Sabanto’s Field-First Approach: Why This AgTech Founder Spent a Year Driving Tractors Before Building Product

Most founders start with an MVP. Craig Rupp started with a commercial driver’s license.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Sabanto’s founder shared how he took an unconventional approach to building autonomous technology for agriculture – one that began not in a lab or a garage, but behind the wheel of a tractor.

The Unconventional Start

After leaving Climate Corporation in 2018, Craig made a decision that would shape Sabanto’s entire approach to market. “I went and leased the JCB 42 20, which is 220 HP tractor, and I went and bought an 18 row 20 inch planter, spent the winter writing software, putting hardware together. Then I went and got a CDL, a license to operate a semi,” he explains.

Instead of immediately building a product, he hit the road. With his tractor loaded on a drop deck trailer behind a Peterbilt 389, Craig traveled from state to state, working directly with farmers to understand the realities of autonomous farming.

Learning in the Field

This hands-on approach revealed insights that would have been impossible to gain from market research alone. While most autonomous vehicle companies were focused on full autonomy, Craig discovered that farmers needed something different. “I don’t think autonomy, even though I love autonomy and we’re pushing for it, I don’t think it’s an all or nothing proposition,” he notes.

The field experience revealed that tractors serve multiple purposes in farming operations. As Craig explains, “Tractors are kind of the Swiss Army knives of agriculture, and they do a lot more than just field operations.” This insight fundamentally shaped Sabanto’s product strategy – leading them to develop systems that could be installed on existing tractors rather than building entirely new autonomous vehicles.

From Discovery to Development

Only after this intensive period of customer discovery did Craig begin building the core team. “I closed a series seed round in 2019 and I went back to Chicago and hired five of the best engineers I knew that could help me pull this off,” he recalls.

The team’s development priorities were shaped directly by the field experiences. Rather than focusing solely on autonomous driving, they worked to support the full range of farming operations. “Throughout 2019 and 2020, what we did was we’re trying to become a full stack provider, meaning that we are capable of doing practically every field operation that is required in row crop agriculture,” Craig explains.

The Market Impact

This field-first approach led to unexpected market opportunities. While many AgTech companies focus on conventional farming, Sabanto discovered significant demand from organic farmers. As Craig notes, “One of the reasons why they do not switch to organic is just the labor requirements… The organic grower, they have to do tillage. Then they plant. Then they get a tineweed and they rotary hole, rotary hole. Then they cultivate, cultivate.”

This insight helped Sabanto identify their initial target market – organic farmers who needed automation to manage labor-intensive processes.

The Broader Lesson

For B2B tech founders, Sabanto’s approach offers a powerful lesson about customer discovery. While many startups rely on interviews and surveys, some market insights can only be gained through deep immersion in the customer’s world.

This is particularly true in traditional industries where, as Craig points out, common assumptions often prove wrong. “There’s this misnomer out there that farmers and people have this picture of farmers in their mind, like they’re not very technically adept or they’re technically inept, but that is so far from the truth. They’re some of the more progressive technology adopting people you will ever meet.”

By spending a year in the field before building their product, Sabanto didn’t just gain market insights – they earned the credibility and understanding needed to transform an industry from the inside out.