The Lay of the Land.
About Landoption
Welcome to Landoption, a group of nerds with dirty fingernails and muddy boots. Our foundation is built on old ideas, like shaking hands and doing what we say we will. And it’s enhanced by new ones, like open data and AI (that’s the nerd part.)
Landoption aims to foster sustainable land management practices and contribute to the success of conservation, alternative energy, regenerative agriculture programs, and the landowners with whom they work.
When we make money, everyone wins. Landowners get paid, our enrollment partners grow their business, and programs get the acres and relationships they need.
If your project, program, or business hinges on building trust with landowners and their advisors, you’re in the right place.
Landoption is a Nebraska-based startup making land recruitment more efficient for conservation, renewable energy, and agricultural programs. Our purpose is to grow alternative land-use programs by leveraging trusted networks, reducing costs and time, and ultimately enabling more competitive offers to landowners.
Our First Initiative: Landoption Labs
Landoption Labs is our flagship project, employing a cohort-based approach to facilitate learning and collaboration among program partners and industry experts. This initiative is designed to drive efficiency and innovation in land recruitment, making it easier and more cost-effective for programs to secure new acres.
Key Benefits of Landoption:
Cost Efficiency: Lowering the expenses associated with recruiting landowners.
Time Reduction: Accelerating the timeline for programs to secure new acres.
Technology Development: Creating innovative solutions to support partner programs in their recruitment efforts.
Compelling Offers: Empowering programs to improve product/market fit with landowners by involving them in program design.
Our Partners
Landoption has partnered with leading organizations such as Ducks Unlimited, Base Camp Leasing, American Forest Foundation, The Climate Trust, and Land and Water Corp. These collaborations enhance our ability to build sustainable relationships between programs and landowners, ensuring more effective and efficient recruitment processes.
Our Future
Through the support of our partners and the innovative approach of Landoption Labs, we are poised to data and technology solutions in the land recruitment landscape.
Interested in learning more?
To learn more about Landoption and stay updated on our progress, please join our mailing list, or follow us on LinkedIn.
Meet our Founder
Eric Dinger is the founder of Landoption. His friends call him Dinger.
Landoption is the culmination of lessons Dinger learned throughout his journey in business. The impact of his work has grown from cleaning pheasants for hunters as a kid in rural South Dakota, to later in life negotiating carbon investments with global companies. But his approach to business hasn’t changed much over the years: work hard, learn quickly, and take good care of people.
Dinger started his first company while he attended college at the University of Nebraska, where he founded a marketing and sales strategy firm, called Thought District. After ten years of helping companies acquire customers and grow, Dinger sold the company to what is now called Agent.
His true calling lives in conservation. After moving away from his childhood home, he experienced firsthand the access challenges facing people who love the outdoors. Dinger believes that if we want people to care about wild animals and wild places, we must find ways for them to have outdoor experiences. That calling led to the founding of Powderhook, a mission-driven tech company dedicated to solving the problem of declining participation in the outdoors.
Powderhook quickly became a leader in the outdoor industry, working with major brands to develop and execute combined mobile and marketing strategies. Dinger’s success at Powderhook caught the attention of Sovereign Sportsman Solutions (S3), now Payit Outdoors, who acquired the company in 2019. Dinger remained with the company for two years, leading the combined company’s mobile, marketing, and customer engagement teams.
The entrepreneurial itch wouldn’t go away. In 2021, Dinger joined the Arbor Day Foundation to help create its first new venture, called Arbor Day Carbon. There, Dinger built a team that utilizes the carbon markets to advance the organization’s mission of inspiring people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees.
One of the ways Powderhook tried to help people get outdoors more often was by recruiting landowners who would allow people to hunt, fish, or camp on their property. While leading Arbor Day Carbon, Dinger’s team worked to build a forestry carbon project with private landowners in the Southeastern United States. Through these experiences, Dinger came to understand the challenges that come with building trust with landowners.
And that’s the winding road that led to Landoption, a company formed to leverage Dinger’s proven track record of growing businesses and conservation programs.
Eric is an avid hunter, angler, conservationist, and chef. He enjoys joining his family and friends on outdoor adventures of all kinds. The Dinger family and their small zoo of animals currently reside in rural Nebraska.