The Real P3
Welcome to The Real P3 Podcast, where innovation and resilience meet to shape the future of animal nutrition and health. Join us each week as we dive deep into the heart of the industry. Every Monday, the 'Unstoppable' team brings you powerful stories of resilience and inspiration from leaders shaping our industry. Then, on Thursdays, the Animistic team showcases how innovation drives solutions in animal nutrition and business. Our sessions feature groundbreaking developments and practical insights across all livestock and pet species. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or new to the field, tune in to The Real P3 Podcast to empower your knowledge and inspire action in an industry where science meets heart.
The Real P3
Real Solutions from Real Farms: Knowby with Dr. Grant Rogers
What happens when a veterinarian and dairy farmer decides to solve his own training headaches? You get Knowby—a brilliantly simple, affordable, and adaptable training tool built from the heart of the farm. In this episode, Chantel sits down with Dr. Grant, founder of Knowby, to explore how real-world problems led to practical solutions.
Knowby isn’t just another app—it’s a blank canvas that turns everyday tasks into visual, step-by-step instructions using photos, short-loop videos, and even QR codes. Whether you’re onboarding new employees, updating SOPs, or helping your parents work the smart TV, Knowby makes it easy and effective.
Key Takeaways:
- 💡 Built by a farmer for farmers (and everyone else)—Knowby was created out of the real frustrations of on-farm training.
- 🔄 Simple, Affordable, Adaptable—Knowby eliminates complexity with easy-to-use tools that fit operations of all sizes.
- 🌎 Global, Visual, and Inclusive—Used in 40+ countries, Knowby supports auto-translation and offline access, making it practical anywhere.
- 🐖 Useful across all stages of production—from swine to poultry to pet food, Knowby offers flexible tools to meet training needs at every level.
Whether you manage teams in ag production, manufacturing, or customer service, this episode will leave you rethinking how you train, onboard, and communicate.
🔗 Want to try Knowby? Get started with our exclusive link: https://go.knowby.co/t19tsg5pa69k
(Yes, we may earn a small commission if you sign up—at no extra cost to you!)
Email technical@animistic.co to learn more.
🔗 Want to try Knowby? Get started with our exclusive link: https://go.knowby.co/t19tsg5pa69k
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Episode 135 Transcript
0:00:00
AI Co-host
Welcome back to The Real P3, where passion, purpose, and progress come together in animal nutrition. We're not just talking pigs anymore. This is the new era of The Real P3. Pigs, poultry, and pets. Join your hosts, Chantel, Daniel, and Casey, Animistic's powerhouse team of animal nutrition and health experts as they dive deep into the science and heart behind animal and pet nutrition and health. From commercial swine systems to backyard chicken flocks, from champion show pigs to your favorite couch loving golden retriever, we're covering it all. Expect real stories, real science, and real solutions for those who feed, nurture, and innovate across species. Because here at The Real P3, we're faithfully serving through science plus heart. Subscribe now and come thrive with us.
0:00:58
(Chantel)
Thank you everybody for joining us today. It's really great to record another Real P3 podcast. I'm really excited to be back and continuing with this podcast series. I want to welcome Grant today, or Dr. Grant, shall I say. Grant, just share a little bit about yourself, your background with our listeners before I get into some questions.
0:01:19
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, sure, Chantel. Thanks for having me along. It's actually, it's really good after our last discussion. Oh where do I start? Look I'm a New Zealander by birth who moved to Australia with my wife about 25 years ago. I'm a veterinarian by trade but I milked cows on my own dairy farm with my wife for about 20 years and have since moved back part-time into dairy medicine. We've sold our farm. And along the way I created this juggernaut called Knowby which is really about solving what I thought was my problem on my farm. But yeah that's a bit about my background.
0:02:00
(Chantel)
Thank you. My first question was going to be what inspired Knowby, but it sounds like you answered it. You had your own problem and you basically created your own solution.
0:02:09
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, pretty much. Well, I think all farming is the same. In fact, a lot of life is the same. We rely on verbal communication to give instructions to people. And then we wonder why they get it wrong when we tell them a list of 10 or 12 things to people. And then we wonder why they get it wrong when we tell them a list of 10 or 12 things to do. And yeah, that's really the essence of what Knowby was about was providing a better way to provide instructions. I guess I first of all wondered if it was my staff and then I started wondering if it was me. But anyway, that's where it came from. The truth is, it's neither.
0:02:47
(Chantel)
So basically, Knowby is an educational tool or a tool that can be applied for educational videos, SOPs. I like the fact that you can use it as a QR code. But for our listeners, who have never heard of Knowby, could you give a little bit of information about how it can be used?
0:03:08
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah sure. So look, Knowby is just a blank canvas platform where you can build step-by-step instructions on anything on it. And look, I'll go back a little bit because I think the context is quite important. I was going to solve my problem by writing a manual but I realised the manual would never be where it needed to be and whoever reads them anyway, they're boring, they're long, you've got to find the right language.
0:03:39
(Chantel)
Especially on farms, they get dirty, they get wet, they get lost, they get eaten by pigs or cows or whatever. And yeah, like you said, language, language barrier. I'm from South Africa, we have many national languages. So we use color coding for a lot of things so that, you know, color is synonymous across languages.
0:04:01
(Chantel)
But something like Knowby really would have been so helpful if I had it five years ago. So well for our listeners they should go firstly sign up for Knowby. I know that you have a free trial and it's really great but do people have to start from scratch every time in Knowby? Do you have templates? How much work or effort has to go into it?
0:04:20
(Dr. Grant)
So we played around with video and I got told very quickly by some neighbors, yeah, that's great, but I don't want to watch a three minute video. So I was actually using WhatsApp with some South African friends at the time.
0:04:36
(Dr. Grant)
And that's where the idea came from, you know, images and text. So, and essentially building a Nobe, well, there's a couple of ways to build one Chantel as I've shown you, but building them from scratch it's a bit like it's a bit like writing on whatsapp. You upload your image, you put your bit of text in and the image can be an ultra short loop video because I think we limit you to 15 seconds. We want it to be literally step by step, you know, one at a time. You don't have to rewind, you just sit on it and watch it. But building them manually, you know, it is literally like posting something on social media or WhatsApp, one picture, one bit of text at a time. We have, as I showed you the other day, built our own AI where you can talk your way through a whole process in a video, leaving gaps in your speech to designate where a step begins and ends. And literally in 30 seconds, our platform will cut it up into a step-by-step instruction.
So yes.
0:05:44
(Chantel)
Yeah, that's the coolest part for me is you can just, you know, record a video and it'll create those steps for you. I love that, that you don't have to go in and think about it. It'll cut it up for you. And then also, I mean, I'm an but it could go do that for me, which is fantastic as a manager, you know, to have that as an option.
0:06:09
(Dr. Grant)
For sure. Like we realized language was a huge barrier and look, you know, we want it to be used. It is being used globally and the ability to auto translate is really cool and auto translations got really good. You know, it's not where it was five years ago. 0:06:30
(Chantel)
That is a question I really want to ask you as a veterinarian in another country and I wonder if I'll, I mean we have a lot of international listeners, a lot of US based listeners, but what is the most common training gap that you've seen as a veterinarian across species? Tough questions.
0:06:54
(Dr. Grant)
I guess it's a tough question because I still see things very much as a farmer as well as a veterinarian, but I guess on-boarding is probably the biggest issue I see all stop. But just as a veterinarian, particularly in this part of the world, you've got to realize that we don't calve year round, we're seasonal calving, so things change. So we're not rearing calves all year round. We're not drying cows off all year round. So people just forget, you know, they just forget. They're either new staff or they just, you know, it's been, yes, since we last did it.
0:07:28
(Dr. Grant)
And whether a Knowby’s being used to bring someone new into a business and bring them up to speed very, very quickly, or whether it's being used to, you know, reinvigorate someone in a process that they haven't done for some time.
0:07:46
(Chantel)
Yes, something they can refer back to, but I mean, you speak about new versus old employees. It's a great way to transfer knowledge to, you know, succession planning within a company and also adapting those procedures over time. Can you go in and edit on Nobe or upload new content? Do you have to start from scratch each time? Do you wanna update a video?
0:08:10
(Dr. Grant)
No, yeah, no, look, it's, updating is as easy as building. You literally go into the same scene and you add more text, you add steps, you can change images. So yeah, really, really easy to edit and update. And you're right, it's great for a lot, I've got a lot of them built for me, things I don't do very often. I'll be quite honest, most of them are computer based things that I don't do that often. And it just removes all the frustration, or how did I do that? I don't do that often and it just removes all the frustration of how did I do that? I can't remember. I grew up in an era where computers weren't in schools. It's not that I don't understand them, but things change so quickly. Being able to just refer back, I did that, easy.
0:09:01
(Chantel)
It's highly adaptable, highly adaptable tool. We speak about the application on farms and things like that, but it could really be applied through processing plants all the way through the consumer. Could you share a little bit for our listeners about the use of the QR codes, maybe for consumers on packaging? I think that's a really exciting tool.
0:09:22
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, sure. And look, to be honest, when we first built the plant form and I was using it really heavily on the farm, I found that, and it's not my staff, it's just people, it's human nature. Even though they could find it on their phone, it was easy to ring me and I'd have to send them a link on how to do something. You know, the pump's not going, they'd ring me and I'd send them a link. And then we got onto QR codes and so we've since developed it so it's easy to do it within the app. But point of use QR codes really bring Knowby to life. So, you know, you hit the nail on the head. We've got a lot of manufacturers use Knowby in not only on the manufacturing floor, but also with resellers, with people that get kits and install it themselves. And there's a QR code on how to do it. And it links to a Knowby.
0:10:20
(Dr. Grant)
This is how you install it. This is how you fix it. And it just removes that, removes that frustration. Like, you ever tried putting a flat pack together?
0:10:35
(Chantel)
And I mean, it makes, you know, health and safety a little bit more exciting and not so boring. I really like it as a QR code on packaging for maybe mixing. I mean, we're in the pet food industry, mixing of products or how to feed, how to feed a product or how to portion it out, stuff like that. So that's what I see it being used, but also we do so many educational, we call it lingos. We have, we come out with pet lingo, poultry lingo,
swine lingos. We have, we come out with pet lingo, poultry lingo, swine lingo, but it'd be really great to incorporate videos from those things, videos that we've taken, and putting those into training tools, making it more visually appealing. I think that the world today is definitely leaning towards more visual videos. And, you know, people want to be stimulated the whole time and not just read a manual. I recently put, I bought a printer and I put it together and I refused to read the manual. I was like, I'm going to do this without reading the manual. But if there was a QR code on it, I probably would have scanned the QR code. But I wasn't going to go read this thick manual. So I think that's definitely where the world is going. Um, consumer education, everyone kind of wants to know what's going into products, how to use products. So everyone carries around a cell phone these days as well. Um, it's pretty crazy. Um, but what is, are there any infrastructure roadblocks to using Knowby do you need wifi is, you know, what are the roadblocks to using Knowby? Do you need Wi-Fi? What are the roadblocks?
0:12:06
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah look, the roadblocks is definitely around connectivity and unfortunately in a lot of rural areas it's not great. We have gone some way to amending that. Like I said, you can make the video without Wi-Fi. If you're recording an entire video to use AI, it can be done without Wi-Fi. You can take the images on your phone without Wi-Fi and then go back into Ception and build. We have also, I suppose it's probably about a year ago now, released an offline function. So if you know that you're going down to the pump shed and there's no Wi-Fi down there but you need the instruction on how to do whatever, you can download it and open it in offline and it's there. So that's quite a powerful thing. Apps don't work. Yeah that's quite a powerful thing. Apps don't work. Yeah, that's fantastic. Despite what people think, an app doesn't work without connectivity. You've got to have been looking at it before you go out of range. So, yeah, we've built that into the system and it's very powerful. You come back into range, you know, three days later and if there's been an update, it'll alert you that there's been a change, et cetera. So yeah, that's really important in the rural community, certainly in our part of the world anyway.
Yeah.
0:13:33
(Chantel)
With the, I mean, you as the, the business owner or the entrepreneur, can you see who, how many times it's been downloaded or looked at? That's a really interesting tool for businesses who want to maybe use this product or is that private?
0:13:48
(Dr. Grant)
Good question. There's a couple of ways these are built. So they're either produced when you publish them, you can either choose. So I guess I'm stepping, stepping back a little bit. Knowby isn't like YouTube. You don't go onto Knowby, right? Knowby provides a site for your business, right? So you can brand it up, you can white label it; it doesn't even look like it's us, it looks like it's you. And so when you publish, you can choose to either publish it internally, so that only people within your organization can see it. So there's some real privacy there for IP, et cetera. Or you can choose to publish them publicly, which means the link works to anyone in the world. Anyone can open it if they get sent it or come across QR code, or if it's on your website, as an example. Anyone can see a public note, but not a private one. I can definitely answer the private one.
0:14:48
(Dr. Grant)
Yes, we track and trace every use of it. We have a reporting function, which is really important for compliance. And so as a business, you can go into the reporting section of KNOWBY and you can see who, you can look up an individual and you can see what they've done, where they've been on it, what they've used. You can look up an individual Knowby instruction and you can see who's looked at it and when they've looked at it. We are working on, in the back end we've got it, we're working on, we know how long you've been looking at it. Yeah. So potentially we could call bullshit. You went to the bottom of the page and you hit, I've done it. So we're working on releasing that. The public ones, I think we can track views, but that's all. We just know it's been looked at. And I know we do that in the back end, I'm not sure, I don't think we've quite released that as a function for businesses to be able to track themselves.
0:15:51
(Chantel)
Yeah, I think that's a little more difficult with privacy settings. I was just wondering, but it's great that you can do that internally and really track Teams and see if something's not working, is it because people are not looking at it or do they need to like update the tool itself so it's great to see if if something is not working whether it's the people not looking at it or if you know it's the video that's the problem the infographic yes I think that's a really great tool not just for safety of intellectual property but you know to see if it's actually functional and effective. But another, I jumped a bit forward, I also wanted to ask about the infrastructure roadblocks, besides connectivity, I think that Knowby is really affordable. I was really surprised and how affordable it really is, and I think it's a really great tool for large businesses, small businesses, you know, you speak about Knowby being just, I don't know if I'm describing it right, correct me if I'm wrong, it's basically like a website tool where somebody builds onto it or what was the terminology used?
0:16:54
(Dr. Grant)
Well it's a blank canvas, it's literally a platform, yeah, it's actually, it's predominantly app-based, but it does have a web function. So yeah, it's both.
0:17:08
(Chantel)
I think it's really accessible, affordable and adaptable. People can change it to however they want it to look. So I think it's really a really cool tool. And hopefully it becomes more popular over time. How long have you been working on Knowby?
0:17:27
(Dr. Grant)
Oh look, personally I've been working on it for a while but the business, like a lot of entrepreneurs, I had a great idea and I had the drive to get it so far but I didn't have the personal skills to take it to where it needed to be now. So we've built a team, we rebuilt an entire team about two years ago. So it's been on the market, it's really been only on the market for about two years. A lot of work in the background before that. So yeah, look, we haven't been around that long. We are in about 20 industries in about 40 countries now and growing you know growing pretty quickly. Look as a founder I was a crap CEO. So fortunately look we've all got our skills in life and and leading a tech company was not mine and so I've been really fortunate that you know we've got a really good team of people with diverse skill sets now. And they said, well, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I want to focus on what I love, which is agriculture.
0:18:32
(Dr. Grant)
Because I can see how, having sat on the other side of the fence as a farmer and as a vet, I can see how it can change the industry and some of the frustrations in it. And it doesn't matter whether it's dairying or pigs, you'll have exactly the same problems. So, yeah, so I'm sitting on that. Thank you for the comment about affordability. We've specifically priced it as low as we possibly can. And yeah, it needs a lot of users.
0:19:01
(Dr. Grant)
And look, we're well on the way to where we need to be. But we wanted, some of the guys in the business have worked for big enterprise companies and it's always giving them the shits when you sign up to a bit of software that it's this much, oh but if you want this and that you've got to pay extra. And so we wanted to make it as simple as possible. There's one price, that's it. You add users, it's $3 a user, if people wanted to know, it's $3 a user a month. But there's no extras, you get everything with that. You don't have to pay for exporting or pay for this, which...
0:19:39
(Chantel)
Premium this or plus that?
0:19:41
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's none of that. Like, I'm doing a lot of work with collars on dairy cows now and a lot of these companies, they want you to pay extra to get your data. And it's just, it's really insane. So, yeah.
0:20:01
(Chantel)
Monetize everything.
0:20:02
(Dr. Grant)
Monetize everything, yeah. And like, the other thing around affordability is like, we've got a re... All the guys in the company, we've got a company motto. It's really basic. It's, don't be a dick, right? And that might sound really, really bizarre for a tech company, but we're...
0:20:20
(Dr. Grant)
It's really important to all of us that we actually use this good as well. So we do give it a wave to non-profits, true non-profits. We've got the United Nations playing around with it at the moment. Yo, and we've got, we've given it to a number of non-profits in this part of the world. So it's not, it's not just about making money. It's about making it affordable and, and also helping people.
Yeah.
0:20:43
(Chantel)
Yeah. and also helping people, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's really great that your background is a little unusual being a veterinarian and a farmer. I feel like this product is really unique and has so much potential, really great. And it's so great to hear that you're doing so much good with it.
0:20:59
(Chantel)
And it's such an easy product to use too, with not many barriers of infrastructure besides initial connectivity, but later on, I mean, you can look at it later once you download it. But where do you see Knowby in five years?
0:21:13
(Dr. Grant)
Solving a lot of problems, I hope. No, I know, solving a lot of problems. Look, there's more features we can add, but we've got to be careful that we don't overcomplicate it.
0:21:28
(Chantel)
Yeah, keeping it simple.
0:21:30
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm a non-tech person. I came up with the concept. The team have adopted that concept of keeping it simple.
0:21:40
(Chantel)
Yeah, you don't want to lose sight of the initial, I mean, the initial point of Knowby is to make things simple, you know't want to lose sight of the initial point of Knowby is to make things simple. You don't need Knowby to be complicated.
0:21:49
(Dr. Grant)
Yeah, it's to solve a problem, to solve your problem right now when you need it solved. quite fast. I'm in final discussions with a couple of large dairy processes in Australia, one of which is a global processor from North America. So I can see it expanding quite quickly. I think the compliance part of it, look, unfortunately, the world we live in, we've got to be able to prove everything nowadays. And I think the compliance we live in, we've got to be able to prove everything nowadays. And I think the compliance function of it, not that I ever even dreamed that we needed it, but I can see, you know, I just wanted people to be able to use an electric fence tester or fix a pump. You know, that's all I wanted. But I can see that compliance side of it being hugely beneficial.
0:22:41
(Dr. Grant)
We're working on the language thing at the moment. As you know, you've got to go in and choose the languages you want it to change into. By Christmas time, if your browser's set in Spanish, it'll just open in Spanish. So again, we're trying to simplify it, make it easier. Yeah.
0:22:57
(Chantel)
Yeah. Sounds like you've really been very specific and chosen specific things to keep it simple, functional, all those things. But I also am dying to ask what are you, I think you mentioned 40 countries. Did you say 40?
0:23:15
(Dr. Grant)
I think so. Yeah. I can't see anymore. I used to be able to see everything. Yeah. So I don't really know, but I think Clint SEO mentioned.
0:23:23
(Chantel)
I mean, that's amazing. 40 countries. Like, what is the most creative use of Knowby? I mean, even that you know of? Can you share that on here?
0:23:32
(Dr. Grant)
I really... I can, I can. And I actually do think we've got an algorithm to stop crazy shit being put up there too, in there. I think that's in there. The craziest Knowby that I've seen, to be fair.
0:23:46
(Chantel)
I said creative, not crazy.
0:23:47
(Speaker 8)
Oh, okay.
0:23:48
(Dr. Grant)
That's even easier.
0:23:50
(Speaker 7)
Creative or crazy.
0:23:51
(Dr. Grant)
Well, no, it's the same Knowby actually. It was built years ago before we became an app when we had just a web platform. It was one of my original business partners and he built one on how to make an ice bath out of an old refrigerator. And it has been viewed that many times, it's unbelievable.
0:24:15
(Chantel)
Yeah, how many people? I was just going to say, who does that? But now you're saying this.
0:24:18
(Dr. Grant)
Oh, well, apparently a lot of people, apparently a lot of people were into it, you know, and like, I don't think it even exists now but on the on the old web platform like it had had thousands of people had looked at the Knowby and you know I thought man how many people actually make sense.
0:24:37
(Chantel)
Maybe not a stand-up refrigerator you don't want to lie that down but it's like a chest freezer that's actually a really good idea if you want to get a nice spot You don't have to make new ice every time.
0:24:46
(Dr. Grant)
That's the craziest one I've seen or the most innovative one I've seen. I actually built one, I was in New Zealand last week visiting my parents with my family. My wife's a Kiwi as well, so we visited both families, but my parents in their 80s and they really struggle using TVs, using smart TVs.
0:25:11
(Chantel)
I struggle using a smart TV.
0:25:14
(Dr. Grant)
So do I, I know you go to a hotel room and how do you make the TV work? And that's another whole story, but while I was there, I actually built the MoKnowby instruction and printed off a QR code on how to get to Netflix and how to get back to TV and how to pause Netflix. And that's maybe an innovative use of it.
0:25:39
(Chantel)
I don't know. Yeah, that's really special though. That's really special. Where can people find you, find more information about you, sign up for your free trial, all those things.
0:25:49
(Chantel)
I think that hopefully our listeners jump on it.
0:25:52
(Dr. Grant)
So that they're not listening to us. If they go to Knowby, which is K-N-O-W-B-Y.co. And if you wonder, and it's .co, not .com, it was already taken and we weren't prepared to buy it off the guy. And if you're wondering where the name came from, Obi-Wan Kenobi knew everything.
0:26:15
(Chantel)
That's very clever. That's hilarious.
Simple as that. Memorable name.
0:26:33
(Grant)
You know, see how great it is.
0:26:39
(Chantel)
Uh, share it with their, you know, boss, HR team, you know, whatever they do, just make their home life simpler, work life simpler, whatever. I mean, I think the applications are endless with Knowby. So I'm really glad that you joined on this podcast and I really hope that people, you know, see the value in this product. We certainly do.
0:26:57
(Chantel)
We can't wait to use it here at Animistic and definitely will. So I wanna thank you again for joining.
0:27:03
(Dr. Grant)
Thanks Chantel. I've enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to seeing what I've enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to seeing what you and Casey do with Knowby in business.
