Questions on your mind?

9 North Group recommends starting where revenue is most constrained: go-to-market for pre-launch agriculture and food companies, sales acceleration for companies whose growth has flattened. If you are unsure, the free diagnostic call sorts it out.

Either. Each of the six 9 North Group services stands alone with its own scope and deliverables. Most engagements start with one or two workstreams and expand from there based on what the business needs.

9 North Group engagements typically start at $15,000 per month, whether that's a defined-scope project or a monthly retainer. Pricing is set by scope, not by hours. In a limited number of engagements we take a reduced base in exchange for performance fees or equity, tied to the outcome we were hired to deliver. You will have exact numbers before you commit, and the diagnostic call is free.

The useful comparison is not cost per year — it is what one hire buys you versus what an embedded team buys you.

A senior commercial hire in food and ag runs $200,000 to $350,000 in base salary before bonus and equity, and 1.3 to 1.6 times that once benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead are counted. Add a retained search fee, four to six months to seat the role, and roughly six months of ramp. For that, you get depth in one function.

A 9 North Group engagement gives you four to seven commercial functions blended, starting in weeks, with no search fee, no equity, and no severance. And in engagements where we share upside, part of what you pay depends on whether we deliver.

A fractional team is not a permanent substitute for a full-time commercial leader. When the workload justifies the hire, we help you define the role and recruit for it.

Entering the U.S. agriculture market usually requires rebuilding the commercial approach rather than translating it. The channel structure, buying cycle, agronomy, and regulatory path differ from most home markets. 9 North Group supports international agriculture, food, and ingredient companies with market sizing, channel and distribution strategy, positioning for U.S. buyers, and on-the-ground commercial execution.

9 North Group engagements typically begin within a few weeks of agreeing scope, and faster when an event, a raise, or a season sets the deadline.

Commercial Growth Systems builds the commercial engine: positioning, funding case, go-to-market, revenue. AI Growth Systems gives a lean team the leverage to run it without adding headcount. Clients engage either one on its own, or both together.

An AI Growth System is practical, AI-enabled infrastructure built around how your team already works, not a chatbot bolted on top of your business. It covers everything from getting your team trained and productive with AI, to connecting AI to your real systems and data, to building custom tools for your commercial work.

No. Most Food and Ag companies start with a free readiness assessment and a small, focused first step, not a major build. The right starting point depends on where your team already is, which is exactly what the assessment is for.

Generic AI consultants and Big 4 firms bring a framework that's the same for every industry, and often sell you their own platform along the way. 9 North is run by Food and Ag commercialization operators who've done this work inside companies like yours, hold no platform partnerships, and stay embedded until the work holds without us.

It depends on where you start. Training and productivity work can show time saved within weeks. Deeper work, like connecting AI to your systems or building a custom tool, is staged so you see proof at each step before committing to the next.

Start with a free AI Readiness Assessment. It takes about ten minutes plus a short debrief, and tells you what to do first and in what order, based on your team, not a generic checklist.

Most partnerships begin with a 6-month engagement, which provides enough time to build momentum and deliver meaningful commercial progress. Many clients extend beyond that initial period — some partnering with us for several years — depending on scope, growth goals, and the level of ongoing support they need.

Yes. We work as a fractional commercial team, not a single executive, covering commercial, marketing, and GTM leadership for early-stage and scaling companies. One lead owns the outcome, and the infrastructure we build stays with you.

Yes. We support portfolio assessments, commercial due diligence, and hands-on work with portfolio companies.

You should build a full commercial team once you’ve validated product-market fit and are ready to scale repeatable revenue—not before. That said, you still need commercial expertise before product-market fit is achieved. Early-stage companies often rely on consultants or fractional operators to shape a conceptual go-to-market strategy, test assumptions, and build the financial and commercial models that guide early decisions without committing to full-time hires too soon.

Misaligned teams, unclear ownership, weak processes, poor handoffs, and premature scaling. Growth requires structure, not just speed.

We build the commercial and operational infrastructure you need to grow — aligning teams, strengthening processes, and enabling scale without losing momentum. We can also supplement team needs, support people and system planning, assist with hiring processes, and help ensure your organization is structured for efficient, sustainable growth.

These markets shift with regulation, climate, retailer pressure, consumer trends, and grower economics. Real-time insights help you adjust strategy, strengthen your value proposition, and grow faster.

It’s how your solution stands out — showing how you solve customer problems better or more efficiently than alternatives.

Yes. We craft compelling, evidence-based positioning that resonates with buyers and clearly differentiates your innovation.

Scaling requires the right systems, a defined process, targeted outreach, aligned sales and marketing, and strong enablement. It also often involves extending beyond internal teams — leveraging outsourcing, distribution partners, strategic partners, or channel networks to reach the market efficiently and accelerate adoption.

Sales enablement equips your team (or distribution partners) with the tools, messaging, training, and content they need to convert prospects into customers.

We build structured sales engines, generate demand, develop conversion strategies, strengthen partnerships, and align sales execution with your GTM roadmap.

Hire when the model already works: you know who buys, why, at what price, and through which channel, and the constraint is capacity. Before that, a full-time hire usually inherits an unsolved problem. An embedded team can build the sales process and prove the model first, so the eventual hire scales something that works. We don't just advise. We build. More on the trade-off in why a fractional team often beats a single executive hire.

Stop adding pilots and fix the conversion path. Agree success criteria and a purchase decision date before the next pilot starts, map who signs and what they need to see, and build the sales process that picks up where the trial ends. Most stalled ag and food tech pipelines have a conversion problem, not a demand problem. We walk through it in how food and ag companies move from pilot to revenue.

Investors fund de-risked opportunities. They want validated demand, early traction, a scalable revenue model, and a credible commercialization path. Just as importantly, they look for an experienced, capable team that can execute the plan and navigate the realities of agriculture, food, and ingredient markets.

A strategy aligned with buyer behavior, pricing expectations, market entry timing, and efficient sales execution — plus evidence that the team can deliver.

Absolutely. We refine your investor narrative, build a compelling story line, clarify revenue economics, and position your solution for funding or strategic partnerships.

No. We don't raise capital. Our focus is the commercial case behind the raise. We build the traction evidence, market sizing, go-to-market plan, and growth story that investors and strategic partners diligence, and we support you through those conversations. That evidence is what holds up in diligence. We don't just advise. We build.

Evidence that the model repeats: revenue from customers beyond early adopters, pilots that converted to contracts, a pipeline with real stage definitions, a credible path to unit economics, and a channel that works without the founder in every deal. In ag and food tech, investors also test seasonality and channel dependency. We cover what diligence actually checks in what investors look for in an AgTech company's commercial case.

Product-market fit exists when your solution solves a meaningful problem for a defined customer — and they’re willing to pay for it.

It reduces risk. In agriculture and food, buying decisions are complex, seasonal, and technical. Validation ensures your product addresses a real need before you scale.

Yes. We gather direct customer insights, test assumptions, size your opportunity, and refine your value proposition to accelerate adoption.

An AgTech go-to-market strategy consultant defines how an agriculture or food technology product reaches paying customers, then structures the commercial motion to get it there. That means selecting the first target segment, identifying the real buying unit on a farm or inside a retailer, co-op, or processor, building the value case in the buyer's economics, setting pricing, choosing distribution channels, and defining what proof converts a trial into a purchase. At 9 North Group the role extends into execution: we build the plan, then run it with you as fractional operators.

An AgTech startup should build a go-to-market plan by starting with the buyer, not the product, and by narrowing before broadening. Pick one first segment specific enough to name the accounts in it. Identify who approves the spend and who can block it. Quantify value in the buyer's own economics, per acre or per unit of output, not in product performance terms. Choose the channel — direct, retailer, distributor, co-op, or OEM — honestly, including cost and control trade-offs. Price against the buyer's real alternative, which is often current practice rather than a competing product. Define what a pilot must demonstrate to trigger a purchase, and agree those criteria with the customer before it starts. Then build the sales process that supports repeat business. Plan around the buying season: a plan that misses a window loses a year, not a quarter. We cover the full sequence in Go-to-Market Planning for AgTech Startups.

AgTech go-to-market strategy differs from general B2B go-to-market in four structural ways. The buying calendar is seasonal, so missing a window delays revenue by a full cycle, not a quarter. Validation is physical and slow: buyers expect field trials across variable geographies, so proof accumulates over seasons and cannot be compressed with a free trial. A distribution layer of retailers, co-ops, distributors, and manufacturers usually sits between the company and the end user, making the channel a second sale. And the value case has to close in the buyer's financial reality — grower margins, input costs, financing, risk tolerance — where an unproven product carries operational consequences.

An AgTech company should bring in go-to-market help before it needs it — at the point where commercial assumptions start driving product and funding decisions. Concretely: when you are preparing a raise and investors will ask for a credible path to revenue; when you have a testable product and need buyer input before locking pricing and positioning; when pilots accumulate but do not convert; when a distribution decision is imminent and hard to reverse; or when the founder is the only person selling. Early planning is cheaper than correction — the expensive version is discovering after a season of trials that you targeted the wrong segment.

Both, and execution is the point. A go-to-market strategy that lands as a document changes nothing, so our engagements carry into the field. We work as fractional operators inside your team: we own the commercial plan, then run the work it requires — customer and channel conversations, pricing, partnership structuring, sales process and forecast discipline, and the hiring sequence for the team that eventually takes it over. Some clients need the plan built and pressure-tested first; most need someone accountable for making it work.

We’re a growth partner for agriculture, food, and ingredient companies. We blend commercial strategy, execution, and AI capabilities to help you validate markets, secure funding, grow revenue, and scale efficiently.

9 North Group works with agriculture, food, and ingredient companies, from pre-revenue startups to enterprise growth teams launching new products, entering new markets, or adopting AI. We also help non-U.S. companies commercialize in the United States.

We’re operators, not just advisors. We embed with your team, bring deep commercial and AI experience, and execute alongside you. Our work is grounded in ROI, real traction, and building systems that drive scalable growth.

Schedule a strategy session or a free AI readiness assessment, whichever fits where you’re starting. We’ll understand where you are today and co-develop a clear, actionable plan to move forward.