I think the market will be obvious when each AutoMicroFarm pays for itself in a year (or even better, a growing season). But, that's a few orders of magnitude away in terms of manufacturing scale.
What sort of plants are you ideally suited for?
How important are the fish and aquaculture part?
Would it really "pay for itself" given the labor costs (time)? I mean you say it is automated, but what about refilling water, cleaning up dead fish, and whatever else comes up? Do I have to clean the fish tank?
How do you prevent animals from getting into it and eating your plants or fish?
If this becomes popular, what's preventing competitors from making the same thing, and commoditizing your product?
What sort of plants are you ideally suited for?
Almost everything you grow in a garden can grow in aquaponics. The only limitations are extremes: plants that require a really low pH, such as blueberries, large trees (banana trees will wreck your veggie bed), etc.
How important are the fish and aquaculture part?
The fish are very important. They provide the nutrients for the plants (you still would need to add a bit of iron once in a while). Without the fish, you have a hydroponics system, with ongoing nutrient costs.
Maintenance is minimal. When I ran my first proof-of-concept system for a year and a half, I averaged 15 minutes a day, and that was mostly to feed the fish (easily automatable for ~$10).
Do I have to clean the fish tank?
It depends on how clean you want it to be. If you're looking for aquarium-level of cleanliness/clarity, then you'd have to clean it a few times a year. If you're ok with backyard-fish-pond-level cleanliness (a bit of algae growing, etc) then once a year (or less often) is fine.
How do you prevent animals from getting into it and eating your plants or fish?
I had my system in a greenhouse, so that wasn't an issue. If you get an outdoor system installed, you can add a number of off-the-shelf measures to prevent animals from eating your harvest, such as nets.
If this becomes popular, what's preventing competitors from making the same thing, and commoditizing your product?
If we're able to figure out the mushroom media feature, that would be a huge differentiator, but that will be an R&D journey to get there. Another way we can build a sustainable advantage is to develop AI to tell you signs of early-stage pest infestation/disease, and what you can do to avert it (But that requires both smart hardware and software dev).
I don't think anybody's going to drink your milkshake if you take a few years more to come to market so unless you truly need big capital to do anything at all you seem like an ideal candidate for running super lean and self-funding.
However, there are several areas where funding would help us grow a lot faster:
* Mushroom media R&D: we can run a lot more experiments simultaneously with a research-grade facility to experiment in (i.e. not my kitchen/garage).
* Once we're ready to scale, manufacturing will take some capital.
* Funding will enable us to work on the project full-time.