Gandhi
User Age (66)- Hardworking
- Punctual
- Observant
- Problem-solver
Goals
- More information to manage all his crops
- Updates on crops, Irrigation & prices
Pain points
- No good mechanism for water irrigation
- No proper guidance for high-yield crops
OUTGROW (Waycool Labs) • Agritech • Mobile APP
The One-Stop Solution for Farmers.
Outgrow takes what WayCool learned beside 85,000 farmers - Mandi prices, soil testing, weather, crop health - and puts it in one app, in the farmer's own language.
The Setup001
A Farmer network, Three years in the making.
Outgrow is the farmer-engagement platform from WayCool Labs, the technology arm of Chennai's WayCool Foods. Long before any app, agronomists and field advisors of Outgrow had spent over three years working alongside farmers on the ground - building a network of more than 85,000 of them.
In March 2022, that on-ground knowledge became a free - launched in six languages across five states, with one stated mission: To raise the income and profitability of small and marginal farmers, and ultimately reach five million of them.
85,000+
farmers in the Outgrow network at launch
WayCool Foods, 2022
3+yrs
on the ground before the app existed
Outgrow extension program
5M+
farmers the platform aims to reach
Stated goal — WayCool
UX Strategy & Methodology
I combined field visits with farmers, a competitor scan of existing agri-advisory apps, and persona synthesis to ground every decision in real usage, not assumptions
- Field Interviews
- Competitor Analysis
- Persona Synthesis
The problem002
What we heard, again and again.
Across every conversation, the same picture emerged. Farmers like Gandhi and Murugan didn't lack information - they were lost in scattered, unsolicited advice with no single source to trust. And for farmers on thin margins, that uncertainty translates straight into lost income.
Listing the pains as we understood them from the field:
-
No water & irrigation guidance
No reliable way to plan irrigation or manage water across the farm.
-
Scattered, untrusted advice
Overexposed to unsolicited tips from many sources, with no single voice to trust.
-
No help with high-yield crops
Little guidance on managing or improving yield for demanding crops.
-
Opaque, late prices
Mandi rates arrive late & unclear, leaving farmers at the mercy of middlemen.
-
Insights that come too late
Soil and crop-health information rarely arrives in time to act on it.
-
A language barrier
Most digital tools simply don't speak the farmer's mother tongue.
"Today, a farmer depends on multiple platforms and at times is overexposed to unsolicited advisory sources."
- Sendhil Kumar · Head of Farmer Engagement & Outgrow, WayCool Foods
Our research
We started where the farmers are.
Building on this farmer-engagement platform, the two of us, A small design team - went into the field ourselves. We ran a survey across farming households, sat with farmers on their own land, and watched how they plan, plant, price, and sell across a season.
The goal was simple: understand the real pain points, not the assumed ones.
- Field survey
- Contextual interviews
- On-farm observation
- Persona synthesis
Murugan
User Age (38)- Curious
- Cost-conscious
- Tech-ready
- Persistent
Goals
- Sell at fair, transparent prices
- Adopt modern methods to raise yield
Pain points
- Middlemen and unclear mandi rates cut margins
- No early warning for pests or bad weather
The Process003
Three principles we locked in early
Working back from the research, we mapped each pain to a concrete, science-backed feature — the set of solutions that became Outgrow.
Real-time market price
Live Mandi rates from 2,500+ markets, so farmers sell at the right price - not a middleman's.
Farm data & NDVI
Add a farm area and monitor it - farm data analysis, health monitoring and NDVI scores across the season.
Weather & climate
Farm-specific forecasts and microclimatic conditions, with early disease-risk alerts ahead of trouble.
Expert advisory
Agronomist guidance on crops by voice, text or IVR method (Customer Support) - in the farmer's own language.
Crop information & Solution
How to grow each crop, and how to remedy disease the moment it spreads - backed by 500+ remedies.
Soil testing
An Outgrow partner service collects soil from the field and turns it into an actionable report.
The design language
Colors
Primary Green #146133
Primary Brown #683C13
Primary Black #101010
Typeface
Noto Sans
- Farmer
- விவசாயி
- किसान
- शेतकरी
- കർഷകൻ
- ರೈತ
High • Fidelity Wires
The solution004
One app for the whole farming cycle.
Those research-driven features came to life as a single, calm interface — every service a tap away, every screen readable in bright field light and in the farmer's own language.
Key Take-aways
- Real Time Market Price Access.
- Farm Data Analysis and Health Monitoring and NDVI Scores
- Weather and Climatic Condition.
- Expert Advisory Information about Crops.
- Farmers get information about each Crop and how to product and how to remedy if any diseases spread across.
- Outgrow partnered service will help on the soil testing by collecting data from the field.
The OUTCOME005
Income, not just information.
The measure of success was never screen time - it was the balance sheet of a farm. By replacing a scatter of half-trusted sources with one credible, multilingual place, Outgrow turned scattered advice into the kind farmers could act on - and farmers in the program saw it land where it matters most: their income.
20 - 40%
Income increase for Outgrow farmers
Outgrow program — WayCool, 2022
100K+
Downloads on Google Play
Cumulative, app-level — Google Play
2,500+
Markets feeding live prices
Per Google Play listing
6
Languages, fully localised
EN · TA · TE · KN · MR · HI
What I learned
Designing for users I'd never meet in a lab forced a discipline I'm proud of — every decision had to survive a dusty field, a small screen, low connectivity, and a language I might not read.
“The hard part wasn't adding features. It was earning enough trust to replace five.”