All started when I applied for an Agritech Incubation program (second time) organized by TUMO Labs. This is not your usual incubation. You’re applying without having a team or business idea. After a two-day ideation event, you can do interviews and get yourself a team. After getting a team, you need to find a problem to solve with your team.
Me and my team (Van, Naira & Albert) started searching for a problem. We’ve been in dozens of greenhouses and farms, learning more about agriculture and farmers overall. We saw various problems that needed solving, but one of them stood out.
Farm owners didn’t know much about their farms. All our questions were getting approximate numbers. They didn’t have an overview of their farm. They couldn’t do data-driven decision-making without knowing the details of finance, reproduction and so on. While digging deeper, we found other problems too. That’s when Hoviv was born. Hoviv (Shepard in Armenian) is a mobile application to track animal movement and reproduction cycles. As none of us had in-depth knowledge about cattle health, we partnered with the biggest artificial insemination company in Armenia, SmartAgro. They helped us understand the lifecycle of the cattle and the care it needs during pregnancy or the milking period. We started developing the workflows for the application.
Not to brag, but I learn new tools fast. I assembled the base UI of the app in two days, using Figma for the first time. My network engineering knowledge came to help while sourcing GPS tracking necklaces for cattle to track their movements in a grassland. I was also helping the team to communicate our needs with developers (I used to explain complex technical functions to ordinary people while working as tech support). We also need to communicate our business with investors and public funds. I prepared the pitch deck, and Van presented it so well that people fell in love with the solution we proposed. Naira even won the first prize at the Agritech Summit organized by Seaside Startup Summit. That was a day we will never forget. I was in military training and Van was in the US. It felt like the team was out of control, but things happen. Naira and Albert have done an amazing job together.
Currently, we have our MVP and are testing it with vets and farmers. We’re part of the international Plug and Play acceleration program, learning more about how to make our solution available for Armenian and international farmers. A few days ago, we won a chance to represent Hoviv at MWC Barcelona 2025! Follow me on Linkedin to be up-to-date on our MWC Barcelona 2025 experience.