Crawdata

Our "Eureka!" Moment

Growing up, Crawdata Team member Joshua Doguet knew that one of his father's greatest desires was to learn how to use current computer technology to better manage his crawfish farm. He understood that if he could accurately and consistently track his daily yield (and the factors that affected it) across their entire operation, he would not only be able to better expect how the farm would produce on a day-to-day basis, but he would also be able to identify and remedy under performing fields or areas. Not to mention, such a tool would empower him to maintain consistent records from year to year. The end goal of this, of course, was to have a piece of software at hand that could lead to greater output, and by extension, higher profits. At the time, however, no software existed that would make it easy enough to manage this information in a time-effective manner.

Years later, after talking to other area farmers, the Crawdata Team realized that this was not an isolated need. After a number of conversations, they discovered that some farmers did not keep accurate records of their operation at all. They also found out that others felt they spent too much time keeping track of only a minimal amount of information, be it via pen and paper or complicated computer spreadsheets. Some told us they had a difficult time answering the question, "How am I doing this year as of this day compared to last year? Or years before that?" They often had a vague idea, but nothing specific enough to be useful.

The Crawdata Team, after completing their undergraduate studies, had now amassed the necessary skills in software engineering, business, and econometrics to be able to make this application a reality, thereby providing a solution to all of the aforementioned problems. After fleshing out the idea in the Spring of 2010, the Team got together to build a web-based application that would do everything crawfish farmers wanted and more. From tracking yields and prices to the type of bait; from monitoring weather systems and moonstage, to both water quality and level, the Crawdata software puts a significant amount power in the hands of the farmer, while at the same time being extremely user friendly, graphical, and cost-effective.