Making money with a drone

[R.Perry]

It is obvious there is money to be made with drones, but what I’m seeing is it seems to associate with other job skills, such as professional photographers, construction, real estate, government agencies, power companies, and others.

I think many that want to only fly drones and make a living may not have enough to offer a potential client. For instance, if you want to work in construction documentation then you need to understand a little about construction and how things are built. If you want to work in agriculture, then you should have a solid foundation of farming and the needs in the ag business.

Many of the power companies are now using drones for power line inspections, but they are buying their own drones and having their people taught to use them. Why, the person working for the power company knows what to look for, knows the safety issues involved.

Real estate is another area, if you want to work in that arena then you need to be a professional photographer and not a picture taker, and yes there is a difference. Sure the cameras today can take incredible pictures, but the professional photographer has the eye for what makes a great picture, and the skills to create it.

Obviously what I’m getting at is what else can you offer other than your drone and the pictures you take?

 

[BigAl07]

....If you want to work in agriculture, then you should have a solid foundation of farming and the needs in the ag business.

NAILED IT! That's why I've not jumped into that arena because in terms of AG I'm just a picture maker and add no other value to the product.

Now get me around construction etc I'm rock your work but through the AG stuff at me and you'll hear "crickets" LOL

 

[R Martin]

Obviously what I’m getting at is what else can you offer other than your drone and the pictures you take?

I can do rough cut and fill calculations, determine if the drainage on the final grade is roughly what was designed and will work and if they really press hard, perform an environmental assessment of tree health. The later is really a pain to fly on campus so I don't advertise that....

 

[Weaponized]

This shouldn't be a surprise. I own a flashlight but thinking I can make money from it without some other skill set is dumb. No one will pay me to hold it. A drone is nothing more than a tool. It needs a business attached to it to generate income.

 

[Russ Still]

I see a lot of this in this field. Sadly, too many new drone companies seem to believe in the "warm body" theory. They don't think marketing is important, and they may not understand the nuances and technical issues of the particular niche they wish to provide services for.

 

[rolling56]

I see a lot of this in this field. Sadly, too many new drone companies seem to believe in the "warm body" theory. They don't think marketing is important, and they may not understand the nuances and technical issues of the particular niche they wish to provide services for.

Sorry off topic:
Gold Seal was a urine test fix for dirty urines at one time. I guess you probably know that by now?

 

[Russ Still]

Hi, Rolling56. No, never heard of that one. We've been a full-time aviation training company for over 12 years.

 

[R.Perry]

I see a lot of this in this field. Sadly, too many new drone companies seem to believe in the "warm body" theory. They don't think marketing is important, and they may not understand the nuances and technical issues of the particular niche they wish to provide services for.

Russ, you are spot on. Marketing is so important, but once the job is landed, you better be able to produce what your client wants. We have all seen over marketing and poor performance and that can kill a company right from the start. The construction industry is full of underachievers that present a good pitch, but fail to deliver.

I believe one of the reasons the company I work with is so successful is they make sure their people can and will produce, or it is hit the road jack. They have extensive training in construction documentation, and outstanding drone training through Avion in Hunntsville, AL. They also have a tremendous sales force.

Being a one horse operation can carry you only so far, and sometimes it overwhelms someone.

 

[GadgetGuy]

This shouldn't be a surprise. I own a flashlight but thinking I can make money from it without some other skill set is dumb. No one will pay me to hold it. A drone is nothing more than a tool. It needs a business attached to it to generate income.

Before drones became popular, the same thinking led everyone that owned a camera to suddenly think they were a professional photographer, leading to expensive seminar training on how to realize your full potential as a professional photographer, in an already saturated market that was declining by the day. That thinking is as ridiculous as owning a plumber's wrench suddenly turning you into a plumber. Reality is that professional photographers spend less than 10% of their total work time taking photographs. The other 90% is spent hustling for clients and pre and post production work, which is far less fun. Marketing and sales are far more important to profitability than technical expertise, which is always presumed.

Same is true of building a business around a drone. Everyone has one, so the bar to entry is very low, increasing competition, driving prices down. The 10% of successful drone businesses would be good at any business, and the drone is merely a tool, and flying it is only a means to an end. Many such drone flying business owners would be far better served putting those business talents to work in a far less competitive field, with greater profit potential. Anyone who thinks they will be flying their drone professionally more than 10% of the time during a workweek is kidding themselves. Only hobbyists get to do that, and they also get to decide when, and where, and what they want to shoot!

 

[ASI_Flyboy]

My answer would be drone development.

Microsoft has partnered with DJI to allow you to develop for their drones. There are mobile SDKs available for Android and iOS, but not yet with Microsoft until this fall.

Rather than supplying customers with only videos/pics you can leverage the cloud and AI to analyze and create workflow from the results. An example that Microsoft demoed at Build is surveying several pipes on a construction. The drone was programmed to fly around several metal posts and using AI from the cloud would determine if one of the pipes was broken. If it found that indeed one was broken, it would record which pipe and then email an engineer with a picture of the broken pipe and where it was.

That's all easier said than done lol. We're still in the early days of drone technology but this is an exciting time to get started.