Drone to 1K Podcast by Drone Launch Academy

This week’s guest is Curtis Kloc from Inspections Over Coffee. Inspections Over Coffee is an inspection company that uses drones to help inspect roofs. The company also sells franchises, and Curtis says that everyone that purchases a franchise also has to get licensed and learn how to use drones to inspect roofs. Curtis also works with real estate agents and agencies and educates them about inspection work, which builds credibility for his company and often leads to more business. Curtis gives lots of great advice about running a business during this episode, so be sure to give it a listen!   Connect with Curtis Website: https://www.homeinspectionsovercoffee.com/ Facebook: Inspections Over Coffee Instagram: @inspectionsovercoffee Twitter: @CoffeeInspect YouTube: Inspections Over Coffee   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneI

Our guest this week is Pedro Silva from Drone by Dro. Since getting his Part 107 license, Pedro has worked on a variety of drone photography and videography jobs, including construction work, real estate listing photos and videos, and even a video for a hospital that recently did a huge renovation. (The video he created for the hospital actually won an award!) Pedro's been able to quit his job as a waiter and focus on building Drone by Dro full-time. An interesting thing about his business is that since he lives near Washington, DC, he has to request special authorization to fly in the restricted airspace that surrounds the US capitol. To hear more about Pedro's business and how he's been able to get authorization to fly in the restricted airspace around Washington, DC, be sure to listen to this week's podcast episode!   Connect with Pedro: Website: https://www.dronebydro.com/ Instagram: @dronebydro Twitter: @dronebydro   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneI

This week's guest is Chris Francescani from Sunset Beach Films. Chris was a journalist and reporter for 25 years. Now, he uses drones to create marketing and promotional videos for local businesses in Eastern Long Island. Chris has been able to find new clients by joining chambers of commerce and networking with business owners who could use social media drone videos to promote their businesses. Be sure to listen to this week's Drone to $1K Podcast episode to hear more about Chris and his journey of starting a drone business! And be sure to play this week's two truths and a lie game for a chance to win a Drone Launch prize: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/DFYpPnDo   Connect with Chris: Website: https://sunsetbeachfilms.com/ Instagram: @sunsetbeachfilms Facebook: Sunset Beach Films   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneI

Our guest this week is Grant Puckrin from 19th UAS Precision. Grant's drone business started out doing real estate photography and videography. Now, Grant wants to expand into the agriculture industry. Growing up on a farm, Grant experienced firsthand the hard work and long hours that farmers put into their jobs. He wanted to find a way to use drones to help them save time and resources. Grant bought a multispectral drone AND a spraying drone and is waiting on his paperwork to be finalized before he can get started with his crop spraying services. To hear more about Grant's drone work, be sure to listen to this week's Drone to $1K Podcast episode! And don't forget to play this week's two truths and a lie game: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/ZYlImGKT   Connect with Grant: Website: https://19thdesigns.com/ Facebook: @19thuasprecision Instagram: @19thuasprecision YouTube: 19th Designs   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneI

Our guest this week is Joe Morgan from Eyes Above Texas Imagery. Joe's been a Part 107-licensed drone pilot since 2017. Since then, he's gained tons of experience in the drone industry. He's skilled in photography & videography, mapping & photogrammetry, and inspection work. Over the past several years, Joe's built a reputation as a safe and professional drone service provider that always delivers quality work. To hear all about Joe's drone work and his advice for aspiring drone business owners, give this week's Drone to $1K Podcast episode a listen! And don’t forget to play our 2 truths and a lie game for a chance to win one of this week's prizes: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/D92UH9Un And if you want to join Drone Launch Connect for just $1 for your first month, just click here: www.dronelaunchconnect.com   Connect with Joe: Website: https://www.eyesabovetx.com/ Instagram: @eyesabovetx Facebook: @eyesabovetexasimagery LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-morgan-340463154/   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Eric Hellinger from Vivid Flight Media is our guest for this week's episode. Eric only started flying drones about a year and a half ago, and he's already running a successful drone business that specializes in providing FPV videos. If you're not familiar with FPV, it stands for first person view. Eric has created FPV videos for a variety of businesses and organizations, from schools to laboratories to wineries. To hear more about Eric and the cool FPV drone jobs he's worked on, give this week's episode a listen! And if you want a chance to win a Drone Launch prize, don’t forget to play our 2 truths and a lie game: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/fCVZxvX2 Plus, you can join our brand new online community, Drone Launch Connect, for just $1 for your first month: www.dronelaunchconnect.com If you want to check out any of the videos/resources Eric mentioned in this episode, here are links to some of them: The FPV bowling alley video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgS54fqKxf0 Joshua Bardwell's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JoshuaBardwell   Connect with Eric: Website: https://www.vividflightmedia.com/ Instagram: @hellinger_fpv Facebook: @VividFlightMedia YouTube: Hellinger FPV   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Season 5 of the Drone to $1K Podcast is here! This week, Dusty Jolley joins us as our first podcast guest of season 5. Since getting his Part 107 license back in 2020, Dusty has been able to quit his job in insurance (which he was miserable at) so he can pursue 2 of his hobbies: flying drones and welding. Over the past couple of years, Dusty's been doing a variety of drone work, including cinematography, mapping, and even FPV. Aaaand, we're excited to announce that Dusty is now part of the Drone Launch team in an awesome new role. (We'll tell you more about it during this episode.) To learn more about Dusty, some of the cool drone jobs he's done, and his new role at Drone Launch Academy, listen to this week's episode! And if you want a chance to win a Drone Launch prize, don’t forget to play our 2 truths and a lie game: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/NByITabu   Connect with Dusty: Instagram: @_d_jolley   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Danny Elassad from Mole Media and Hoverscape joins us this week to talk about his full-time drone job AND his drone side hustle!   Danny is the chief remote pilot at Hoverscape, where he uses drones to create “digital twins” (extremely accurate, high resolution 3D models) of large structures, like telecom towers and warehouses.   With Mole Media (his own drone company), Danny does drone photography and videography. He’s even had the chance to work with Netflix and TV shows!   To hear all about how Danny uses drones both creatively and analytically, be sure to give this episode a listen.   And if you want a chance to win one of this week’s prizes, don’t forget to play our 2 truths and a lie game: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/L4xJOKdy   Connect with Danny: Facebook: @molemedia89 Instagram: @molemedia YouTube:Mole Media   Have a drone question? Here's the link to our new Ask Drone Launch page: https://www.askdronelaunch.com/   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

This week, our guest is Thom Monterville from NexGen Drones, LLC.   Currently, Thom’s business is focused on agriculture and mapping drone services.   In this episode, Thom talks about how he started his business, how he landed his first paid job (which happened to be with one of the largest cattle and agriculture companies in Oklahoma!), and his goals for the future.   If you want to learn how drones are being used in the agriculture industry, you don’t want to miss this episode!   Be sure to play our game of 2 truths and a lie (which is based off of this episode) for a chance to win one of this week’s prizes: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/yT2vPt3G   Have a drone question? Here's the link to our new Ask Drone Launch page: https://www.askdronelaunch.com/   Connect with Thom: Facebook: @nexgendronesllc   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Patrick Whalen of Backstage Aerial joins us this week to talk about how he grew his business from $0 to 6 figures in less than a year.   When Patrick’s job was affected by the pandemic, he decided to invest in a drone and get his Part 107 license.   In no time, he was landing jobs with household name clients like Amazon, Netflix, Hyundai, and Justin Bieber!   Patrick tells us all about how he was able to build such a successful business so quickly in this episode, so be sure to give it a listen.   After you listen, don’t forget to play this week’s 2 truths and a lie game for a chance to win one of our giveaway prizes: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/nquz4lpM   Connect with Patrick: Facebook: @BackstageAerial Instagram: @backstageaerial Website: backstageaerial.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

This week, Guillermo Wenzel joins us to talk about how he’s built and scaled his drone business, Drone Sky Visuals.   Since starting his business in 2019, Guillermo has gotten experience working in the real estate, construction, inspection, and event industries.   During this episode, he talks about how he’s used word-of-mouth advertising, Google Ads, social media, and more to successfully grow his drone business.   Listen to this week’s episode to hear all about Guillermo’s story and how he’s scaled his business!   After you listen, be sure to play this week’s game of 2 truths and a lie for a chance to win a prize: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/fRZvCCqX   Connect with Guillermo: Facebook: @droneskyvisuals Instagram: @droneskyvisuals LinkedIn: Drone Sky Visuals LLC YouTube: Drone Sky Visuals Website: droneskyvisuals.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

This week on the Drone to $1K Podcast, you’ll get to hear from Derek Cameron of 3805 Productions.   Derek does photography and videography, as well as 3D mapping and modeling.   Derek first started his business just before the country shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, he’s had to overcome many obstacles to build his business.   Since then, Derek has worked with many different clients, including local business owners, realtors, construction companies, and even a candidate running to become a state representative.   To hear all about Derek’s business and how he was able to build his network and land jobs even during the pandemic, be sure to give this episode a listen!   And for a chance to win one of this week’s prizes, you can play our 2 truths and a lie game here: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/G9aflRTI   Connect with Derek: Facebook: @3805productions Instagram: @derekcameron21 LinkedIn: 3805 Productions YouTube: 3805 Productions Website: 3805productions.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Our guest on this week’s episode is Jeff Carrillo from Tarillo Vue.   Over the past few years, Jeff has used drones to do creative work and inspection work for clients in many industries. One of the services he specializes in is drone thermography.   During the episode, Jeff talks about how he got started with his business, how he learned how to do thermography, and some of the cool projects he’s worked on.   If you’re interested in learning more about how drones are being used to conduct thermal scans for roof inspections, wildlife surveys, and more, you don’t want to miss this episode!   After you listen to the episode, you can click here to play this week’s 2 truths and a lie game for a chance to win a prize: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/IkItIHmG   Connect with Jeff: Facebook: @tarillovue Instagram: @tarillovue LinkedIn: Tarillo Vue Aerial Photo Video Website: tarillovue.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Merrill McKee from Northern Perspectives joins us on this week’s episode of the Drone to $1K Podcast.   Merrill went from listening to the Drone to $1K Podcast and hoping to someday achieve what our guests have accomplished, to now being a D$1K Podcast guest himself – which means that he now owns and operates his own successful drone business!   During this episode, Merrill tells us all about his aerial photography and videography business, which is based in northern New York.   Since starting his business, Merrill has worked with many clients, including local realtors, a contracting company, a county board. He’s even had the opportunity to create an aerial video of a socially-distanced graduation ceremony for a local high school.   How has Merrill been able to grow and sustain his business (even during the wintertime in northern New York)? Listen to this week’s episode to find out!   Be sure to play this week’s 2 truths and a lie game:  https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/amhFEfUO. If you can figure out which of the 3 “facts” about Merrill is actually a lie, you’ll be entered into our weekly giveaway!   Connect with Merrill: Facebook: @northernperspectives Instagram: @mackeymckee Website: northernperspectivesny.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

Our guest this week is James Grace of JMG Aerial Imagery. James provides aerial photography and videography services for clients in the construction and real estate industries.   Before starting his own drone business in early 2019, James worked in post-production at Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures. While there, he learned the editing process, and he built a LinkedIn network of 10,000+ connections.   James has used his previous industry knowledge, as well as social media, to start and grow his business.   Listen to the full episode to hear James’ story and learn how he’s built his business!   And don’t forget to play this week’s game of 2 truths and a lie after you listen to this episode for a chance to win an awesome Drone Launch prize: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/oi608JzX   Here is the link to the video of the home with the retractable roof that James mentions during this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ21co4BQ5E   Connect with James: Facebook: @JMGraceAerial Instagram: @jmg_aerial_imagery Twitter: @AerialJmg YouTube: James Grace Website: https://www.jmgaerial.com/   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for the Drone to $1K Podcast? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

This week, Kevin Olson of Maryland Drone Guy joins us to talk about his aerial photography and videographer business, which he’s successfully grown over the past year.   Kevin first started flying drones at the beginning of the COVID pandemic and got his Part 107 license last July.   Since then, Kevin has had the opportunity to work with many local businesses, including wineries and breweries, restaurants, gyms, a drive-in movie theater, an engineering company, and more.   Kevin has used Instagram to grow his business quickly – without even buying paid ads!   How has Kevin been able to build a profitable drone business, while also working a full-time job?   Listen to this week’s episode to find out!   Be sure to play this week’s 2 truths and a lie game for a chance to win an awesome prize: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/cwbo6KDT   Connect with Kevin: Facebook: @marylanddroneguy Instagram: @marylanddroneguy Twitter: @MD_Drone_Guy YouTube: Maryland Drone Guy Website: marylanddroneguy.com

DRONE TO $1K PODCAST SEASON 4 / EPISODE 1 WITH JEN ALLEN   Season 4 of the Drone to $1K Podcast is officially here!   In this week’s episode, Jen Allen of Wildwood Media tells us all about how she’s used drones to capture aerial photos and videos for her real estate and wedding clients.   Jen has been doing wedding photography and videography with her husband for years, but when the coronavirus pandemic started, the majority of their weddings were rescheduled. Jen has been able to find a new source of income: real estate. She uses her photography and videography skills to capture awesome aerial views, which allow home buyers to get a feel for not only the home they’re considering, but also the area surrounding it.   To hear all about Jen’s journey as a business owner in the wedding and real estate industries, be sure to listen to this episode!   Click here to play this week’s game of two truths and a lie: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/qt9ZNoLx   Connect with Jen:   Instagram: @wildwood.media Website: wildwood.media   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 4?   Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy   Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen   iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn   To take the TRUST exam, please click here: https://dronelaunchacademy.com/trust/

DRONE TO $1K PODCAST SEASON 3 / EPISODE 10 WITH CALEB RANDALL   On this week’s episode, Caleb Randall of Randall Productions joins us to talk about how he’s used drones to grow his business to making 6 figures a year.   Caleb started out doing wedding videography, but eventually shifted to creating marketing and branding films for businesses. He’s worked with big-name companies like Geico, as well as smaller businesses, to tell their stories through the art of video.   Caleb discusses how he got started with his own business and what he’s done to grow his network and land more clients and more jobs.   Be sure to enter this week’s giveaway before 3/23/21 for a chance to win a free 15-minute coaching call with Caleb: https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/IKepnKia   Also, here’s the link to the Italian castle wedding video that was mentioned in the podcast if you want to check it out: https://vimeo.com/286450774   Connect with Caleb:   Website: http://www.randallproductions.com/ Facebook: Randall Productions Vimeo: Randall Productions   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 4?   Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy   Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen   iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

DRONE TO $1K PODCAST SEASON 3 / EPISODE 9 WITH JORGE CASAMIQUELA   This week, Jorge Casamiquela, our student support manager here at Drone Launch, joins us to talk about how he has successfully built his drone business, all while working part-time for Drone Launch Academy.   In this episode, Jorge tells us all about how he landed his first clients, the lessons he learned along the way, and the advice he has for anyone who’s thinking about starting their own drone business!   Don’t forget to enter our weekly giveaway before 3/16/21 for a chance to win a free 15-minute coaching call with Jorge (or one of our other awesome prizes): https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/lHwxpYNu   Connect with Jorge: YouTube: JFC Productions Website: https://www.jfcproductions.com/ Email: jorge@dronelaunchacademy.com   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 4? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

DRONE TO $1K PODCAST SEASON 3 / EPISODE 8 WITH RUT PATEL   In this week’s episode, Rut Patel of Voyager Industries tells listeners how he grew his engineering business to the point where it’s making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. A few years ago, Rut quit both of his jobs to pursue his passion for drones and engineering full-time. Now, he has a team of employees and a company that made well over $300,000 in 2020.   How did he do it? Listen to find out!   Don’t forget to enter our weekly giveaway before 3/9/21 for a chance to win one of 5 prizes (including a free 15-minute coaching call with Rut): https://dronelaunchacademy.typeform.com/to/TQsJBN8q   Connect with Rut:   Instagram: @patelrut Website: http://www.voyagerengineering.com/   Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 4?   Complete this questionnaire: Drone to $1K Business Owner Application   Training from Drone Launch Academy   Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off)   Other Places to Listen   iTunes Stitcher Spotify TuneIn

DRONE TO $1K PODCAST SEASON 3 / EPISODE 7 WITH PHILIP HURST   Philip Hurst is the owner of Philip Hurst Media.   Introduction   Philip got his first drone about a year ago. He was working for an architectural company and had the idea of using a drone for roof inspections. He ended up using his drone to take videos of ongoing construction projects, as well.   Philip felt like he was really onto something with drones.   He pitched the idea of incorporating more drone work into his job to his boss, but nothing ever really came of it.   In the meantime, Philip had been posting his drone work (cinematic videography, 3D mapping, photography, etc.) on Instagram, and it was catching people’s attention.   People were reaching out to him, asking if he would do drone work for them.   Philip knew he needed to get his Part 107 license so that he could start accepting these jobs and making money. Within a month of getting his drone, he took and passed the Part 107 Exam.   Philip was able to get enough business to quit his architecture job, start an LLC, and fly drones full time!   “It’s really about the hustle and the drive.”   Philip felt lucky to be able to learn how to fly drones with a DJI Mavic because it was pretty easy to fly that drone.   He dedicated lots of time to practicing flying and taking photos and videos.   He also spent time branding his business and adding more and more content to his Instagram page.   David: When you were still working at the architectural firm and starting to use drones for roof inspections, was that when you started practicing a lot? Or did that come later?   Philip was practicing during his lunch breaks at work. He actually had his first accident during one of his lunch break flights – on the first day he had his drone!   Philip took his drone everywhere. Whenever he had a free moment, he would grab his drone and start practicing.   He tried flying in difficult situations, like through tight spaces. He also tried flying the drone towards him so he could practice with the controls being backwards… which ended in a crash. Luckily, his drone was okay, though!   David: What was the first job you ever got? Did you reach out to people or did someone come to you?   Philip races mountain bikes and knew one of the promoters of a big race. The promoter reached out to him and asked if he could get some drone footage of the race.   After that, Philip went on Zillow and found $500,000+ homes. Then, he sent emails to the real estate agents that listed those homes and let them know that he would shoot footage of their listings for free. He said that the first listing would be free, and that his work would help get their houses sold. He sent out about 500 of those emails over the course of two days.   He ended up landing about 15 jobs from that email outreach.   Philip says that being willing to do free work is very important because it will be hard to land jobs if you don’t have a portfolio of previous work to show your potential clients.   “When I send them to my Instagram, the proof is in my work.”   Philip sends his potential clients to his Instagram page to see his work. BUT, he also sends them to other drone pilot’s Instagram pages and shows them what they SHOULDN’T want from the drone pro they hire. He’ll point out things like jerky, non-cinematic footage in others’ work, which helps him prove that his footage is smoother and higher quality.   David: What part of the country are you in?   Philip is in Ohio. He says that he is “the best in the Midwest.”   “When it comes down to it, I’m not just a pilot. I’m just also a media professional and I’m a cinematic photographer and videographer. So yeah, I can catch great content and I can do good drone work, but I like to find the value in my end product, because like I said, drone work are just establishing shots to help support a much bigger story.”   David: Of the 15 free jobs you landed from your Zillow outreach, how many of those turned into paying clients?   Out of those 15, about 8 of them have become routine clients for Philip.   Philip is also branching out into other industries. Some of his friends are shooting a pilot for ABC and they asked him to capture some establishing drone shots. Now, Philip’s name is going to be on IMDb!   Philip emphasizes that he started about 6 months ago. It’s awesome to see how much his business has grown in just half a year.   He says that his drone is one of his most powerful tools.   “You gotta put the time in. You gotta grind, you gotta believe in yourself. You gotta have that confidence. You know, you gotta walk the walk and talk the talk. Go out there and look professional.”   Philip says that you need to make potential clients feel confident in choosing to hire you as a drone pilot.   He also stresses that you need to be posting on all social media platforms. But, you can tailor your messaging on each platform.   David: How would you do something differently for Instagram vs. Facebook vs. LinkedIn? ...

Jonathan Stettler is the owner of Steady Focus Media, a business that specializes in providing photography and videography services for businesses and real estate.   Introduction   Jonathan has always been into drones. The first time he saw a drone, his friend was flying one of the original DJI Mavic Pros. Jonathan thought it was cool, but he didn’t actually buy a drone until years later.   Jonathan’s background is in photography. He had tried wedding photography, but he didn’t love it. He wanted to be a photographer, but he just wasn’t sure what industry he should try to get into.   Last year, Jonathan bought a DJI Ronin gimbal so that he could put together a video for his taekwondo school. He had never tried videography, but he decided to give it a go. Once he sat down to edit the video, he was surprised at how much he enjoyed the editing process. When he showed the video to the taekwondo school, they were really impressed.   Jonathan started Steady Focus Media to create promotional videos for small businesses. Once he actually started his business, he felt like he was officially a photographer and it really helped him to take it seriously.   He ended up buying a drone, and then a few months later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. All of the small businesses (his normal clients) shut down. He wasn’t sure what to do. He had the idea that maybe he could make money with his drone. So, he looked into it and figured out that there were Part 107 regulations he’d need to learn so he could pass the exam to be able to fly his drone commercially.   He went online and found Drone Launch Academy. He enrolled in our FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Exam Prep Course and it helped him study for and pass the exam on the first try.   Then, he enrolled in our Drone to $1K program, which helped him to grow his business.   David: How’d you get your first client?   He found his first client through a local Facebook Classifieds group. He put up a post that said he was looking for a realtor that wants a free home tour. He got responses back from people asking what the catch was. He said that there were no strings attached, he was just trying to build his portfolio. He ended up getting a response from a realty team. He went out to the house that they told him about and it was a super nice, $800,000 house that had an indoor pool and a tennis court!   Although the realtor loved the video, Jonathan didn’t really hear anything back from them. He tried to use Facebook to promote his business, but he wasn’t getting any leads. After about a month, he heard back from the realtor he had worked with and they asked if he could also do another video, as well as photos for another house.   As he landed more jobs, he had more and more material that he could use for demo reels and for promotional materials for his own business.   Jonathan stresses the importance of having a portfolio of your work. He says that doing free work when you’re first starting out will help you get the content and footage you need to build your portfolio.   “It’s the thing you need to start building the ladder to get to where you need to go.”   Since Jonathan started using drones when the pandemic hit, he hasn’t shot photos and videos for a single home without wearing a mask. He realized that photography and videography is a job that you can do even during the pandemic.   “It’s still a viable business, even when everything’s going wrong.”   Jonathan’s business slowly grew from $200 the first month, to $500 the second month, and then 3-4 jobs a week. Jonathan is now working with several local realtors.   David: How did you go from having one client to then getting booked 3 times in the same week?   Jonathan says that it all happened very organically. A realtor that he had been communicating with a month before ended up reaching out to him because she had a house that she needed photos and video for. Jonathan went out and shot photos and video of the house and sent everything over to the realtor that same night. After that, she became one of his consistent clients.   Because of the pandemic, Jonathan couldn’t physically go into realtors’ offices to introduce himself, so he decided to take a different approach. He created flyers for his business and mailed them out to local realtors’ offices. That landed him a job with one of the bigger realty companies. After that, their marketing director called him to ask if he did headshots. He took a headshot for one of their realtors and she then told the rest of the realtors about Jonathan’s business and his pricing. That led to lots of jobs for him.   Over the past 3 months, Jonathan has had at least one job per week.   David: Do you have a full-time job in addition to your drone work?   Jonathan does have a full-time job that pays well, which has helped him to be able to build his drone business. Jonathan loves that his drone work gives him the opportunity to be creative.   One thing that Jonathan stresses is that you need to be willing t...

Alex is the owner of LA Aerial Image. Introduction Alex was the first guest when the podcast came out about a year and a half ago. Alex was an original RC plane flyer. Then when he was older, he was able to afford this stuff. One day at the airfield, he saw some guy with a quad copter and knew he needed to have one. Then he decided that he didn't just want it to be a hobby. So he took his photography background as a hobbyist and then just got into video and just started doing video with drones. He does a whole array of different things, such as 3-D modeling for construction sites David: Do you do real estate? I tell a lot of people to start with the real estate because it's easy to get in. Everybody knows a realtor and you can get jobs fairly easy, but you can't stay in the industry. For Alex, he says, it's just not fun. In the meantime, he picked up an Amazon prime show called The Bay and he’s also been shooting for the Pop Star network for three seasons now. David: How did you land your first construction client? What did they want? My first construction job was subcontracted from another guy. They did some progress shots and 3-D modeling. Alex has done 3-D modeling for rock quarries too, so they can judge their materials and measure them. The person who subcontracted to him found Alex on Google. He needed a pilot in LA because he was getting business there but lived in Oregon. David: One thing people are asking who are interested in industries like construction, but don't know the lingo, is “How do I give a sales pitch to an engineering firm or construction or contractor?” What would be your sales pitch for 3-D models? I don’t have to do sales pitches right now; the contractor is doing them. I learned a lot of the lingo onsite because when I first went in, I didn't know either. I learned the lingo just talking to the guys onsite. For the most part you just need to explain that it will save them time and money. Construction guys are busy as hell. If you can send them an “as built”, which is a PDF that shows all the information. David: How often did they have you go out there and do a 3-D model of the whole site? It depends on where they're at in the building. In some cases it was once per week, in others cases every other week. “We’re going to do a testimony video of one of the biggest companies we work with, how they used the 3-D model, how it worked and how it saved them money. We’ve saved them tens of thousands of dollars in the long run.” David: How much are you able to charge these construction companies or engineering firms for flying every other week and doing a three D model? About $1500 bucks a flight in total is what the contractor charges. It takes Alex only about 45 minutes to do a model and then he makes $300 when most of the guys on the site made $50 or $60 an hour. David: What’s your favorite type of thing to work on: What's the most fun for you? What do you like doing the best? “I like the film stuff; I like being on set. As the drone guy, there’s lot of waiting around, which can be a little stressful, but other than that, it’s fun.” David: Do you think the Inspire 2 has helped you get those jobs? Yes, for sure. If you don’t have an Inspire 2, they’re not going to be hiring you for that job. David: What would you say you’ve learned that's new in the drone world? Are you getting better at the stuff you already know how to do, or do you feel like you've honed any specific skills? With nine years of drone flying under his belt, Alex has had more crashes in the last couple of years than ever. “I think I got complacent with my flying and I'm thinking ‘I got this.’ I think I need to get back to the basics and be a little more aware. I got a little loose.” Sometimes you might just get on autopilot and not really be thinking it through as carefully.   David: When you're flying for these construction sites, do they require you to have a tight amount of insurance? You have to have insurance and a lot of times it's at least 2 million. It could be up to 5 million. They have really expensive workers' comp and they have to pay the personnel. They preach safety all day long.   David: What’s changed from getting business now from when you were first doing it. Now, are you actively searching for any business or it just all comes to you? Alex says he wants to get better at looking for it. All his work lately has been “just coming to him.” He spends about $50-$100 per month on Google Click ads. And, he says, he doesn’t even get that many people from Google. Most of it is referral. “As long as you’re good at what you do, they're going to call you back or they're going to pass your number to someone else. Don’t get discouraged. You have to work actively on your business to grow it.” Alex says it isn’t about just buying a drone. You have to learn to be a good business owner, provide good customer service and create relationships. You might have to do some free jobs here and there to get the people to know yo...

Spencer is the owner of Aerodrone Solutions. Introduction: Spencer started Aerodrone early in COVID. He’d been in military, then went to college, found drones and did military contracting in Middle East. Because that work was touch-and-go, when he returned from Afghanistan in April and in May, he decided to start his own company. David: What I want to know first is--are there any similarities to flying drones in Afghanistan to flying your DJI drones? Spencer says it's similar in how the camera works. The DJI is more simplified but flying is different since he was flying fixed wing UAVs for the military. David: You were one of the first people to sign up for D$1K—ready to get after it—which is a big reason why you're successful. Obviously, you were in drones in the military, but from a civilian standpoint, how did that process start for you? Spencer signed up for the Part 107, started it, did five minutes of it and didn't touch it again for two years. His friend Gail is a commercial pilot in Ocala who had the idea of starting something casually. Because of the uncertainty of the virus, Spencer was real nervous—but other than drones, what could he do? So he went with what he liked, and started up the drone idea. Spencer says, “I loved the idea of having my own company and putting into it and getting something else. It's super rewarding.” Spencer is a local and has a lot friends who are real estate agents, so he thought it would be really easy. For two months, he did no business, but all of a sudden the flood gates opened and he was overwhelmed with work. David: Take us through those two months, what did you do to get the first client? At first, he didn’t know where to get contacts. He found good ideas from Facebook pages of guys that were starting out. He went to Zillow, found 300 of the top agents in the area and sent out an email, getting not one response. He then started doing direct messaging on Facebook, Instagram (a little on LinkedIn)—letting people know what he does that makes him stand out more. That's when it started clicking with people, Spencer says, mostly because the email was a template and the messages were more personalized. David: Things picked up for you when you started doing more direct reach out. What was your first client? Was it paid? How much did you charge for that? Spencer’s first client was someone he knew, who was a pretty good realtor in his area. She said she’d called three other people and Spencer was the first one to pick up. “What’s huge is answering all your phone calls and also being available. Agents have listings that need to get on the market ASAP. They call and you need to be there soon.” Spencer’s first gig was paid but he gave her a discount for the drone service and a free 3D tour of everything.  Normally that would have been around $299 or $295. Spencer gave it to her for $195, which also included full interior/exterior HDR bracketed photos and drone photography. David: After your first job, where did it go from there? From there, Spencer says, it went word of mouth to a couple of different realtors and some other friends that were slowly coming out of the woodwork. He had a photographer reach out that does shoots and mermaid portraits for kids. “I had no other option because I'm engaged, I have family, I just want to be home. I knew I had to make this work and that's why I've been so hungry for it.” Spencer continued to go on Facebook, asking if realtors in the neighborhood had needs and getting a few potential contacts from that. He’s also gone to happy hours for realtors, showing up with flyers. He says it’s important to market yourself, in the most budget friendly way to do it. Spencer has continued to get random requests other than real estate, which keeps it interesting. He says that specializing in something is good. It’s important to get in the door and make some money. David: You started charging for these jobs and making some money. When did you break $1K for a month? It took two months...in July he hit $1K. He's still growing. Spencer says that growing was like a domino effect because one person tells another person. He just needed to keep being professional, instead of stressing out over a job that should take two hours and it taking 20 hours. David: Let’s say someone is listening to this and says ‘I want to do my own thing’ or ‘It sounds incredible to fly drones on the side’. They say, ‘Spencer, I heard you on the podcast, you sound like you’re a credible person and you know what you're doing. What should I do? Where should I start? What should I learn?' Spencer says that he would tell them first to get their Part 107. “Do the course that Drone Launch offers. It has everything you need for a foundation. Get someone who knows SEO. If you're doing it on the side, it's going to be different managing your time, but be patient. As long as you're professional, produce a good product and chip away at it, you’ll eventually get some good business out of it.” ...

Chris is the owner of Chris Dantonio Drone Photography Introduction: Chris says he got in a “little late” and “by accident”, because he started about four years ago at 43 years old. His parents bought him a little toy drone that had a small camera. He flew it for a week, broke it and knew he needed something better. He then bought a $100 drone and broke that in about a month. The DJI Phantom 3 Standard was his first real drone. He started taking pictures around Philadelphia just as a hobby, and really enjoyed it because he’d grown up around photography. His father, a photograph teacher at the local high school, would set up backgrounds to do portraits in the living room. “Photography has always been a part of my life and to be able to do it with a drone and be able to show people things in the city, especially that you didn't even know were there, is nice.” He could show people things that are very rarely seen from the ground level, which intrigued him more. He started an Instagram account, which has been a godsend, Chris says, because it's free. It doesn't cost any money and, with good work and hard work, you get followers. Chris just hit 10,000 followers a couple of months ago. After that, Chris knew he had to get licensed in order to sell pictures. Sure enough, he bought a study guide, studied for six months and took the test. “It's because of the study guide, I did really well. For those of you wondering ‘Should I get a study guide?’ I’d highly recommended it...” Then the business started, almost by accident. David: What year did you get your first Phantom and when did you say, ‘let’s get rolling on this’ and decide to get your Part 107? Do you do drones as a full-time gig or do you have a full-time job or some other supplemental income to go along with your drone business? I got the Phantom in 2016, started studying in 2017 and took the test in early 2018. This is a part time thing for me. Leaving my day job is really far off. I’m also an executive chef for an elite school outside of Philadelphia, so I have a job that allows me to do the drone thing, since nights and weekends are perfect for drone work. David: It's nice to have something that covers your bills and provides the freedom to experiment and pursue things without pressure to make immediate income. There’s pressure to get it going, but you don't want so much overwhelming stress that you're just going to crumble. Chris agrees that it adds stress to a day job—in addition to family and everything else going in in his life, but it’s also nice to pick and choose what jobs you want to do because your next mortgage payment isn't relying on that. Chris hasn't bought a drone with his own money for two years; the business has paid for all of the equipment. In early 2018, Chris got an email from an Instagram follower who worked for American Idol who was from Philadelphia and had seen Chris’ work. That was his first real big job. He had to join ICG Local 600 to shoot as a contractor for the show, which he pays dues for, but found out how beneficial it would be down the road for future work.  The show was high stress, they worked all day, but got a very high reward. The third shot of the opening of American Idol was their shot.  When subsequent clients came, it helped because they knew that we had already worked for a popular show. David: With American Idol were you just shooting content and handing it over and their guys were editing it? For all his major jobs, Chris gave them raw footage and they had somebody in their organization that handled all of the editing, cutting and doing everything with it. This was the case for Comcast, American Idol, and NFL films. David: What happened next? How did your next client find you? The next person to call was Comcast who wanted to purchase rights to footage for unlimited use. Chris says every job they've had—big or small—has all found them through Instagram. Chris says, “it's a smart business tool that doesn't cost money...the key is getting reposted to get your name out there.” With Comcast, a higher-up had been following him for a while, seeing Chris post shots of cool and different angles of the city. He has never really done any outbound sales activities to pursue clients. “I would be out there shooting regardless. If I had a thousand followers or less, I would still be out there shooting that much because I love it, which makes it easier.  if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.” David: One of the things people love on this podcast is specifics and numbers. It inspires people to know what's possible. Can you tell us what you make? His daily rate early on (for American Idol) was $1500 for an all-day shoot. Comcast wanted five photographs and five 15 to 30 second videos. He quoted $500 per still/$1000 per video. He said he’d give them the whole package for $6,000—they didn't bat an eyelash and wrote the check. To come up with those numbers, Chris researched what rights he was giving up...

Nick is the CEO & Lead Photographer for Open House Foto located in Los Angeles. Introduction: Nick bought his first drone, a Phantom2 with a GoPro in 2015 for $2,500. He’d just left his full-time job at a cable company that he hated working for. He knew that he had some creativity but didn't want to buy a drone because the ones he saw were shaky. He also knew he could do better. Nick would fly the drone over a business, take photos and find out if they would like to buy them. That was that; he kept doing a few here and there. Later, he contacted a photographer, saying he did videography, and asking if he’d like to partner up. She agreed and it all started. David: What type of projects do you typically take on today? Nick says their bread and butter is primarily listing videos, highlighting great things about an area. They showcase how properties compare to other areas. When they approach clients for video, Nick tells them they're not trying to sell the condo; they’re trying to sell the lifestyle and the neighborhood. For example, he shot a condo in Venice beach which was small with no ocean views. And, Nick says, “if you see the video, you say ‘I want to buy that thing right now’.” Nick uses an electric skateboard with a stabilizer on it. He stands on it with his remote control and gets beautiful shots of the boardwalk. People ask him “What's the percent of drone usage in the videos?” From a two-minute video, Nick says, the drone is there for 15-20 seconds max. He says, “You can't waste 30 seconds outside of the property--you gotta get inside ASAP. People need to see what inside looks like.” David: You started taking pictures of businesses and seeing if they're interested. Then you got a partnership with a photographer. Now you're at super high end real estate jobs, doing video tours. Help me bridge the gap between how you got from there to where you are now. Nick says, “The secret is content...you need something to show someone what you've done. It's that simple; it all starts from being willing to spend some money.” After getting the drone and partnering with a few people, he decided to drop by a popular Real Estate office on Sunset Boulevard. Nick gave the agent his business card, saying he does real estate videography and walked out. He got a call a week later from them to shoot an iconic home. Nick asked for $500, the agent paid $300. Nick says he shouldn’t even have charged them because he was new and needed to get content. “It’s like high school...were you at Tiffany's birthday? Then you will come to my birthday. It’s free ads; maybe they work, maybe they don't. As soon as the realtor knows that you've shot something for another realtor, you’re IN. That's how it works with them and with developers.” Nick’s advice is to get really cool building shots in a downtown area, find a realtor and try to get some beautiful homes to shoot a couple of frames complimentary. Nick didn't hear from them for a while. Then sometime later another realtor calls saying he saw the videos Nick had done on the previous house, had just taken over the listing and wanted to pay for the rights to the video. Nick said he could also reshoot it for them very cheap if they gave him two more listings. They agreed. One more piece of advice for people is to go to an open house with cookies or pizza and give it to the agent(s). Nick says to the agent, “I know you're here all day. Maybe there's something for you and for people that are visiting...and here's my card.” Sponsoring lunches is also a great idea.  By hiring someone to come make crepes at an office, Nick met one realtor who gave him close to $7000 worth of business over the span of three years AND referred him to another realtor. Nick says that despite all that, it can be easy to get discouraged. He says, “Every time somebody compliments me, I say thank you; that's very encouraging. Because in this kind of business, anyone can go to best buy, buy a drone, knock on a realtor's door to take photos. Realtors (and others) don’t understand that time lost is money lost because when somebody screws up, someone like Nick will have to go back and redo it and they're going to pay him.” “Talk to everyone and make sure they know what you do. Realtors trust me to do my thing. At one house, I heard kids playing in a pool next door so I brought my drone over, told the Mom I’d be flying it for the house next door, would fly over her home but would NOT film the kids. I also invited the kids to watch. She was excited, told the neighbor, who told the realtor, who was very impressed.  This could have been a nightmare, which was avoided by a simple knock on a door and a hello.” Nick also tells people to watch movies because you get to see what techniques the cinematographer used. They do really cool foreground shots to the trees--revealing the home from the bottom up. Then the home looks really massive. David: What are you charging for like a full walkthrough, highlight video of a property of t...

Liam is a Photographer/Videographer and Owner with Bentley Studios Introduction: Liam specializes in photography and video, mostly in the wedding industry, averaging about 40 weddings a year, and incorporating the drone. He also takes photos of the transitions of projects for roofing companies. David: Let's go back, let us know how your business started from the beginning... Liam has been an entrepreneur since he was 15. He started in the iPhone repair business, doing that for three years, repairing over 300 iPhones and saving $10,000 to fund his photography business. He got his first camera was when he was 13. He became the school photographer in High School, when a teacher asked if he would have any interest in filming her wedding.  At 16, Liam sweated through five shirts filming his first wedding. He also realized he loved being a part of someone’s special day, giving them their video or photos and seeing them tear up. After that, he started doing social media videos. He’d call local businesses and say, “I'm starting a business and want to try to get into social media. I see you guys are lacking in that area and I would love to help.” He got a lot of practice doing video production this way. David: What kind of reception did you get when you'd reach out? Some turned Liam down, saying they had their own thing, or they didn’t want to dabble in that. Some said they appreciated that he wanted to do it for free and would give him the opportunity to do so. Liam valued that as a networking opportunity. He got turned down a lot and found out he’d get a better attitude and could find a way to not offend anyone and help people out. David: How did the transition happen from dabbling with free stuff and reaching out to businesses to progressing into your first paying client? Toward the end of high school, Liam did a lot of senior photos which led to more paying opportunities. Every once in a while, he’d try to reach out and get opportunities to film a wedding. As he started to have more work to show people, he started to get booked more. Liam owes a lot of his success to word of mouth. He loves to go out and talk to people and create those friendships. David: When did you start first dabbling in drones? Around the end of his senior year, Liam bought a Phantom 4pro and fell in love with it. At that time, not many local people had any drones, so there was a lot of good opportunity in front of him. David: A lot of people get a drone, then want to know how to start getting clients and paying gigs. So, did your free work just turn into paying gigs or did you have a strategy to start making money? Liam had a gradual increase since he’d started out pretty cheap. Over time, as he had more experience, and his portfolio got larger, he gradually increased his prices because of his experience and equipment. Also, people would see his work on Instagram and message him. Liam says, “It was like a large spider web that expanded, but it was a lot of networking that led to those opportunities.” David: What do you do for your social media? Do you have a system, every time you shoot something, you put it on Instagram or Facebook? Liam has a system. After every shoot, Liam always puts a nice grid on Instagram. He says the first thing people look at when they go onto your page is your grid. The “grid” is some type of theme on your whole feed. Liam says if people see your page and it’s too eclectic, they will bypass it. David: What were you charging for a wedding when you first started out? Liam would charge $500 for a wedding, giving clients an 8-15 min highlight video. He wanted the experience and was young at the time so to make $500 on a Saturday was great. Now, his videos showcase the whole day and the client has total control over what’s in the video. The average price for that is $3000. For photos, he charges an hourly rate of $300 and then there's no minimum or maximum on the hours. An entire wedding runs about $4500-$5000. David: When did you start breaking out into other areas? At the end of high school, Liam got more into the drone. Where he lives—in Youngstown, OH—there are tons of realtors. He’d see on social media that a lot of them were just using their iPhone to take photos, so he offered to do houses for free, saying he wanted to learn. At that time, he was trying to incorporate more of the drone to become the go-to drone pilot in the area. That’s when he fell in love with the drone. Liam still has seven realtors that he messaged on Instagram when in High School that he still does houses for. After he did one house for free, he’d offer to sit down and see what kind of price they wanted to pay. Typically, he’d charge $250 for a full photography package and using the drone would be another $100 on top of that. David: How much of your business is with real estate agents? It sounds like you might be more focused on weddings. Liam is more focused on the weddings, which is where the money is. He has four employees, so he'll ...

Fred owns and operates Nashua Video Tours, a real estate video and photography company. David: ”Tell us about your company.” Fred has been doing this for 15 years, starting with putting video online. Because the internet didn't support video very well, realtors didn't have computers, or didn't know what the internet was—it didn’t work out too well. When he was just about to quit, the real estate market tanked and people needed ways to sell properties. At that point, flash became the de facto way of delivering video but there were three or four different types of platforms and none of them were compatible with each other. When broadband came into play and the internet became predominant, Fred realized he could do it. Fred had started doing realtor websites. He jokes, “I've never wanted to be in this world, I just fell into it and I haven't been able to climb out yet.” He says back then, you’d buy a template so websites all looked exactly the same—nothing stood out. What became popular were 360-degree tours that were not well put together; that was when Fred thought that a video walk-through of the house made sense because then you could see the layout and the flow. “I just had this bright idea that it would be a way to do something different—but nobody was doing it because they couldn't. I really got started out of frustration trying to differentiate these people.” David: “Let’s start from when the internet was working, you could put video on the internet, and you had a drone. How did using a drone change things for you— if it did?” Fred says he’d been in the video real estate video space by himself for years but as more people got into it, he needed to differentiate himself again. Back then, you could fly drone for commercial purposes with no licensing, and everything was still very fuzzy. For Fred, the real estate market has been an odd place to be. Some realtors think they can get their nephew to buy a drone and let him take pictures, or they don't see that you need to have a license. We  know there’s a difference between having a drone and pushing a button to take a picture or video—and being a photographer with a drone. “If you don't know how to use your camera, you're not a photographer, you don't have the right eye or the right equipment and you don't know how to do it, so it's not going to look very good. The drone is the least important part of the equation.” Fred says it’s nice to show how a property sits on a big piece of land, but flying around, looking at the roof and gutters, then left and right and up and down for three minutes isn’t all it’s about. A simple top down picture of the roof of a ranch with an ugly front yard and an ugly backyard with dead grass is horrible; it’s more of a detriment than a help. If you're trying to promote a real property, you don't want to show the crap in the neighbor's yard or graffiti on the driveway or bad shingles. Fred advises that you should be truthful, but also show people the highlights. They'll realize that the roof needs replacing or that there's a highway back there, but you don't want to promote that right up front. When Fred shoots a house he does the video, interior, exterior stills, floor plans, all of it—he has about five different cameras for different things, including a camera he can stick out of the top of his car to show the neighborhood—and, of courses, he has a drone. He doesn’t use all of those for every property but chooses what he thinks makes sense. Driving through the neighborhood, for example, his goal is to show whether it’s an older or newer neighborhood, if houses are setback from the street or are right on the street with the trees. His goal is to present the property in the best light. “I treat the drone as just another tool. When I get to a property, I either choose to use it or I don't. It's my choice. I don't want someone saying I need to.” Also, Fred sees a lot of video from new drone pilots that’s too high because the pilot is thinking about max altitude when it’s more important to think about what they’re looking at. Sometimes, Fred doesn’t even know what he’s looking at. David: “The thing people struggle a lot with is wanting to get into this—whether it's real estate marketing, promo videos or photography—but don't really have good methods or know how to get a first client. What advice would you give someone? How would you go about starting fresh?” Fred teamed up with a friend who is a realtor and did all of his first stuff for free. He was able to practice, but also able to get stuff out there for other people to see. “What I did then, I still do now. I make it very easy for someone to find me. It's not a secret. I put my name, phone number, and website at the end of every video. I've done a lot of these and I've never had anybody tell me to take my name off. The biggest thing is if nobody knows how to find you, how are they going to know how to find you?” Fred says the real estate business is a lot of repeat business...

Cody Retlich is founder of Midwest Aerial Productions. David: “Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got into drones?” Cody is from Wisconsin and went to school for entrepreneurship and professional sales, so he knew he wanted to run his own business. He’d always take the leadership role and knew he wanted to have the freedom to work the way he wanted. His interest in drones started when a friend developed software for agricultural use of drones. Cody helped him figure out what markets there were. After selling $3.5 million for a company that he didn't enjoy working for, Cody decided it was time to work for himself so he began to build his drone business, doing flights here and there, while driving Uber and golf caddying for almost a year and a half. He “officially” started Midwest Aerial Productions in 2018. David: “When you quit your job to do your own thing, did you know you were going to start a drone business or did you just need to do something else and you found drones after that?” Cody knew from the get-go that there was a huge market for drones—they would have a great of impact. He’d bought a drone a few years before he quit his job and took flying jobs here and there, mostly for real estate and private properties. David: “Talk us through your first drone and your first paying drone client—even as a side thing.” The first drone Cody flew was the Phantom 2. The first year, he picked up whatever jobs he could in the area. Then something tragic happened in his life that took him away from the business for a while. When he returned, he pivoted his company to not only providing services in the area, but working and collaborating with pilots all across the Midwest; he began helping other drone pilots start their business  and offering advice.  Now, Midwest Aerial brokers pilots all across the Midwest. David: “You said you picked up a few real estate clients on the side... how did those people find you? Were you posting things on social media and people saw it or were you pretty active in your area?” Because Cody had a sales background, he was going to a lot of different networking events around the city and talking to and cold calling realtors all that time. “In the beginning, you gotta get yourself out there. If you don't have any content or clients, the best thing to do is go shoot some stuff in your area. Find someone you know has a nice house or property and ask if you can shoot it for them. Talk to everybody and anybody and just learn what they know or who they know—it’s an experience of connection.” Cody just got accepted into an accelerator program and the woman that told him to apply for it, Cody met driving Lyft one night two years ago. The program is a 7-week intensive program, offering a lot of resources, investors, and pitch nights. David agreed it’s important for listeners to understand how important it is to make finding the right relationships with the right people a habit and practice. Cody says he has to weigh the benefits of doing certain jobs with certain people—sometimes $200 job could be a headache and you do it now but then you know you’re not going to work with that client again. David: “So you were doing side things from people calling you up, were most of those real estate jobs, taking pictures, video or what?” Cody says it was all over the place—some cinematography, some travel, events, real estate and construction with 3D mapping and some orthomosaics. He used thermal drones for core inspections, finding leaks etc. Right now, he keep building technology into their site. There are a lot of people flying a Mavic for real estate jobs who may be undercutting the value of your services so you need to get a broker’s whole office rather than just one broker. Go to the commercial side and find people in your area that want a drone partner. David: “As we talk to people, it seems like there's a bit of a hierarchy—people start off with real estate videos and photos and then find a construction niche. I'm interested to hear about some examples of construction projects you did. What are those clients looking for? How are they using products that you're giving them?” Cody says he’d do a time lapse, going to the construction site once a week to film. He’d put together a highlight reel from groundbreaking till the end and really show it off. Then, naturally, the architects get a visual image of what that property's going to look like from their renderings. “People want to see marketing that shows off their projects, but you can also give them stuff to make them more efficient and more effective at the job site by monitoring points of data.” Also, when they initially map out jobs, they’ve had surveyors on the ground doing these types of things and now obviously you can do surveying. They can use the data from these maps to make sure that they're all on a point and keeping that accuracy level throughout the process. David: “I know pricing is different every...

Jeremiah Oschwald owns and operates Beardhouse Media, a real estate marketing business, and Overland Pioneers, an outdoor lifestyle marketing business. David: “Why don't you tell us who you are and what your company is? How did you get into real estate marketing? When did you first mess around with drones?” Jeremiah has been in the real estate marketing business for 4 ½ years, drones for about 3 ½ yrs. There was a big boom in drone popularity but there weren't a lot of people licensed. Jeremiah took the DLA Part 107 class, saying it was great for him because he’s a visual learner. He began Overland Pioneers out of a desire to do more with his life than 5-7real estate listings a day 7 days a week.  He wanted to see and film things and get paid to travel. He started with wanting to help small businesses and began going to restaurants and shooting seven small short social media videos that they could post on Facebook. Then, he shot the parents’ house of a friend—Josh Shepherd with the Kentucky Life Real Estate Property Management (see link below)—who later introduced him to team leaders of a large Keller Williams office in Lexington. Jeremiah was invited to talk in front of their monthly sales meeting of 65 or 70 agents. He was terrified but went in having done some research on real estate videos and knowing he needed to build a case. 15 or 20 people came up to let him know they had a listing coming up and would like to use him so he instantly got a lot of clients. Jeremiah feels he lucked out because Lexington was an underserved population in central Kentucky with 3000 agents in one MLS area. He started packaging the videos and, last year, he did over a hundred videos for agents, auctioneers and car dealers. In order to figure out what to charge for real estate walkthrough videos, Jeremiah felt that what people described was too complex—even after hearing a long explanation, he still didn't know what they were charging. They’d say they charged $3,000 to $4,000 per listing but were only getting listings 2-3 times/month—with drones being a very small portion of that. So Jeremiah decided to go to a flat rate system...he says agents use him on every listing. “I don't care if it’s an 1100 square foot house or 6,000 square foot house--it's $125 for just the walkthrough video, if I add the drone, it’s $200.” These are homes that are going to be sold within 24 to 48 hours, and the videos are 50% of their selling package. Jeremiah says that by doing professional photography AND video, they will definitely hire him because he’s a better marketing and listing presentation tool for them. David: “Can you talk about managing client's expectations? How many jobs are you doing per week during your slow and busy seasons?” Here is the past week’s schedule, as an example: Monday: one re-shoot for a new agent. Tuesday: five cabins about 40 miles from Lexington. Wednesday: three local shoots. Thursday: it was raining outside so the job was cancelled. Friday: one auction video. He’s averaging three per day / 12-15 per week--weather permitting in the busy season. Even though that's a typical day, many times, it’s very dependent on weather;  there are always reschedules. David: “Would you be comfortable giving us a range of business income for 2019?” Beardhouse Media made over six figures, 40% of that was drone work. “Even when I discount work, I make more money because beforehand they wouldn't have used drones at all. I have relationships with people I actually WANT to work with; one of the biggest rewards for me is when someone calls and I can say I don't have time.” David: “Tell me about Overland Pioneers—what it is and how it came about.” Overland Pioneers is vehicle-based adventure travel. Overlanding is when the travel is the goal, the destination is getting there, i.e. cruising through trails and camping. They got a trailer from Xventure Trailers and went to Prince Edward Island, driving all over Nova Scotia for three weeks. Then they put a series on YouTube showing all the beautiful places. David: “Are you doing Overland Pioneer to work with certain brands and travel for free? Do you end up taking home money on top of that or is it just a side fun hobby?” For Jeremiah, the goal was to replace income that would be made if he were at home, but then also being able to see the world during the warmer months. Last year was close to 70 days of travel; the Overland community is awesome for networking and jobs. David: “Are you starting to shift away from real estate and doing more commercial video work for content marketing with different companies?” Jeremiah says he’ll always keep the real estate because he enjoys the work and his regular clients, but if he can pick up one or two fun, big-paying jobs... he absolutely will. “It’s not about you, it's about your client and everything you do for them. I'm not trying to take the kudos...I'm trying to give my clients even more value.” David: “If you were talking to somebody who's thin...

Preston owns Jensen Air in North Dakota, working primarily in a seasonal real estate   David: “Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your business and what you do? Preston started his drone business on the side. He defined himself as different than other drone business owners because his customer base was already in place. His brother—a real estate broker for Remax—needed someone to do commercial drone footage. Preston did a little research, figured he could do it and “pulled the trigger” on studying to fly a drone. Preston’s first drone was a Mavic Air, and has since upgraded to a Mavic Zoom, which handles the wind in North Dakota much better. Preston has a YouTube channel and recently aired a video on the remote ID—a big topic for drone pilots these days. Preston understands needing to keep the sky safe but believes it's making the playing field uneven for a small drone operators. David: “When did you first get started in drones? Two years ago, he started strictly doing drone photography for real estate for his brother. Once he got his license, he thought he may as well turn it into a business. He created a Facebook page and website. He’s continued to put out content, and his business has been getting more attention: “You've got to put out a little free content so people can see what you're capable of. You have to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd. The more you spread your work around, the more people will find out about you and hire you.” Now, Preston has premiere customers, including a local university and a development company. However, when he first put together some footage, he had to figure out what video editing software to use, how to get videos to customers, etc. These things were big learning experiences. He began just taking video clips and photos and giving real estate agents raw footage to make their own videos, although he would still make sure the clips were very cinematic. He likes to see how creative people can get with his shots. David: “Up in your neck of the woods, what would you charge for a typical real estate shoot where you're doing photos and video clips without any editing?” Preston charges $200, which is about ½ hour of shooting but editing and color grading afterward is what takes all the time. He uses Canva, Photoshop and Lightroom as his main editing tools. If he’s doing just photos, he charges about $150, but if it's multiple photos or panoramas, he'll charge $200. For a single photo or refresh on a house, he’ll usually charge $50. If he has travel out to rural areas, he’ll also charge a travel fee. Lastly, before he sends his drone up to shoot, he scans the yard to make everything look nice, which realtors appreciate. David: “Do you stay pretty busy—especially in wintertime or freezing conditions, which are not ideal drone or real estate selling weather?” Preston says the busy season is spring to fall; most of the activities slow down in the wintertime because the cold weather is hard on the equipment, specifically the battery. Also, realtors have better luck selling with photos that have lush green grass and trees—not snow pictures. David: “Have you found real estate to be successful? Have you expanded into other areas or are you sticking with that niche for now?” Although Preston says he’s sticking with the niche of real estate because it’s given him so much business over the past couple of years, he’s still willing to expand. For example, he’s interested in mapping, because he’s always nervous about the accuracy of the drone mapping. He’s also been talking to a local radio station trying to get into radio tower inspections. However, right now, he says, he costs a lot of money for them. David: “During your busy season—and only on the real estate side—how busy do you get? How many jobs are you getting per month?” Sometimes he may be swamped and doing a drone job over his lunch hour, sometimes not. He’s always taking photos and putting content up on Instagram and Facebook. His town flooded a little bit this past fall and he took pictures and posted it to a “What's Happening?” page in Valley City. The last time he checked, the site had 19,000 views, so it was an easy way to get great exposure. Sometimes he gets random calls – like someone wanting to borrow a clip for a promotional video, which was free advertising. David: “You’re doing this on the side of your regular job. You said you work as an office manager during the day—how has that helped you on the business side of drones?” It has really helped him save money. He can't just buy the most expensive video editing software. He has to take that into consideration, especially if just doing it as a side gig. Drone insurance was also difficult to find around where he lives. He now pays monthly for Skywatch so when it's cold or nasty outside, he doesn't have to pay for insurance. He pays for extra coverage with DJI and has liability insurance through the company. He used Squarespace to build his website ...

Leo Adams is CEO/Co-Founder of SkyeLink, a professional drone service company with a drone marketplace and pilot network.  David: “Tell us what kind of services SkyeLink provides for drone services and on the pilot network side?” The main services SkyeLink offers are aerial inspections, aerial mapping and aerial photography. They work in construction, solar, real estate, production and typography. Their pilot network allows them to scale and offer flexibility to clients nationwide. Their drone marketplace allows clients to connect with pilots, post jobs, and receive bids from within the pilot network. The network also streamlines the process of getting pilots deployed by offering compliance documentation, Part 107 certification, insurance certificates and drone registration. David: “Did it start off with the pilot network idea from the beginning? Were you offering services and then expanded more and more?” Leo bought his first Mavic drone in 2016, taking images and doing aerial photography, as a side hustle while still in a full-time corporate job. When he went to flying full time, the company began to do more aerial photography, as well as video production, real estate work and inspections. Leo believes that starting in roof inspections is the easiest route, especially with a Mavic or Phantom 4. From there, he began doing more infrastructure, energy solar inspections and mapping work. Working with pilots across the country opened the door to working with bigger clients. The goal was always to have a nationwide business. When he found his partner/CTO, who heads technical operations and software development, they spent all of 2018 bringing in clients and taking the business to the next level. “It’s been a slow but steady process. Every year I learn something new, I evolve a little bit and grow into a new area. It's been exciting journey since 2016.” David: “With the kind of pilot network you're building, are you still finding clients, then finding the pilots for those jobs? Are you at a point where you're getting referrals and have repeat clients or are you making an active effort to go out and pitch people?” SkyeLink is continuing to develop new business, create new opportunities for their pilots and close contracts. Existing clients come back to them for work. They’re always communicating with new prospects and trying to close new contracts that can bring more work to their pilots. Obviously, they want to win as much business as possible and keep their pilots as busy as they can. David: “While you were transitioning out of corporate work to a full-time drone business—which I feel like is like the dream for a lot of people—what was it like when you were first starting out and managing full time work AND side work?” In college Leo had run a couple of businesses so he knew that he eventually wanted to be a full-time entrepreneur. When he moved to Charlotte, Leo says, “I wanted to create something that would allow me freedom to do my own thing. I had that intention right from the start and worked at it. I took action on that goal by doing things that put me in a position to make the leap away from my full-time job. I might've done it a little too soon, but it gave me the energy and drive to make it work!” Leo spent a lot of time capturing B roll for videographers that didn't know about using drones yet. He tried to meet and collaborate with as many people as possible, always looking for how to bring them value. He made videos for small businesses, using his drone as a tool on many projects. He found that realtors, agents and brokers had low cost expectations and there were a lot of people looking to get into drones who were willing to offer low introductory discounts. As a result, it became apparent to him that the market was saturated. He knew he couldn't hang around there forever if I was going to make it work in the long term, so he began pursuing work in other sectors. David: “What did you do next? What kind of work did you look for in what kind of timeframe?” Leo did real estate videography and video production for the better part of a year still working at his full-time old job. It was when he started progressing out of it and joined some pilot networks that he started to have the idea to create a unique type of pilot network that would work with their pilots on what's fair for them while keeping it competitive for the client and having their margin. “I wanted to have a conscious capitalist mindset. There was a different way to do it that seemed better to me and I had to find a way to position myself differently.” When Leo was first getting started, he emailed potential leads, which, he says, was not the most sustainable. He found out that when he was able to have a face-to-face conversation with a potential client, they were much more willing to work with him—as opposed to drone pilots who were bombarding them via email or cold calling. Leo says, “Know who your ideal client is, then find out where th...

Mike Jensen, from Sacramento Drone, has been in business for almost 30 years doing wedding and event videos and corporate videography. Mike always offered unique services to clients, such as 8mm film, 360 VR panoramas and aerial shots of wedding venues. In the mid-90s, he did his first aerial by renting an airplane and continued to get aerial footage by renting helicopters. At $400/hr, it was very expensive, but he gathered a reusable library of about 30 to 40 of the most popular wedding venues in town and says, “Before the drone revolution, my competitors weren't offering that.” In 2006, I created and produced the world record wedding video event in Sacramento, setting a new world record of 100 cameras to professionally film a wedding. David: “So when did you get into flying a traditional kind of quad copter setup?" When drones started to become reliable in the early 2000s, Mike didn't feel comfortable flying them himself, so he found a drone pilot online that was flying a lot over water. Finally in 2014, Mike got his license and purchased his first drone—a DJI Phantom 2. I started flying it for events and later upgraded it to the Autel X-star then to the Mavic Pro. Today although he flies an Autel EVO, his favorite drone to fly is the Mavic 2 Pro Zoom. David: “Do you use drones right now mostly as a supplement to your film business or have you gotten into any drone services?” Mike had an advantage of having a videography company first. At some point, his videography clients also need drone services, which made it an easy sell. One of Mike’s biggest clients is a local major construction company. They've hired him to go out every week and do visual updates--flying for 1-2 hrs, shooting 3-4 one-minute videos, 20-40 stills and a top down shot. Mike stitches all those together in Photoshop and delivers a megapixel image of the entire property from 400 feet looking down. He saves them a lot of money by providing that documentation, their project manager meets with corporate every week and needs to show them progress. David: “For a construction job where you'll shoot once a week and these projects take months, what do you typically charge for a job like that?” Mike is hired to fly once a week for 30 weeks and charges them $300 a flight. That includes 1-1 1/2 hrs of flying, culling images, making sure his videos look good, uploading and then sending them the link. This is an ongoing client, often bringing him onto another project as they’re finishing one up. David: “Were you actively reaching out to those types of clients or did they find you? How did that work come about?” I shot for many years for a large West Coast healthcare provider. They were building a medical office building where Mike lives in Sacramento and the construction company brought him on for their own projects. One job led to another. Most of my business at this point in my career is word of mouth. David: “Looking back to when you were first starting, can you think of tactics that might work in today's environment? For example, if you were starting in the drone business, didn't have history with Jensen Films, and wanted a drone only business, what do you think you would do first to get it going?” Mike says he’s expanded his video company and doing a lot of different things—drones are just one of them. For example, when he started doing photo booths, he got on Facebook and let everybody know by creating and posting short videos. Similarly, for 360VR work, they just started shooting some footage unpaid, posted it and let his friends know. A photographer friend knew about a huge condo project that was going up and needed 360 video. “What really helped me was letting the world know what I was doing and doing it well. I needed to WOW the first client I got and then over-deliver on the promises I’d made. It’s also important to continue to up my game. I’m always looking for ways to increase my skills. If you start standing still, that's a prescription to fail.” David: “So tell me a little bit about the VR stuff. When did you guys start doing that...what's that like?” One night when he was editing late, Mike stumbled on the website of a 360 videographer who’d created gorgeous 360 images of the Royal Danish wedding. Mike realized he needed to do that with his brides, so he bought the equipment and started marketing it. Since then, he’s made custom rigs for his drones and included Live 360 and Ground 360 in virtual wedding movies for his brides. Clients can link to it on Vimeo or Facebook from their desktop, laptop or phones, or use goggles. David: “How much do you charge for VR video?” Mike began charging $750 for VR wedding video, but with every new VR video, he’s raised the price to $1,000, $1,250 or $1500. It’s an add-on to a basic package for the day. An exciting thing he’s been using is the new Insta 360-1R, which is two cameras that mount on the top and bottom of the Mavic 2Pro and can shoot stills or video without that dead spot on top (see li...

Alex is drone photographer and videographer. He is also the author of two of our Drone Launch Academy courses—Aerial Video A to Z and Aerial Photo Pro. David: “Let’s start with you giving us your background.” Alex already had a videography service. When he’d show up to film a corporate event, he said, it nagged at him that he needed to get a drone and a license to fly it. “I could see how much it helped to diversify between camera work and photography,” he said, “it’s easier to sell and rates go up way, way more if I'm adding photography and drones to the package.” Alex’s first drone was a Phantom 3 standard which hooked him. Although at first like a toy, he came to realize it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Once Alex upgraded to the Mavic pro, he felt it really started to work for him. David: “You mentioned you’d worked in film in Hollywood—tell us about that.” Alex worked on short films and for ESPN, Discovery Health and HGTV, as a camera operator. When he moved back to Phoenix and began doing corporate work, he says that because standards were lower and the budgets higher, he felt more in control of the work. He had creative freedom and client appreciation. From learning so much so fast in LA, which was a sink or swim environment, Phoenix’s high-stress environment felt like a cake walk—which helped him stand out. David: “That’s probably about the time you and I met right? I stumbled across one of your YouTube videos when I was developing the Part 107 course. I took it, bought all the equipment that you had, filmed everything and asked if I could pay you to edit it.” “You were my only fan up to that point. I’d filmed a couple of times with someone else’s Inspire, but I didn't own a drone yet.” After purchasing Alex’s course for $20, David and Alex started making plans to create a cinematography course. Quite suddenly, Alex found out he had a brain tumor and had to have surgery. Six months later, Alex and David re-convened to begin creating the course. Alex began focusing for 30 minutes and would have to sleep 12 hours; a week later, he could do an hour, a week later he could do 1 ½ hrs, etc. They put out that one course, got great feedback and ultimately scrapped and re-did it. David: “Let’s talk a little about your actual drone business. During this time, you’re still editing and flying drones for people. You have experience doing a lot of drone photography for clients. How did you get your first corporate video clients? Alex says it was such a powerful upsell right away to say he could film corporate events from the sky. He knew better angles and how to change settings to make it way more cinematic and because of that, he stood out. A two-day conference cost $2,500 to provide an edited a 4-minute compilation and photos. Alex went to popular conference places in Scottsdale and Phoenix and would film a ton of footage in all those places. So, prospects were confident he knew about drone filming, so he got hired for that even if he didn’t get hired for a full event. He charged $200/hour, which Alex says was easy to do to scare off the value-focused people who want to pay $50/hour, then ask for more time and revisions. Alex says, “When dealing with bigger clients and companies, what they’re mainly concerned about is quality—they want to make sure they get it right and don't look silly in their video. Also, when you quote a higher rate, they think you must be really serious and legitimate.” David: “Did they ask to see a demo reel? How else did you justify charging that much?" Once Alex got his Maverick Pro, he got a huge reel together by going around town filming. He also knew about SEO because he ranked number one in his city by making multiple smaller videos that were specific to what people were searching for.  And, Alex says, “When they then go to hire a guy to film there, I'm the one with my name in the title, so they're immediately going to click on it. That simple step, and I’m already halfway there.” David: “So your marketing strategy, was to go out, have fun, shoot as much stuff as you can, make it really good and put it on YouTube/Instagram? Or did you knock door to door asking people to pay you to film video? What are your recommendations to a new businessperson about how to start marketing?” Alex says when he started filming different parts of the city and putting it on Vimeo and YouTube, some got used, some didn't. He’d filmed Scottsdale in a lot of different conditions—the waterfront, a thunderhead, during a sunset, sunrise or rainbow, which made him stand out. When he started compiling them, the reel just got better and better. Alex says, “That footage doesn't have many views, yet I’ve been contacted by people who were going to hire a drone operator, but since I already had the footage, they wanted to buy it. It's EASY for them to pay you $150-300 because you have exactly what they want. Sometimes, also, they need help with other things.” Another thing he became aware of was that people who are...

Dustin’s company is Full Scope Inspections, a home inspection company in Citrus, FL specializing in roofs made of metal, tile, slate (or anything that shouldn’t be walked on or is too steep or elevated.) David: “When did you first start getting into drones and when did you fly your first drone?” Dustin was using drone before starting his drone business. He noticed people weren’t using drones for inspections and his residential construction background told him there could be a big market—it just all made sense. Dustin says that when paying for a home inspection, the roof is a key component—but you don’t have to walk on it. With a drone, Dustin found he could see deficiencies another inspector wouldn’t because they're not getting a full view. Dustin’s clients call him because they know it’s important that their roof be inspected closely. Dustin says the drone is a differentiator, but he doesn’t charge more for it. By using it when necessary, he can take pictures around things that may typically be blocking a view. He also uses the drone also to sell his services through his report.   David: “For the homes that you do use a drone for, what’s the approximate revenue the drone has brought you—in busy and slow months?” For a typical home inspection, Dustin may charge $300-$400, but it depends on the square footage. He does 4-8 inspections/week. Dustin also does some imaging for realtors, charging $75 to shoot 10-12 photos. He also does a lot of promotion through that group. For example, he raffled 10 to 12 drone shots—a $75 value as a gift basket entry at a tailgate party he had for realtors. Nice pictures potentially make or break a deal, Dustin says, and good camera shots sell property. According to Dustin, “I'm building a business that's going to be here long-term and the first couple of years are definitely crucial. I'm getting really good feedback, some really good reviews. It’s pretty exciting.”   David: “Talk us through when you first started your inspection business, and no one knew who you were. How did you start building the business?” Dustin had a vision that was different than most... he says he could see everything before he ever put it into place. “In this business, the only way it would fail was if I let it. There are enough opportunities and so many different outlets that if you put yourself in the right places, then the only person that's gonna allow you to fail is yourself.” He looked up a local home inspector whose online setup was blah and then he built everything around the image of what he lacked. Through reviews requests from customers, and a small amount of Google Ads, he is driven to the top of a Google search. He also uses a software called HomeGage to send tips once he finishes a report. Three days later, HomeGage sends an auto-generated email asking them to leave a review. Two months later, another email is auto-generated asking for referrals.   David: “Did your first customer come through networking or did someone stumble across your stuff? How did you get that first client?” Dustin’s hit the ground running. His first client came from Google.  From there, he started meeting with different realtors and the Realtors Association. He also joined a networking group which has helped him tremendously. “It all boils down to you building relationships with realtors. Get your name out there. If you can be on a realtor's top three list, it will pay off.” Dustin was building all of this while working and studying for the test. He knew how many jobs he should expect to do, how many he needed to do survive each week/month. He said, “If I commit to it and set my mind to it, this is what's going to happen. A lot of people have one little setback or somebody tells them No, and they say, ‘Maybe I shouldn't do this’. Second-guessing yourself is common. That's what you do. If I didn't pass the exam, I was going to take it again. I wrote it down and I could see it all the way through.”   David: “What's your favorite part of having your own business/working for yourself? What's your favorite part and what's the part you like the least?” Dustin’s favorite part is having time for his kids and their sports—he likes the flexibility and freedom. Dustin says he has a hard time letting go, he can’t let someone do things so that he can focus on the business. Because customers tell him the reason they booked an inspection was because they felt comfortable with his knowledge, he has a hard time turning that over to somebody else...it's a strain. However, Dustin says, “I’m not going to grow if I'm doing the same things I did last year.”   David: “For someone who's starting out from scratch and wants to build a drone business, what's one of the most important lessons you've learned? What’s your advice? Dustin says having a vision and a plan of how to pursue that vision. “We live in the land of the free, the United States, and you can do whatever you want to do right here. You just have to put your mind to it, go ou...

Sinuhe is Founder of DroneQuote a company that specializes in helping roofing and solar companies better understand what’s happening on a roof through drone survey imagery. Sinuhe started working installing solar panels on new roofs for residential and commercial purposes. He had to get on roofs to take measurements and conduct surveys and was afraid of heights. In thinking there had to be a better way, he bought a small drone with a camera and started seeing potential and benefits such as being able to: Take far more accurate measurements and SELL better Get a better understanding of what was happening on the roof AND save time Pay more attention to details because fear of falling didn’t prevent him from noticing details Stay SAFER! “My first $100 drone was very rudimentary; it taught me how to fly a drone and allowed me to open my mind to the concept of utilizing a drone. There was an opportunity and I learned from it.” When Sinuhe learned he could transmit an image to a receiver, he needed something more sophisticated, so, in February 2014, he sold his motorcycle to buy a real TBS (Team Black Sheep) drone for $3,400. That first drone lasted until the day he crashed into a pine tree, falling 30 feet to the ground and smashing it into smithereens. Lesson learned for anyone just starting to get into drones...don't overestimate your confidence because you will pay through the nose!”   David:  So, at that point, you're working for a solar installer and using the drone to make your life easier in your current job, right? Yes. The drone, Sinuhe says, enabled him to generate more sales, which made him more sales commission by using it—it paid for itself—but his company wasn’t paying for him to have it. “I realized that I had something on my hands that nobody was using for that purpose. I was also speaking with well-to-do clientele. When I entered a house whose living room was the size of my entire house, I shifted from trying to sell solar to learning what that person did to be successful.” Almost everyone said they became successful by starting a business. The seed was planted and Sinuhe started saving money to start a business. It took him two years to get his ducks in a row and leave his company to set out on his own.   David: “Smart. When did you shift from working for the solar company to starting your own business? What was your plan? How did you get your first paying client?” Sinuhe started his business in 2017. For him, it’s not until you open your doors for business that you find out what’s going to work. You Droners.io was his original model. He said, “I'm going to build a website that's going to help people find drone pilots, yet I kept getting calls from people in the solar industry asking me to inspect a roof. So I shifted my focus to inspecting roofs wholeheartedly—and that was really where we started making money. “So you figure out what's working, what's not, where your opportunity is, and then shift your focus that way. With this model, I was getting paid right away for the service.”   David: “How did you build that up to where people knew who you were? Did you have a lot of contacts from your days selling solar? I know you’re brave with cold-calling—for people out there who may not be as comfortable cold calling, can you walk us through a mock cold call? How do you get past the first minute of awkwardness where the other person is trying to figure out what you want?” Sinuhe makes it a point to be active on social media where he found solar companies and large roof installers. He cold called... and cold called... and cold called—which turned into opportunities. Sinuhe says,” “A lot of people see cold-calling as intimidating, but It's in your head. It’s the person's job to answer the phone and it’s only awkward if you make it so. You avoid that by doing research on who you're going to call before you call them. If you get the right information, you have a WARM call.” SInuhe mentions his most important cold-call points: Ask if they have a moment for you to offer to help them with something. Mention something you saw on LinkedIn. Reference a person and use their language, so they know you understand their company and pain points. You’ll earn their interest based on your ability to understand some of their pain points. With the person who answered the phone, make it sound as though you've already talked to the person you’re trying to reach in the past. When you get to the person you want, mention a topic they posted and offer the opportunity to help with something specific; in this way, you’re not talking about something they haven't thought about or planned for. Use open ended questions, such as “What is something that troubles you? What challenges do you face on steep roofs?. LET THEM TALK! In due time, offer a solution, such as, “I can survey your roof in a much quicker manner and more than likely at a lower cost to your company.” Even if you don’t understand the industry. If you’ve done yo...

Introduction to Andrew: Although Andrew started flying drones 5 years ago, about a year ago, he decided to build a business to make some extra money. Andrew says, “Aerial photography isn’t so big in winter so I didn’t start to get business the summer. But this winter, I’ve lined up clients through spring of next year.” By the way, Andrew is a senior in high school. Andrew bought his first drone for $50 when he was 13. He then got a Parrot Bebop2 which he loved but wasn’t pleased with the pictures. He later bought, and still uses, a Maverick2 Pro.” David agreed “Cheaper drones can get you interested and lead to more. My first drone was a Syma X5C so when someone wants my advice on their first drone, I say, ‘Get a Syma X5Cs on Amazon for $40. They're super light and when you need to land, you just cut the power and it flows to the ground’.” David: “What was it that sparked you to say, ‘I need to make some money doing this’? Did you target realtors when you started? Tell us about your original business plan starting out.” When Andrew could get his Part 107 license at 16, he got a nicer drone for taking pictures and videos. He thought, “Why not get a license, work and bring in some extra money to travel and save for college?” Andrew agreed to take pictures for a golf course in return for them putting it on their social media and tagging him. The job was unpaid, but got him clients and followers—basically, they advertised for him. Last summer, the most impactful thing he did was message a drone company in Chicago to ask for advice about getting clients. They told him to find a local real estate photographer and offer aerial photography to them. So that’s what he did. David: “Are you just doing photography or are you doing video too? Do you charge separately for videos? Do you also edit?” Andrew says he takes as many pictures or videos as he can in 30-45’ to give clients a lot to choose from. If he has to fly from one spot to another, that’s a video. He does some editing but outsources most of it to a company in Vietnam for a very affordable price. For pictures with some videos and no editing he charges $100, slightly more for editing and/or any location farther than 30’ from home. David: “Regarding your approach to the golf course, did you say, ‘I'm going to get my name out there’, and then Googled ‘golf courses in my area’ and contacted them? How did you specifically start to make that happen?” While flying one day, Andrew took pictures of a golf course across the road from his school which he posted to IG and tagged. When they responded that they loved his pictures through Instagram, he requested a contact. He sent them an EM saying, “I'm starting this company, I'm insured and licensed. Can I come to your golf course and take pictures for your social media?” They agreed, so Andrew took and edited pictures and sent them over (They still post his pictures). Since then, Andrew’s process has become simple...he finds contact information online and reaches out. At this point, though, he has a whole portfolio so he’s not offering his services for free. David: “Tell us more about the paying clients that you got from free work. Were they members of the golf course or people from the neighborhood who saw it on social media and reached out?” Andrew got two clients from the first golf course who were from the neighborhood. At first, they followed the golf course on IG. Then, they followed Andrew, reaching out to him later through there. They wanted pictures of the golf course for their home; he charged them $125 for 4x2 & 5x7 pictures. With printing costing $30, he made $95 from each job.  David: “So after getting paying clients from the golf course, how did you expand into real estate? Did you try and fail and then reach out to that company in Chicago or is that the first thing you did? Walk us through when you started shifting to real estate.” Andrew replied, “The first real estate job I had was in July before I reached out to that company in Chicago. I brought business cards to my school’s career day, and went up to a broker from a large commercial real estate firm who spoke and said, ‘I just started doing aerial photography for real estate. Here's my card.’ He said thank you—nothing more. In July he reached out to ask me to do a 500-acre farm. I was so excited because I thought they would give me more work if I did good.” The work took four hours and he charged $585: $400 for the time, $185 for editing and a 5-minute video (at that point, he had no idea what to charge so he made it up). Now, Andrew gets one $200-$500 real estate job per month. During busy months, Andrew averages 5-10 jobs a week, which is $2000 to $4,000 a month. During slow months, he often has 2 jobs a week, making $1,200 a month. David: “How much detail do you add to videos...Music? Narration? Overlay text?” He uses Litchi to map out his flight 10 minutes beforehand and then creates automated flight video going around the property for 40 minutes...

Martin hosts The FlyLife Podcast for FPV-based podcast for UAV drone people. It’s also a long format—bi-weekly episodes are between 1-2 hrs and he now has over 50 episodes. He’s also done very niche-specific commercial drone work.  He got into drones in 2015 because, after a break up, he was habitless and wandering Best Buy and found a small $60 drone, which flew into a house and broke. He then went online and found an FPV (First Person) drone and started flying on his own. He fell in love because it was creative and technical. So he decided to search CraigsList for drone jobs...and found one quite near his house. He didn’t get the job but was able to intern and learn when he wasn’t working at his restaurant. In late 2017 the place where he interned asked him to come back and build a drone. He found a lot of other contract jobs to do UAV work while still working at the restaurant. Then the restaurant sold and he had a bit of money and time to travel the country and meet people. The last thing to happen—in April 2019—was a lucrative opportunity to do FPV drone work that he was offered because he was very comfortable flying close to the ground. He also simultaneously got an offer to film an Olympic skier with an FPV drone.   Martin also works with a magnetometer—a device that can detect metal with a GPS. It picks up anything emitting electromagnetic radiation and it will give you a color-coded map of anomalies in the ground. He is hired by companies looking to understand what’s on their land that they may possibly sell rights for. For those types of jobs, Martin was making $250/day plus expenses, or $2,000/week. Martin says real estate can be a tough market and it’s not his passion. What he DOES love is the FPV cinematic work, which is really fun and pays better than magnetometer work. Martin is on all social media: YouTube is flylifeco; Instagram and Facebook are flylife_co. Martin says he’s gotten most of his clients from social media. His camera is nothing special but wants to upgrade soon. He films everything on GoPro Hero 6 or 7. He also uses Reel Steady as a post-filming production software. He says the footage isn’t shaky but it shouldn’t look like an action cam. He uses 7 for hyper-smooth because it runs a different firmware. So if you want to run steady with it, you have to use a gel-mount. The 6 has a lesser firmware on its gyro which takes less time to process. His typical FPV shoot is action sports filming because he can be going 60 mph and then stop. He chases active work and also tight interior spots. The least amount he’s charged for a day of filming was $600 per day. The most he’s charged was $2,500 for two full days of filming. He says he’s charging for something that’s close and can be dangerous but he can get in tight for action. Martin did have contacts from building relationships with his internship in the FPV world. If he were starting up and needed clients, Martin says he wouldn’t do anything different but maybe would put more effort into certain areas. His basic advice is: “You can’t have a chimp on your shoulder and think about what you’re going to get out of something. Do some things for free—everyone has a friend who needs pictures. Great content producers have taken a lot of flights. Say Yes—you’ll learn a lesson or something new.” Getting some photography and going home to realize you made a mistake is something everyone does...but you don’t have to do it twice. Martin is always ready to tell people what he does and much of the work that he’s gotten has been from random meetings or when he just puts himself out there. “The little things really matter—pay attention and be passionate.” Martin favors Instagram to showcase his work, he believes it’s the place with the least opinion. You get a one-minute post to grab someone’s attention, which is not stressful. Adding hashtags makes it really consistent and easy for people to notice you. His biggest challenge was breaking into it. Growing things on the Internet to get to the first paid job can seem long but it adds confidence. He is selling himself so he has had to be capable. Everything is a learning process. Drones now are what cars were in 1918 and the industry is still being built. Regulations will change and things are evolving; but the sky’s the limit. Connect with Martin Instagram: www.instagram.com YouTube: www.YouTube.com Facebook www.facebook.com Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 2? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course (20% off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn

Dominic is a Tacoma, WA-based real estate photographer. He was in the Air Force for years which is where he first picked up a camera. He loved it so once he got out, he got his own camera and thought he’d do journalistic photography. After recent elections, he decied he couldn’t do politics so he got a job with a car company doing their photography. He ended up bored. Then, although he’d thought doing real estate would be boring, this is now his full-time job.  Dominic is happy to report that every day during the busy season, he has plenty of work to do. He knew that with photography making money was going to be on the videography or real estate side. Drones were up and coming when he started in 2013, so he focused more on photography. In 2015 he found a random ad on FB asking for a real estate photographer. He went through training and the company that hired him—Cascade Pro Media—got him a drone. They have been a great alliance because they are consistently very booked and even often have to turn away work. He also has his own clients that he’s gotten from word-of-mouth, from being at the top of the SEO list for Tacoma, WA and via Instagram. He says it’s the best way to reach potential clients because agents browse Instagram when they’re sitting at an open house. Dom’s business is currently 50% what Cascade gives him and 50% what he has grown. He also now does several things—photography, videography, 3D tours and drone work. The drone has become more popular, having been added to 35 of the last 50 shoots. Dominic does work in Tacoma but also goes west towards Gig Harbor, east towards Mt Rainier and out to Puget Sound, where properties have a five-acre minimum. The drone goes up to 300 feet and gives you so much more so with real estate photography, Dominic is making more money than he did with all his photography jobs in the past five years. When Dominic got his license, the first drone he flew was the Phantom4 before he backed it into a tree (it can still fly but needs repair). He also used the Drone Launch Academy Part 107 prep course; he says he tells everyone about the quick and convenient set up, which is a great reminder of the military testing and also easy to get through. His second drone was a MavicPro, which fit perfectly in his bag so he could carry just the bag. Less than a week after, the MavicPro2 came out so he bought that. The MavicPro2 is now his go-to drone; the image and color quality make his images great. Dominic feels that knowing photography before he got a drone has helped his business grow. Dominic also says he grew up playing X-Box so the controls were easy (unless there was a tree behind him). Right now, his method for finding clients is through SEO, word of mouth but also: “Business Instagram is the best—I can specifically and strategically use hashtags. People often just need extra people when who they often use is booked up.” He is not actively going to real estate offices or networking. He says anyone can go to offices,   but the agents can’t see your stuff and they just shove your card under a table. David asked if Dominic ever tried to offer to shoot something for free. Dominic says he didn’t need to do that. Just from the gig with Cascade ProMedia, the first two months, he made over $7000/month. He pays them a percent of what he makes. But for what he gives them, they give him ten times that in the work they give him. At first, he had to pay a 30% fee, but after he became a drone photographer, that fee decreased to 20%. With this strategic affiliation, Dominic hasn’t had the discouraging feeling of having to find his own work. They also handle technical issues and his billing. Regarding what he’s charging in the Tacoma area, he mimicked the price sheet of the lead photographer. In Tacoma, his prices seem high, but when he goes north toward Seattle, because real estate is more expensive, they think he’s a deal. He charges $225 for photos and video; $150 for photos (interior and exterior), with a total flight time of 10-15 minutes. His full package of 25 photos (he charges by photo, rather than time) for a 3000 ft2 house is $275. Video is another $350. The drone (photo and video combination) is extra $225. Once the 3D tour (with Matterport) is added, there is a total fee of $1000 per house. He doesn’t scale for size of house; he does factor in time because a large house takes more time to take photos and to process them. His clients understand he’s standard, transparent and fair. During his busy times, he’s said his standard average monthly income during the busy summer season is $6-7 on the low end, up to $12K on the high end. Dominic has said that he’s sticking with real estate, not diversifying right now. He says trying to build relationships with construction for roofing needs to be done in the Winter season. Mastering and crushing his niche has allowed him to build a network and become a go-to person. He would like to add some more drone mapping outdoors on bigger pr...

Bill is a Certified Drone Pilot and co-owner (with his wife, Laura) of Billy Productions,  capturing the beauty of a home’s property and location, providing real estate agents, clients, and developers a more robust appreciation for each home’s unique character. Bill is located in ChicagoLand area, Naperville, IL. His main focus for past 20 years has been financing mortgages. The last year has been a bit more difficult in terms of compliance for the bank he works for. He needed to pick up something that would be an offshoot of that business. He picked up drones and started shooting as a hobby. After a small bit, the agents he worked with asked him to shoot a house. After a while, it was taking a lot of time from his other business. Once he got his license, that business has taken off with shoots for agents. People had seen his drone shoots and because of the synergy of the drone shoots with his previous line of work, it’s been easy to do. Bill says if you’re looking for a business, don’t go too far off, or outside of, your knowledge base, from your current knowledge base or business. David agrees that drones are a tool that is only as good as the business you’re already familiar with. It’s best have a warm audience instead of starting from scratch.  Bill has always been intrigued by photography and the technology of drones makes it more attractive—they sky is the limit. Other people are interested too; people area always coming up and asking how they work. It’s an easy in to offer so many ways to shoot something. And the topic of drones is always spurning new ideas from other people. He, though, has tried to keep his focus in the real estate business. To be successful you have to develop a specialty and build out your niche. There is a nice learning curve to be leveraged when you’re out there shooting. Six to eight months ago, a developer contacted him to shoot several lots. Bill then had to create new pricing for him because he didn’t understand how drone shooting worked. Bill also had to learn how to price a new account with several lots, instead of houses. Also, if a developer isn’t aware of the issues with his property, he could end up owing the town, or being sued, so it’s worth it to them to pay for the drone shooting. It’s like an insurance policy for them. There’s evidence so there’s no argument of the value. As a way to pan out a new niche in travel, Bill shot his nephew’s wedding, but that didn’t work out as well so he’s continued to stay with real estate. He’s also hired someone to edit. Bill says a key to success is to understand that time is money and you should find others to perform services, like editing, that are time-consuming. Editing and posting to social media is one of those things. For real estate, Bill charges $250 for video; photos are $125, shooting stills is 30-40 minutes. He may charge for a travel fee so he tries to stay within a local area. Bill is always thinking of those people who can bring clients into his other business. In terms of business, winter is always slow, but things really pick up in spring. He charged $750 for an interior/exterior shoot for a $2.5M home in Springfield. “Build a signature; Create a Brand” Bill values his connections. He’s formed one of his most important agent relationships through people he knew. He admired the photography work of one agent and that photographer didn’t work with a drone pilot. He offered to promote her business and now they work well together, helping each other grow their business(es). He learned you have to be able to turn around work quick and, ideally, make it work for you and another person. Bill’s advice for someone who may want to break into real estate drone business is: “You have to like working with the drone and learning about drone technology. Don’t be afraid of giving a free shoot or two to someone who would like what you do and be able to use you. Give to get but be authentic.” The most difficult part of starting his business is learning video and photography settings. You have to make things short and sweet. You don’t always know what will look good from out in the field. Find the settings that will work to produce the best results. If Bill were starting over, he doesn’t know what he’d do differently. He says it’s fun learning, and he’s still learning. But finding out what his biggest distraction is and staying away from that has been the thing to do. He says that distractions can keep him from his end goal. He’s gone into a few other areas and has had to learn how to stay focused. His advice is: “Always have fun ... don’t be too hard on yourself with the learning. As you’re developing your skill, share with others, because they will see your enthusiasm.” Connect with Bill Website: www.billyproductions.com Instagram: www.instagram.com Facebook: www.facebook.com Vimeo: www.vimeo.com Email: bill@billyproductions.com Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 2? Complete this questionnaire: Drone t...

Tom is President of Swampfox Aerial, which provides professional aerial imaging & mapping for construction and real estate development companies. Tom got into the business almost by accident. He’d run an investment fund and did some investment banking. During that time, he represented a drone company that was being bought by an engineering company and he fell in love with drones. He propositioned becoming part of the company but they didn’t want the infrastructure, so Tom told them he might become a competitor. He’d found out what drones could do—how they are changing how things are done in so many businesses. He also figured the drone industry was a good idea because it was changing rapidly so he got a couple of partners, founded a company and started a business. He says they jumped into survey grade lidar (certified surveys) which made it like graduating from college and jumping into brain surgery. Tom went straight to mapping with lidar as a niche. They had to raise capital to buy a Riegl miniVux, which goes for over $260K. Tom finds this drone fascinating—it shoots thousands of laser beams per second and registers and returns at the speed of light. You can capture returns right to the ground through the trees, making surveying in an afternoon with data back within a week. The business itself has grown, he now has a partner processor, a head of business development, a head of operations and two pilots. They also have a network of pilots for outsourcing. How does Tom use Lidar or why do people hire him to do Lidar? Surveyors may feel Tom is doing his/her work, but Tom says he actually cuts that surveyor’s costs. For example, with a difficult job, he can use Lidar to get topographical data much more quickly. It’s really rich data, carpeting the ground. Surveyors can use it to create 3D point data in a survey program and then do topographical maps. They can also screen through the trees. So they do the work for the surveyor’s programs and save them time. For landowners, for example, their drone can get 4-6 points of accuracy for a prospective buyer. This information can be gotten fairly quickly without paying for a survey. Developers and builders can find something later that makes their project more difficult, so Tom helps them avoid problems.  Tom works with surveyors and builders alike—builders see the immediate economic benefit, surveyors may be not as receptive as quickly. Tom’s partner also has a lot of ties into the real estate industry, which gives them easier entry into that business. So Tom’s advice is to have ties but also, to get business, since drones are really just a way of getting a camera or sensor into a way that it hadn’t before, he says that business owners need to focus on what they will provide. Through experience, he says SwampFox has defined the best business model for them. They are also trying to get themselves into easier and regular jobs to offset the Lidar jobs. “Make sure you keep your drones in the air; the lower-end applications are a more predictable revenue stream. Focus on the product.” How Lidar jobs are typically priced depends on the accuracy and the processing. For example, flat land is less complex and less costly. If they have to do a tree survey, they price it by the day, as well as how much processing they’ll put into it. They’ve had jobs for $20,000/day or less than $10,000/day and the much of that goes to the processor. Questions to consider for pricing are: Who puts out boundaries? Who does process control? Are diagrams necessary? Tom says the irony is that the jobs they’ve charged the most, they’ve made the least amount of money. David says it’s good for people to understand what the investment Tom made nets him in general; for Tom, this is still part of his learning curve. The biggest or least expected challenge for Tom was finding the right partners. Because the industry is new and fragmented, there’s no one out there with brand recognition. Tom says he works a lot with competitors. It makes things fun but if you have a bad partner, there is a lot of strife and loss of money. Tom says anyone you partner with should be vetted and will do what they say they will do. Tom does not fly drones—they scare him. But he does go out on site to make sure he can see what’s happening. He wants to be able to explain things to customers. He’s been trained how to fly but he is not overly comfortable doing it. As President, he feels lucky that he has a great CEO because everything he’s doing is being done for the first time—insurance, taxes, agreements, etc. Tom says he has some big contracts they are competing for and may need subcontractors with specific experience. When they do big jobs, they have to recruits pilots from networks (see their Instagram page below for an application). Tom’s advice: “Find your niche and where you want to be and figure out your business around that. It’s easy to get caught up chasing different ideas and to lose focus. Balance interplay betwee...

Robert is Founder & CEO of Aerial Look, a service & technology company changing the way people experience real estate utilizing drone, 3D and VR technologies. Aerial Look has been in business for five years; they got into drone business early in game. They were developing hardware and software until he realized that, from having been in the real estate business, it would be a good tool for that industry. From 1-2 real estate videos per day, they quickly began being asked to do 5-10 per day. Keeping customers happy was taking time away from research and development on the drones so they had to pivot. They soon realized that the drone could be used to for content creation. Robert wants to be in the place in the market that he is the best product for the most competitive price. In real estate, no one wants to pay fees, so they had to change the way people experienced real estate. A drone operator needed to be able to do a drone video in under one hour. They went from drone exterior video to interior video. They took some high-priced US properties to get business in China. They now work with different builders and developers across the globe. When in manufacturing and research, he had a genius CEO who made a lot happen. They thought of many different applications and each application had to be scalable. They knew a rotor on the drone would help them go further. Another drone had a scanner that could be used for security certificates. They decided a few of these applications could be used for agriculture. This could be used to analyze the field in terms of watering, planting, etc. They then came up with a drone that could also go to disaster areas. All these areas were popular, but they were also expensive. They kept trying to find new ways to use the drone. As they got into drone services vs. drone research, they began focusing on real estate. As they became more involved in the industry, they saw themselves as not just a drone company, but a content creation, media or marketing company. The drone business is really a service business. “If you can build a service, then you build a market. If you start the service first, you don’t have to spend as much money to get the business because you offer a valuable service. With that, you build market share. With market share, you control things.” Robert implies that as soon as you take out a drone, people are interested, they want to know what you’re doing...that means you are constantly in front of a client base.  Robert says he had to utilize the market to build the business. By building partnerships, he built his name. He utilized the drone to build a market of new services for realtors. He then saw a market to do business with builders and now he rarely takes out a drone, yet it all came from the drone. Basically, he used the dron to get market share and then used marketing to get revenue streams outside the basic drone industry. Robert believes you must hustle but you don’t have to try so hard—if you have business skills, you are ahead of the game. If you see development, you shoot with the drone, you go home, do video and send it to the developer. You have to be creative. His business now has in-house deployment and they subcontract. They have added drone deploy and 3D services. They can also take on work anywhere in the world, because their drone operator network is large and they have exclusive rates. In his opinion, it’s a waste of time to go to a realtor, and ask what they need, he says he tells them what they need. Robert’s company also works on minimum deals and gets paid by a firm...sometimes on retainer. Robert says that even if you think what you charge is expensive, the truth is the firm is paying more than that in marketing—you just have to convince them that you can do it cheaper and provide more value. What Robert says works for him is that he finds the value of the service, then break it down to a per listing rate. From there, it’s easy to decide what to pay a subcontractor, he pays them more and then he has an ongoing valuable and stable relationship...what everyone wants. Robert has set up his company to get paid from conception, i.e. when a developer is buying land. He gets a pilot to fly a drone over the land and sends them video, which almost always turns into a deal. Then before models come in, they do CGI animation, virtual reality sales centers, etc. At the end the drone comes in for a final fly over of the community. In between, everything is being done on computer. They do 3D tours, neighborhood profiles, etc. and he uses all of this to help the client market the home, community, neighborhood, etc. “If you’re going to shot video and hand off to client, you will not stay relevant and you will not scale up because not everyone knows what to do with it.”  He started the drone company because he didn’t want to rely on other people. He knew he could do much better by putting the controls in his own hands. As a pilot, he would go into meetings...

David is a pilot with Robotic Air Services, a startup in Southern California that focuses on the construction industry—providing drone services using a subcontractor business model that, David says, works. Let him tell you how and why... Two yrs ago, David was working in construction with architecture background. Drones came on the scene and he saw need in as-builts and during construction needs. He became excited and started to put some interest into drones. Are they effective? Can they deliver? Could he create a profitable company? The following year, he built up the company which went full-time in June 2018 and David never looked back. It DID take his own initial investment (he took Drone Launch’s Part107), and he is now profitable. He goes to network events to educate people on what can be done with drones. It works—with a LOT of legwork. David says if you’re going to get into an industry, you need to know how to approach a niche market. For example, architecture is narrow, and marketing takes a lot of thought. He advises that you laser-focus on that. When he tells people he’s a drone pilot, people ask if he works for the army. He responds that he flies a “friendly” drone and is in construction. When he explains further, he says they are amazed. Everyone he talks to leads to something or someone else. When he started out, he had his equipment ready and his business ready. He had a LONG conversation with his CPA. David says—for him—he needed to cut the cord as an employee. If not, he would never have bitten the bullet. He DOES say, “Don’t do what I did, don’t jump off the board unless you know how to swim!” He says what he has going on right now works 75%; he has other plans for the rest of his success plan—risks never go away. Start-Up Equipment His initial equipment was a MavicPro. He jumped in understanding what he wanted to achieve with mapping and point clouds and that was the best drone at that time. He flew his drone for months before committing to the business. He did a lot of investigation by flying a few hundred hours over a few months. He did mapping, flying with intention of creating a point cloud, which is when you fly drone over a site in a grid pattern. He knew targeting a 3D model was going to be the goal. He had to be able to crunch data or deliver a CAD drawing. He says he got great training from Drone Launch Academy, especially as pertains to understanding the weather to fly the best pattern. The orthomosaic map is only the first level. What’s Happening Now? David wants to get into mining and civil construction. He is educating his current clients that the imagery is not just a flat map, but how they can use more of the data. Mapping usually hands off to general contractor. In one of his client’s cases, a general contractor questioned the civil engineer, so he hired David to fly a drone and map the site. He found out that, in some cases, the measurements were off by almost 3 feet. With the drone imagery the measurements are nailed more accurately. He sees this type of work as great opportunity because every time you are called in to work, you can educate people as to how much the drone can help them. “Education is the biggest thing in the drone business” Where Are The Clients? Getting clients is about talking to people and also about how and where to find business. David had to understand what he wanted to accomplish and the niche market, for him—architecture, engineering and construction. You don’t just buy a drone and get business. You have to put work and effort into it. He said you have to learn everything about an industry to talk to people on their level. If you are going into cinematography, he hopes you know how to take great pictures. It’s not putting the drone into the air that’s the hard part, it’s about knowledge about how to make it work as a business. David thinks through everything before the flight. It’s already been set up and checked so when the flight comes, it’s just the push of a button. First Projects & Growth Since going full-time, company started to make money positively in December, passing investment level in January. It only took two months for investment to be re-couped. He doesn’t want to put out numbers because in Southern CA, it’s expensive to live and work. He does say that his first bit of work was done pro-bono, but with organizations that matter. He worked with an organization that preserves portions of land. He asked about the quality of their map imagery. He offered to fly and provide imagery because they are a volunteer association. He says he wanted to begin by giving back FIRST before he focused on developing clients and his own business. That got his name out there and also allowed him to practice in the real world, delivering real world work to real world people. When he delivered, he asked who they knew that he could talk to. Doing that work gave him a portfolio of real work. David’s favorite part of having his own business is being his own...

Bill is a UAS Solutions Director, Professional Drone Pilot and Owner/President of Eagle Eyes UAS About Bill Bill says he’s always been kind of a techno nerd. While working a project in Florida several years ago, he came across a professional pilot who was someone he perceived as worth knowing. “I kept his information and then when I moved over to the area where he lives, I looked him up and I said, 'Hey, what are you doing?' He told me he was in the drone industry. As someone who believes in going after technology when it first comes out (even though not perfected) drones had already caught my attention.” Bill’s contact then started sharing ideas of what he was doing. With a background in sales and marketing, Bill saw an opportunity to be in the beginning of an industry which, if done right, he could really do well with it. So Bill started working with his connection for about a year, not making a lot of money but learning from his business skills, about drones and orthomosaic imagery. He then took the Part 107 and did very well. Starting A Business What happened next was ironic. Bill had branched out on his own doing inspection work of the damage after Hurricane Irma. Bill felt himself an apprentice of drone work during this time. He learned about a variety of different equipment and he learned just by flying drones. “The learning experience was mostly good...a few bad. There's never a dull moment. To me, flying a drone is somewhere between super exciting and terrifying.” At that point, Bill’s inspection work wasn’t for insurance companies, because insurance companies, like many industries, know that drones exist, but they don't know how they can benefit them. Bill said it took time for people to embrace and understand drones. According to Bill “Your job is going to be more on educating than flying a drone. You need to become a master educator and someone who can explain whatever industry vertical market you're going into. You need to be able to explain 'what's in it for me?', 'why do I need this technology?' 'How is it going to make my life better?' We understand it as pilots and we learn it more and more every day. We learn new applications and we read about them. But the bottom line is you've got to become good at educating people and making it simple. Don't get complicated. With most people, the simple aspect of how this can help them on their job or business is where you're going to gain customers.” Bill started out with a Phantom 3. He understood orthomosaic imagery and had been flying enough. “I already had one drone stuck in the tree and then another one I whacked it into a wall. It was a friend's and broke off the camera. You do these things and you not only learn to fly drones but not to fly it where there's a lot of trees.” Bill’s Simple Marketing Advice Bill suggests you learn the basics before trying to get fancy--things can happen. Bill literally started in the community where he lives. The manager asked what he would charge for it, told him to do some before/after pictures of their pool project and even suggested he charge $1,000. That’s how he came up with a per acre rate for doing orthomosaic imagery. He flew again and again. Then he literally went down the street and knocked on the doors of the managers of other buildings. He got into a couple of them; he did some research online. “One called another and told another and then I had four associations that wanted to hire me—all of a sudden I was busy. Then I started calling up other community association managers, you know, just googling names. Through picking up the phone and calling people or driving by with some marketing material, I just kept sharing what I could do.” The Secret To Roofing Inspections Bill says that in South Florida you can't get a roofer to come out and inspect only 2-3 association buildings. If  you have 20 buildings on your site, you don't want to send your maintenance guy up there to walk around and see what kind of structural damage there is because the potential for him to break a leg, or fall off while trying to take pictures is ridiculous. “When I explained that I could fly a 20 acre location in 30 minutes and in 24 hours I could give them detailed pictures of damage on the rooftops---they got excited. Without exception, I hand-delivered the results via thumb drive. They were blown away because I showed them how they could literally use the snipping tool on a windows PC and take each individual roof mark up where the damage is, but, more importantly, they could see which one needed immediate attention, where they might want to throw a tarp on and which didn't need any attention.” Bill found out this was important because after it rains, water intrusion would further damage the building. That was one of the best things that could happen because he could sell the before and after so they could do a comparison and show insurance companies how it worked. Bill’s advice, if you’re seriously looking at this business...

Jeff is the Chief Pilot and Owner of Special Point of View, specializing in aerial videography and photography.  Jeff was retired and happily playing golf when he did damage to his shoulder which required surgery. As he put it, “I was home for 8 months driving my wife crazy, so I bought a drone for amusement (that one flew away). I ended up getting into the DJI world and had fun...so I bought a few more.” Jeff started doing jobs for friends, taking pictures of property. People really liked his work and wanted him to do more. Jeff says he thought, “If I’m doing this, I may as well make money.” It was then that he found out he had to get a 107 license, so the hobby became a business. It took one year from starting with a hobby to creating a business.  The Business Today At this point, two years into operating a drone business, Jeff has clients that are developers, builders, owners and realtors, most of whom he met being board member of his HOA  He started doing jobs for free and, once word was out, he had people coming to him.  The work he does has evolved. Jeff says, “Knowing realtors, residential was easiest in the beginning. From there, I got involved in ranches and farms, which I love. It was a lot more fun flying a drone on a few hundred acres.” Now, he is focusing more on promotional and property management work. He does some strip malls or apartment complexes, but says there is a lot of competition there with people who are willing to do the work for next to nothing.  Successes, Challenges & Struggles Jeff has had a few successes with larger realtors who he continues to work with. He says much of his success has depended on finding the right relationships. David agreed that all the successful drone business owners have spent a lot of time working on relationship-building—which has gotten them more listings and developed a stronger business. Regarding making a healthy income, since Jeff is retired, he didn’t have financial pressure and flying drones was easy. Editing—learning to use PhotoStop or FinalCut—was a more challenging business prospect. Jeff says, “the software is sophisticated and trying to use capabilities is challenging. I have some friends who sub the editing out. For me, once I start a project—most of which are 2-minute videos—I have a plan. When I get to editing, I can’t picture handing that off.” Tapping the Growth Potential  For a 2-minute video or 25 pics and a few videos, Jeff charges $500 (see his website below for more pricing information). He came up with that number by asking himself “what’s the amount that is worth the time it takes from my life?” In order to get new business, Jeff’s relationships have provided substantial opportunities. However, he made a decision to branch out to restaurants, offering to do a free video, which came out really well. Other work then came from that. He strongly believes that if someone wants to grow their business, they have to create something to promote themselves. “The sooner one can put together a portfolio (like a commercial photographer or artist), that will help. You just need 5-7 pages of your work to demonstrate your skills, even if you didn’t get paid to do it. If you’re not good at relationship-building, or aren’t plugged into a community/network, hire someone to knock on doors for you. It has to be done.”  “My goal is pretty simple, I’m looking to bring in $2500/month. I HAVE made that in a week. I’m trying to cover flying the drones I have. The deal with my wife is that any excess money over that amount goes into our travel fund.” He hits that target three of every five months. Winter is slow and business ebbs and flows. In the slow months, he makes more videos. In the spring, he can have more $4-5K months.  The Future of Special Point of View “There is so much happening in the future in the drone world. I love talking about it,” Jeff says. Jeff is currently involved with a national organization called Operation Drone Search & Rescue, whose mission is trying to build infrastructure for a nationwide “1-800-I-Just-Had-A-Disaster” that would employ a group of drones. Where is Jeff headed? “I’m 68 years old. If I were 40, I would be all in. I find myself sliding into the idea that I could turn this into something by hiring people. But why would I want to do that? Yesterday I talked to another drone company about joint partnerships. I see myself passing some of this work off to a younger group to get me some ‘mailbox money’. Having moved from residential to commercial, these guys have recently moved into the inspection world and are making $15K per month—cell towers, pipelines, not a bunch of on-offs, but contracts and higher-paying gigs. These require expensive equipment, but they make the money. Final Thoughts “I think you have to learn all the lessons. I started with residential and recognized challenges. That gave me enough activity to fly my drones inside tight quarters. I might say I wish I didn’t do that because it wasn’t product...

Alex Castillo from LA Aerial Image shares his journey growing his drone business. He and David cover how he got started and how that’s taken him to where he is today. This has always been a side gig for Alex, but that might be changing since he’s been able to match his full-time income. This started as a hobby for Alex. Hear about his background and the first way he monetized his hobby. That was before a website or a solid business idea. It didn’t take long for him to realize that there were a lot of applications, so he started LA Aerial Image, his wife built the website and he started making connections. Alex shares what type of work is most profitable for him now. It’s an industry that has huge potential and will continue to grow. Be sure to hear about his LA Olympic Committee project and how he has credits on an Amazon prime show. Find out his top 3 ways to get clients and how he’s been able to provide extra value by educating people about what’s possible. He outlines 5 different types of projects and how it benefits the client. The biggest challenges are broken down and explained as well. Being a great pilot is important, and he shares some of the mind-set required for making this a money-making venture. David asks him for his best advice to someone just starting. His first tip is to be a confident flyer. Tip 2 and 3 cover his business start-up advice. Connect with Alex: Instagram Facebook Website Drone Launch Academy Courses        Podcast Listeners Can Use Code podcast50 to save $50 off the 107 Exam Prep Course Complete Course Listing: FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Exam Prep Course Part 107 Flash Cards Aerial Photo Pro Aerial Video A to Z You have to see this: Timberland Commercial

Drone to 1K Podcast host David Young helps drone pilots get their 107 certifications. He’s the founder of Drone Launch Academy where over 8000 people have used the course and study materials to successfully pass their 107 exams. This podcast will feature people who have make 1K a month (and more) by running a drone-service based business. Getting certified is the key first step.  Drone-enthusiasts who want to start a side-gig or a full-time business don’t always know where to go next. That’s why David is launching the Drone to 1k podcast. David will interview people who are successfully building their drone business. Episodes will range from business owners using Mavic drones in the $1000-$2000 price range to Lidar mapping drones costing up to 200K. His guests will share how they’ve been able to grow to the 1K or more monthly income.  You’ll hear about different types of drone businesses, how to find clients, what type of equipment to use and more. This fast-growing industry has lots of potential and David is talking to people who’ve figured out how to make it work for them. Season one is just beginning. There are 10 great episodes that will be published weekly. Check them out and let David know if you have any questions, or if you know someone who’d make a great guest. Contact David: support@dronelaunchacademy.com