtful support for customers.

Practical Implications

If we think in terms of decades, even generations, we approach things differently than thinking quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year. This works itself out in various ways.

This year, we poured months into building relationships with developers we may hire in 3 years, or 10 years, or never. Either way, we improved our odds of recruiting top talent at the right time by expanding our relationships now.

We invested heavily in product development - our engineering team now makes up 60% (and growing!) of the company, which may be the highest ratio in the industry.

We declined opportunities to take outside capital to ensure our financial strategy aligns with our business strategy and culture.

We signed up for strategic business coaching to grow in our roles as entrepreneurs. Innovation is one of our values at Silver Fern and we want to innovate ourselves, as well as the company. We're fortunate to have a team full of long-term thinkers who push us to do both. Throughout the year, they encouraged us to innovate and think long-term by asking about the vision for their roles, our products, and Silver Fern as a whole.

The Past Year

  • Moved offices to 108 Esplanade Suite 210, Lexington, KY 40507. Swing by if you're in town!

  • Added an in-app Help Center and documentation.

  • Onboarded five new team members and made major improvements to our team onboarding process.

  • Implemented tools, best practices, and processes to make us more efficient.

    • Clickup (task and project management, documentation)
    • Ramp (expense and credit card management)
    • Loom (screen recording)
    • Capchase (invoicing)
    • Agile Development

  • Released key features for our products.

    • Auto-commit for RESTOCK™.
    • Design makeover for RESTOCK™.
    • Mass updates, notes, carrier maintenance, and more for RESTOCK™.
    • Click here for a full list of RESTOCK™ releases.
    • Events for PRODUCE™.
    • Spacing locations for PRODUCE™.
    • Formatting, custom column, and settings additions for PRODUCE™.
    • Click here for a full list of PRODUCE™ releases.
    • Major updates and integration features for Inventory Control Mobile Apps.

  • Invested heavily in product development.

    • FORECAST™
    • ANALYZE™
    • FULFILL™
    • Mobile Apps

The Upcoming Year

  • Improve the customer experience.

    • We are committed to making our onboarding and support world-class. How can we make it better?
    • In-app user guides? We're exploring options.
    • More on-site visits? These seem to help users most.
    • Improved training structures. We're iterating constantly!
    • Better proposals. Purchase a new product to see the updates 🙂
    • Major investment in product development.
    • And more!

  • Release new Work Suite products (FORECAST™, ANALYZE™, FULFILL™).

    • +$1.0M investment expected in the next 12 months.

  • Streamline feature releases and versioning for existing products.

  • Hire 3 - 4 Developers and 2 - 3 Client Partners.

    • Silver Fern Jobs

  • Unveil our new website.

    • Stay tuned!

Until Next Year

Most of you know better than us that building a business is not easy, but we're having a blast and can't imagine doing anything else. We love the why, the what, and, most importantly, the who of Silver Fern, and this industry.

Until next year,

Adam, Kevin, Stephen

Past Letters

  1. 2021