Green-broke May 25
Hello equible friends,
At the recent Aus Agritech Awards, Rob Hulme, President of the Australian Agritech Association, dropped a line that felt especially close to home:
“Agritech is about building draft horses, not race horses”
Welcome to the ninth issue of Green-broke, a monthly newsletter for those interested or invested in coming along for the ride with me. This is a monthly update for you and a routine check point for me, keeping you informed (or more likely entertained by the ups and downs) and me accountable.
One can only hope Rob’s been reading Green-broke for inspiration…
Mane character
“Are you a horse girl?”
That’s what people usually ask — but what they really mean is: Why you?
And here’s where it gets tricky. I’m not a horse girl. Sure, I’d love my own little string of push-button campdrafters one day. But what I really want is to use technology to solve problems.
When asked, I usually say not anymore, falling back on my used-to-be cowgirl story to explain how I came to experience the problem firsthand. I do this intentionally — it helps me show a bit of ‘street cred’ (or in this case, saddle cred), cast myself as a central character (thanks, Suneel Gupta), and most importantly, focus the conversation on the problem I care most about solving.
That’s really the answer to why me. It’s not because I’m obsessed with horses — it’s because I care more about the problem.
And this way of telling the story? It’s helping me get better at talking about myself — something I’m now forced to do a lot. It’s my version of showing up with mane character energy, all in service of equible.
A digital venn-ture
Earlier this month, I was introduced to Eminent Equine – a platform helping owners, breeders, and competitors in the performance horse industry (shoutout to Hannah from @bushchooksmedia). It’s like Select Sires, but includes the bottom side – and let’s be honest, the bottom line matters just as much. More interestingly, platforms like this are emerging as modern alternatives to traditional breeding models, and crucially, they’re recording data about performance horses.
Later in the month, I met Johno Mackay at the Australian Agritech Industry Awards Gala. Johno’s well known in performance horse circles and is now building Job Safe Pro, a safety and compliance app tailored to rural and equine businesses. It includes a “horse log” where users can record and assess a horse’s characteristics and skills — yep, more data.
Neither of these platforms directly deal with buying and selling horses, but they hint at something bigger. The concept behind equible wasn’t just born from the broken trading experience (although that’s a big part of it). It also came from identifying where in the customer journey people already care about data — and want to use it.
Those moments are breeding and trading.
Say you're selling a mare whose competition results are already logged in an Eminent Equine campaign. Or buying a gelding whose skills were previously recorded through Job Safe Pro. In both cases, the horse's genetic, performance, and health data suddenly becomes searchable, shareable, and useful for buyers and sellers alike.
To visualise this trojan-horse part of equible’s concept, I’ve been getting a little ad-venn-turous with content:
Trading becomes the natural moment to capture and connect these three data layers. That’s digitisation – converting physical or scattered records into a digital format. But digitalisation is what happens next: using that data to streamline the process, improve the buying experience, and unlock entirely new ways of doing business.
And it all starts with accessible, high-quality data.
Which is why equible isn’t just a marketplace — it’s a move toward digitalising the way we buy and sell horses. Platforms like Eminent Equine and Job Safe Pro aren’t competitors; they’re puzzle pieces. With a little luck (and a lot of collaboration), they’ll integrate with equible one day soon.
Welcome to my brain.
Can’t see the Forrest for the trees
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I’ve been sharing the ups and downs of navigating capital raising — and the kind of investor I’m hoping to partner with early on. Someone who’ll help equible become a draft horse, not a race horse.
For the past few months, I’ve been quietly working away on my investor CRM — plugging in leads, refining my approach — but hadn’t found any serious contenders. Maybe it’s because I was too focused on the trees… and missed the Forrest. Nicola Forrest, that is.
Connecting with investors like her will take some serious punching-above-my-weight. But beyond the obvious reasons, she’s the most aligned investor I’ve come across for equible.
We’ve reached the tail end of the ninth issue, I hope you’ll keep joining me for the ride. It’s one big, draft-horse-sized, ad-venn-ture.
Best,
Emily