Africa's Uber for Tractors

We're talking Ag, Grove.

Susan Njihia has a strict test for the word 'innovation'.

She runs innovation at Hello Tractor ~ a company that rents tractors to smallholder farmers in Africa through local booking agents.

I went into this one expecting to talk about machines and came out thinking about how she (and us all) measures her own work against 'success'.

Let's dive in.

In this week's issue

• Susan's innovation test
• Should the techie run the company?
• Hospitals in Maryland vs Hospitals in Montgomery County

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FOUNDER LESSON OF THE WEEK

Susan's innovation test

Hello Tractor sells access to tractors rather than tractors.

Smallholder farmers across Africa can't carry the capital cost of owning one. So the company matches equipment owners, farmers and local booking agents around planting windows and cash flow.

Susan's test is a number that measures the farmer. She starts from the value a farmer receives today.

"what I need to do to ensure that my value [to the farmer] grows from 2x to 5x to 10x then that is the process of innovation."

Underneath it runs a loop with three steps.

1. Get a baseline of the current experience.
2. Watch adoption and repeat use for the point where interest turns into habit.
3. Then translate the change: “give it meaning, give it coordinates and give it a function and a narrative.”

Susan is treating customer closeness as the asset. A team close enough to watch one farmer's whole season finds the broken product and the wrong message while both are still cheap to fix.

She came into the company on a four-month fellowship, right after her previous agricultural company didn't survive COVID.

If you can't say how much more value reached the customer, it's worth asking whether you shipped a feature and called it innovation. I've done it. It's an easy test to fail.

Transforming African Agriculture with Tech | Susan Njihia, Director of Innovation @ Hello Tractor | The Grove

Hello Tractor’s Susan Njihia on shared tractor access, data driven innovation, and scaling African agriculture with local context.

Pod Disco

LOOKING BACK

Should the techie run the company?

Three guests on whether the technical founder should be the one running the business.

Ben Soltoff works with climate founders at MIT's Martin Trust Center. He says the lab brain is the asset.

“You can be that nerdy researcher and you can lead a startup, and in fact your customers are going to really value how well you understand the technology.”
Ben Soltoff, MIT Martin Trust Center

Greg Newbloom spun Membrion out of the University of Washington, then handed the CEO job to a commercial operator who ran the company for its first two and a half years.

“There's a lot more to running a business than being able to create a good compelling technology.”
Greg Newbloom, Membrion

Sergio Carvalho invests in these companies, and he puts a clock on it.

“Sometimes you're a great founder and you're the best CEO up until the company reaches [Series] B.”
Sergio Carvalho, Planet First Partners

I think they're answering different questions. Soltoff is describing what the buyer wants: a plant manager or a utility wants the person who understands the technology in the room.

Newbloom and Carvalho are describing what the company needs. You can be the best person in the sales meeting and the wrong person running the company.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

Hospitals in Maryland vs Hospitals in Montgomery County

Maryland exempted hospitals from its building emissions standard in 2025. Montgomery County in Pennslyvania did not, which opens a market for heat recovery chillers.

1. A compliance clock. The county's hospital standard is 173 kBtu per square foot, with required cuts capped at 30% and a first deadline at the end of 2028. Shady Grove runs at 353, Holy Cross Silver Spring at 314 and Suburban at 278, more than half of it from gas burned on site.

2. Money on the table now. Pepco raised HVAC incentives 40% in June, chillers included, and custom projects can cover up to half the cost. Maryland lowers the targets behind those programs in 2027.

3. They said what they can't touch. Adventist, Holy Cross and Suburban told the county its original target “may simply be impossible under any timeframe.” Johns Hopkins testified there is “no way to retrofit electric boilers” for sterilization steam. The state hospital association says ORs need “continuous and guaranteed access to power.”

A heat recovery chiller leaves the steam and generators alone and cuts the gas that heats everything else. Analytics, thermal storage, solar microgrids, geothermal and liquid desiccant cooling could fit this need too.

Sources: Montgomery County DEP; Maryland Ch. 844 of 2025; Pepco; hospital letter to DEP, Nov. 2023; HB49 testimony, Feb. 2025.

BRANCHES

• PJM Proposes Reliability Standards to Manage Large Load Disconnection Events (2 min)
• Large-load tariffs increasingly rely on upfront payments, exit fees, ramp schedules (4 min)
• Why Saying ‘Climate Crisis’ Falls Flat (4 min)
• Are GenCos a solve for the data center power problem? (5 min)
• A pipeline giant that spilled jet fuel in Pa. is trying to weaken a clean water law (9 min)
• Why ‘Clean Is Cheap, Cheap Is Clean’ Isn’t Breaking Through (9 min)
• Want an animal shelter? A lazy river? Cash? Data centers want to know. (10 min)
• Do data centers really increase electricity prices? (38 min listen)

CLOSER

Nov 5 ~ the Electric Utility Innovation Summit

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With love, Blake
See you next week!