Is a Super App Possible in North American Agriculture?
An analysis of what hurdles need to be overcome to see a "super app" in North American agriculture.
Index
Overview
What is a Super App?
Origins of Super Apps
What does a Super App in Agriculture Include?
Challenges in North American Agriculture
Starting Point, Frequency of Use and Go-to-Market
Monetization Approach and Incentives
Ecosystem Complexity and Coordination Needs
Fragmentation with Diverse Needs and Current Infrastructure
Data Security, Privacy Concerns and Operational Independence
Final Thoughts
What could be considered a Super App Angle for Agriculture?
Overview
This week my friend Rhishi Pethe launched Software is Feeding the World Interview series and it was a good first interview, bringing on one of the most visionary founders in agtech, Jake Joraanstad, CEO of Bushel.
There are several useful insights in the interview that make it worth checking out, but I want to focus on one specific comment from Jake:
What I think is interesting, I think a trend that's going to be happening is what is agriculture's super app? There is not a super app for agriculture.
What's the farmer's super app that every farmer pretty much has and needs to have, particularly in the US?
That's going to be a trend that has happened in consumers in all these different parts of the consumer industry. I think agriculture is going to have a moment like that too. The question is how far are we from it.
My answer to his last question? Very far. But it’s worth breaking it down.
What is a Super App?
The concept of the “Super App” was first introduced by BlackBerry founder Mike Laziridis in his 2010 Mobile World Congress address.
He described Super Apps as platforms that create seamless, integrated experiences, blending core applications into a single, intuitive interface that becomes a natural part of daily life.
Originally, Lazaridis envisioned BlackBerry as the Super App, a one-stop solution for essential needs and routines.
This is the core foundation of Super Apps: they are built around convenience—providing a central hub where users can access most of what they need with ease, all in one place.
Initially, it needs to start as a specialized, single-purpose app (e.g., messaging) but evolves into a platform offering diverse services such as e-commerce, social networking, transportation, food delivery, financial services, and more.
Users engage with one app for almost every part of their digital life, making it an essential part of daily routine. WeChat (China), and other Super Apps are essentially the internet in their respective home countries. Because they own the digital infrastructure, they’re able to build their own services on top or extract rent from the companies that do.
Sounds great, right?
But they’re also extremely hard to build, because they’re essentially marketplaces.
Success requires liquidity and network effects— there need to be enough entities that accept the app integrations and leverage them.
Origins of Super Apps
Super apps gained popularity in Asia, especially with WeChat and AliPay in China. In many cases, these apps arose from unique market dynamics and constraints.
Limited computer / internet penetration — Many consumers in these regions skipped the desktop/laptop era and jumped straight to mobile, creating an opportunity to build centralized mobile solutions.
Demand for convenience — Given the fast-paced lifestyles and the high adoption of smartphones, people sought an all-in-one solution that minimizes app-switching. The nuance here is also a lower demand for privacy and data sharing as compared to what North Americans expect, on average.
Lack of infrastructure — In certain regions, traditional banking, logistics, and service providers had limitations, which super apps could address, integrating everything from payments to shopping within one app.
These apps have a general starting point:
A single essential service that meets a need, has high utility and has frequent usage, which is why they tend to start as messaging— you talk to your friends every hour of every day leading to habit creation and data acquisition.
Next there is a service layer, such as ride hailing, or food delivery added on.
Which leads to the potential for and integration of a digital wallet or payment system. This feature creates a seamless transactional environment that keeps users engaged. Financial integration also allows the app to leverage transaction data, which can further fuel cross-selling and credit offerings, increasing user stickiness.
This leads to more data sharing which enables commerce and further services to be built on, which increasingly aggregates users and drives app utility creating a network effect and increasing personalization (eg: targeted ads), which further creates demand for businesses to be apart of that ecosystem, driving APIs and integrations until the system becomes like WeChat.
Successful super apps take advantage of local context to build relevance and trust. As mentioned, the "super app" ecosystem thrives in regions where financial infrastructure is limited, and access to various services is fragmented. By offering unified solutions that address these gaps, super apps can provide value beyond what individual apps could deliver.
Super Apps gain a strong foothold by offering unmatched convenience, combining multiple services into a single platform that reduces friction and enhances user experience. They foster user "lock-in" through comprehensive ecosystems of integrated services, creating daily reliance and making it hard for users to leave.
What does a Super App in Agriculture Include?
For agriculture, a farmer super app, theoretically, is where they can buy and pay for insurance, access financing, purchase inputs, order parts, view profitability, manage operations, look at land for purchase, sell their grain, get program rebates, include a farm decision dashboard, a job workflow an AI agent to perform various tasks and a host of other things.
Challenges in North American Agriculture
Jake states the following about super apps:
What I think is interesting, I think a trend that's going to be happening is what is agriculture's super app? There is not a super app for agriculture. There is one, there's a few different ones for consumers, right?
He’s right, there are several consumer ones, like WeChat and AliPay, however, there is a need to acknowledge the nuance of North America.
There is no super app in North American consumer culture, today.
At least, not in the same way that WeChat and AliPay are super apps. We could argue that the iPhone is the “super app,” but in a much different way.
In North America, individual apps dominate and so called “super app” attempts have faced barriers like regulatory scrutiny, privacy concerns, incumbent infrastructure and established alternatives for each service (Uber for rides and food, Venmo for payments, etc.). These individual apps are integrated seamlessly at the hardware (eg: iPhone) level.
There are similar challenges to this specific to North American agriculture and Bushel, too: