There is a new music man doing big things in and around Mason City, Iowa.
Mason City, birthplace of Meredith Wilson who wrote the musical The Music Man, is the teaching home of Jayson Ryner, a music teacher-turned-entrepreneur. On Dec. 6, Ryner received the winner-take-all $100,000 InnoVenture Challenge in Des Moines with his business, ReEnvision AG. In the Fall of 2019, Ryner completed Venture School at the Mason City cohort. Venture School is sponsored by the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center.
“It is an extreme blessing to win, that is where the judges landed on that day,” Ryner said. “One of the things about the entrepreneurial journey, you can’t let the highs get you too high and you can’t let the lows get you too low because they come in quick sequence.”
ReEnvision AG replaces the double-disc opener on a planter by individually placing each seed perfectly in the soil — with 75% less soil contact than current planting systems. That allows farmers to plant sooner after a rain event and requires less than a quarter of the power.
Ryner is a child of the farm crisis of the 1980s, when he left the family farm in Rudd, Iowa, and taught music for 20 years. Ryner eventually returned to Rudd and started his own farming operation, but the timing wasn’t great.
“In Spring of 2018, we had the wettest year on record; in the Spring of 2019, we had the wettest year on record for a second year in a row,” Ryner said.
His frustration with the Iowa weather motivated him to found ReEnvision AG.
"I knew if farmers were going to do the sustainability thing, if we are truly going into the soil-health era, farmers have to have different tools," Ryner said.
He took his planting idea to the NIACC Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center in Mason City, where Ryner met Brook Boehmler of the North Iowa Area Small Business Development Center. He also worked with Candi Karsjens, lead instructor at the NIACC Pappajohn Center, and Spencer Stensrude, executive director of AgVentures Alliance.
His biggest take-away from Venture School?
“It is all about that customer,” Ryner said. “How can you reach the customer? What pains and problems will you solve for them?”
Through the courses at Venture School, Ryner did customer discovery and settled on a product that was a retro-fit row unit; he didn’t have to pivot from that idea. ReEnvision AG now has a row unit that will retrofit to a current planter, but it can also be pulled by autonomous robots.
“We can plant so much earlier than a double-disc opener that the tractor and the planter actually become the limiting factor,” Ryner said. “That opens the door for the autonomous robots to come in. Since we require so much less power, we are good for them and increase their value proposition.”
At EntreFest in 2020, Ryner placed first at the Venture School Launch Day Pitch Competition. On Dec. 6, his five-minute pitched netted a $100,000 payout.
“A five-minute pitch is not a lot of time,” Ryner said. “Every moment has to be impactful. It was a lot of work and practice and it was the tightest pitch I have ever given.”
Ryner is no longer a music man. He is now an entrepreneurship instructor at NIACC, his alma mater.
“I get to use all of what I have learned to pay forward to young entrepreneurs,” he said. “I want to inspire them to make the world a better place and solve problems with a good mindset.”
To learn more about Venture School or register for the 2024 Spring cohort, click HERE.