How do you get your drone business out of RTL Mode?

We see many commercial drone operators, who are amazing pilots (and who deliver outstanding work to their clients) but who still struggle to build a sustainable  and profitable drone operating business. Does this describe you? Is it time for you to “RTL Mode” your business and re-think how you operate? 

That’s what this series of articles is all about. We’re interviewing top commercial Drone Operator  businesses to learn about the challenges that they’ve had (and how they overcame those challenges) in order to give you actionable insights on how to take your drone business to the next level. 

Aero AI

In the first article in this series, we talked at length with Jacob Lewis, who founded JCL Aerial Services in 2018, and we learned about how he manages every detail of a job and that results in amazing repeat business. 

In this article, we’re talking with Osarodion Victory Igbinobaro (who goes by his middle name, “Victory”), the founder and CEO of Aero AI, a start-up focused on creating amazing 3D imaging and data that any drone operator can leverage for its clients–especially in the engineering, architecture, and construction industries. 

Why Aero AI? 

Aero AI’s not only a technology company but they are also drone operators themselves. So, they spend a lot of time providing drone services to companies. It’s a good way for Aero AI to generate cash to fund development of their software platform, SiEGA, but more importantly it provides a first-hand view to understand what drone operators and their customers need and want. 

Persistence 

If we were to attribute  Victory’s and his team’s initial successes to one word, it would be “persistence.” The Aero AI team understands that they need to constantly engage with customers and evolve their drone operation services and their software in order to achieve what is called, “Product-Market Fit.” It’s a term of art used by venture capitalists (and the start-up ecosystem in general) to describe that magical moment when you have the right set of features and functionalities in your services and products–and you are able to distribute the services and products to the right customer and the right time. 

It’s with Aero AI’s persistence that they can advise us on how to get your drone business out of RTL mode. 

To learn more, we spoke with Victory about the various business challenges his company has faced and how they addressed them:

The Interview 

Eno and Justin: Victory, what is the biggest challenge you are facing right now.

Victory: I would say that there are many challenges! As a drone operator, the biggest challenge is that regulatory environment is frustrating and limiting what we can do for our customers. As a software developer, the biggest challenge is that the drone industry is so new and what we are building is so new, that it’s difficult to explain the technology and the value it brings. There is no reference point for this or market category for our product yet. And it’s just not clear what the right set of features are needed for product-market fit.

Eno and Justin: OK. That’s a lot! Let’s start with the regulatory environment challenges first. How do you handle those now?

Victory: We’ve gotten very good at understanding the current regulatory environment and how to navigate it. You almost need to become an attorney. You need to read the regulations and get to know how the FAA looks at waivers.

Eno and Justin: We’ve heard that a lot. Do you leverage an attorney? 

Victory: We used to pay an attorney to work with us, but it was too expensive and so wasn’t sustainable. We knew that we needed to become experts ourselves so that we could give customers confidence in what we could do and not do for a particular project.

Eno and Justin: So, in the proposal stage you give some scoping expectations as to what you think you’ll be able to achieve for a project and what is likely not going to happen?

Victory: Yes, that’s right. We say things like, “Hey, given the height of that building and its proximity to controlled airspace, it’s going to be a hard thing to get 3D imaging for all of it, but we have been successful in the past.” 

Eno and Justin: OK. Let’s dive into your point that there isn’t a reference point or market category for your software. What does that mean? 

Victory: Well, think about other things that you buy. If you are a car manufacturer like Tesla, you can say, ‘hey, this is the CyberTruck. It’s a truck but it’s so much more’ - and consumers will understand exactly what that means. The term “truck” is a reference point and category that a customer can wrap her mind around.

Eno and Justin: Got it. So, your product lets people do 3D modeling and data analysis and simulations like a video game–and you even use video game development technology to make it work. Which is so cool. But there isn’t a category for that yet. And we’re guessing you can’t call it a “video game simulator.’”

Victory: No, we can’t call it that! But that’s right. We need to educate potential customers on all the cool ways that they can use our technology to make their current processes so much better. This is similar to how we behave with our drone services business. Remember drones are still so new and many customers don’t understand all of the benefits (and regulatory limits) so it’s all about how you describe those benefits (and not the features). 

Eno and Justin: That makes sense. How do you close the sale?

Victory: Well, that’s its own challenge. There’s no expense line item either at customers for this. Our primary customers are engineers, architects, and construction. They have an expense in their budget for CAD software, for their company data storage solution, and for their client presentation software - but they don’t have anything for 3D modeling or for drone services. So, you often are looking for them to go to a miscellaneous budget or to recategorize into a marketing budget. You have to often help them.

Eno and Justin: What about drone pilots? 

Victory: I think that’s the most exciting thing about our platform. You can’t really do 3D modeling and data analytics now on your phone or even your laptop. There’s so much lidar data and other telemetry data that’s just sitting there untapped. Imagine being able to do show your customer in near real time what a 3D model would look like of their building site right there. We think that’s amazing.

Eno and Justin: That is cool. OK. Tell us about how you are achieving “product-market-fit.”

Victory: Well, there’s a huge risk in just chasing all business and become a dev shop for a large customer. But that’s why our new Studio Version is really important. It allows us to configure and customize features for each customer. Some want their data in house - some in the cloud and some on prem. We can integrate with their platforms as needed. It’s super flexible.

Eno and Justin: So, are you using the information you get from each of those custom configurations to inform your product roadmap?

Victory: Yes, that’s right. We use it to learn what our customers want and then if we see multiple customers requesting something we know we are on the right track. We do the same thing for our drone services business. It’s all about collecting data and information–even if its anecdotal–to understand the customer. 

About the Authors:

Eno Umoh is an expert in marketing and business operations and is the co-founder of Global Air Media & The Global Air Drone Academy where he has taught in 26 countries over 18,000 students about drone technology, best practices, and how to make a drone business scale and get to profit. Eno collaborates with drone businesses to help them achieve their goals.

Justin Call is the Co-Founder and CEO of Modovolo, a start-up that's built a drone to carry any payload for hours instead of minutes at a cost far below anything on the market. You'll want to see it for yourself. He has been an executive at venture capital and private-equity-backed technology and data companies with three exits ranging from $1.5 billion to $130 million. He has deep experience in leveraging data to understand and build businesses.