Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Drone Delivery Is Here: How Drones Will Transform Last-Mile E-Commerce | Beth Flippo, CEO of DEXA

Transcript

Drone Delivery Is Here: How Drones Will Transform Last-Mile E-Commerce | Beth Flippo, CEO of DEXA · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

0:15
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Selling on Giants.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is about a shift that has the potential to completely change how products move from businesses to customers, and that is drone delivery.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm joined by Beth Flippo, CEO of DEXA, and one of the few leaders in the country operating at the intersection of autonomous aviation, logistics, and regulatory infrastructure.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we break down what drone delivery actually is, how it works today, and how close we are to seeing this adopted at scale.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Beth also shares what it took to become one of the only FAA certified drone carriers in the country and why that matters for the future of logistics.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: We also get into what this means for e-commerce brands, local retailers, and communities, especially as the expectation continues to shift from two-day shipping to near instant delivery.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: If you think last mile delivery is already optimized, this episode might change your perspective.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Hey Beth, welcome to the Selling on Giants podcast.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: I am super excited to have you on here to talk about last mile delivery, the most expensive part of delivering a package, but also a cool tech technological innovation, which is drone delivery.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: This, if this is not a sci-fi episode, I don't know what is, Beth, but I'm really excited to have you on.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to be here.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's jump into it.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, how did you wind up running a drone company, DEXA?
1:51
SPEAKER_00: How does tell me tell me how you ended up in the seat you're at now?
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: So uh I'll go, I'll go back a little bit to the beginning.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: I um I'm actually an engineer.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: I am an embedded software developer.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: So I specifically work with microelectronics, so microcontrollers, microprocessors.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh I build custom operating systems and I love seeing things come to life.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: That really is uh my space, mobility, robotics.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: I I've loved it forever.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: And I was working for my uh family, had a very small defense contracting.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: I actually worked in banking for many years and then went to defense contracting, and we were building communication platforms for drones.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we made was this mesh network that let drones talk to each other in the sky without having to connect to the ground.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: And all these commercial drone delivery companies are calling us and wanting to buy it.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, I think we've got a real commercial spin-off here.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: And uh I created drone express at the time.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: We now call ourselves DEXA, and I hired mechanical engineers to build an aircraft around this connectivity and my brain that was on board, and DEXA was born.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: That is man, from finance to to drone delivery.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: What when you made that transition, what was like the most challenging part?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Did you leave a very comfortable job to move into the startup world?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Did the defense contract help you kind of float your way into building this commercial, uh commercial company?
3:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, um, you know, it's funny because I'm a New Yorker, so even if you're an engineer, you go into banking.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: It's just uh what you do.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: It's like a rite of passage if you want to live in Manhattan.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: But I actually what did a lot of the entrepreneurship for me, I wasn't always an entrepreneur, but I was actually working for Goldman Sachs and I was downtown working for Goldman on 9-11.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: And I left Goldman to go join Cantor Fitzgerald.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: They had lost most of the employees on 9-11, 700 out of a thousand employees.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: And that was a place where you had to figure it out, you had to learn how to do it yourself.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: There weren't necessarily departments to help you, there was no red tape anymore, and that kind of spurred the ability for me to think I can do this.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: I was there um almost five years and made me believe in myself.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the biggest step towards becoming an entrepreneur.
4:31
SPEAKER_02: Like the product can always change.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: But if you get that that itch, yeah, it's it's really hard to not scratch it.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: So I uh my father, my he had a little defense contracting business that they had started in 1984, and I went to go work there to, you know, be the next generation and really didn't love defense.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh, defense is a very up and down business.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: I love commercial stuff and just was looking to create something of my own that was in the commercial space and was lucky enough to fall into something that involved uh aircraft, which has always been a passion of mine.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: That is pretty amazing.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Just because it's sure your tenacity and grit goes a long way.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: It's having the right mentality and personality to persevere.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs I meet, a lot of finance guys in New York who go on to do health food companies or gym equipment and all this, all these other things, but they a lot of they learn a lot of really basic skills working for these big companies and they they test themselves and they build confidence.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: My last question before we jump onto the main topic, because I'm really curious.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Who are your customers?
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Who who do you actually serve?
5:44
SPEAKER_02: So our first customer uh is Kroger, and uh they're the biggest grocer, and that's why we're in Southwest Ohio.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: I moved my whole family, my four kids, and my poor husband out here to work with them.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: Their headquarters is in Cincinnati, and they pick the store in Dayton.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Dayton is a suburb of Cincinnati, and it's also where the Wright brothers are from, and has such a strong aviation background.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: So, since they put picked the store that we were gonna fly from in Dayton, we said, why don't we put this whole company in Dayton?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: So Dayton is a very big part of our story, too.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, after getting Kroger, the customers really come to us.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: There aren't that many drone delivery companies out there, especially ones that have gotten the certification the way we have from the FAA.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: So we flew for Papa John's, uh, Wind Supply is a huge construction materials company.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: But my heart has always been to fly in the tri-state area to get back to New York because those are the people that need it the most.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Where even if you can drive there, you can't park there, you know, and you have to be from there to understand that.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: So we just went live in New Jersey, right outside um of New York for Grubhub.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: Grubhub was just bought by Wonder.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: So um we are we are flying for them every day for the people of New Jersey.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking too.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm a native New Yorker as well.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Then going into New York City, getting food delivered, uh traffic, so having the ability to use drones.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, people don't throw stuff at them.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: But either way, I can see it'd be a lot more efficient than those poor guys on those bicycles in the middle of the winter.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: And not to mention the eco-friendly part of it is a nice touch, too.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to have uh all these cars just polluting a small place like New York.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: You know, we might actually be able to get some you know free pedestrian areas if you could.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Go touch some grass.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump into the main topic.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: So, why drone delivery will reshape last mile e-commerce?
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So, first and foremost, for our listeners new to this concept, what is drone delivery and how does it actually work?
8:01
SPEAKER_02: So, we actually are co-located, we're at the store.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, we have a trailer that is really just like a you know landscaping kind of empty trailer that we just keep the drones in overnight.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: But we have you order the food on the app for the store the way you do today.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh, they let us know, like you know, like a gig economy driver, like your order's ready for pickup.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: We go pick up the order, put it on our aircraft, and the drone flies off.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: And with our average delivery time uh for Kroger was around 11 minutes from order placement.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: So there's nothing as fast as drone delivery, and it's the exact same time for every delivery, which is really incredible.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, as the crow flies, no traffic, no worries, you're getting your food.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh, for Papa John's, they were actually very scientific about testing the temperature of the food after you know it got where it was going.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: And Papa John's doesn't have places where you can sit in the store.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Everybody has to take it out.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: But it was the exact same temperature from when it left the store to when it arrived.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: And they said, since we don't have people sitting in the store eating, there's really that was the fastest, warmest anybody could ever eat a Papa John's pizza is if it's delivered by drone because anything longer is when it starts to cool down.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: So that was that was pretty cool.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing, man.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I love the future.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: What so what's the radius?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I'd imagine you can't do like 25 miles, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Is there like a certain, do I need to be within a certain distance from a Papa John's or a Kroger?
9:39
SPEAKER_02: So we fly five miles out, five miles back.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we do pace it, we go in stages because it's a lot of people as the crow flies that distance, and you don't want to have like too many orders coming in.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: But what's interesting, and the reason why I picked Kroger to go after was because within three miles of every Kroger, you reach 100 million people.
10:02
SPEAKER_02: So a third of the US population is living within a very comfortable drone distance of a Kroger or Kroger brand store.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: So that's why it was so important because Walmart might have more locations, but they're usually like in an industrial area or like on a side of a highway.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: The Kroger stores are right in your neighborhood.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: They are right there in the action, and that's the best uh case for drone delivery.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: How how many deliveries can a drone generally make in a day?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's there's obviously like limitations, or can it actually do more than one order?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Is there weight constraints?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, tell me a bit about how these things work.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: So we have two aircraft.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: The first aircraft that got certified by the FAA carries five pounds, our next aircraft carries 20 pounds.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: And um it's what other constraints or uh what other questions can you?
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I usually don't.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: There were so many questions in that question.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Um is there a weight limit?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: How many orders can you do at once?
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And generally, how many orders can one drone do in a day?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: 100 million people is a lot of houses.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh right.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: So our drones do four deliveries an hour.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: So we assume 15 minutes to get there and back.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: We are working on what we call hyper utilization, and it's a form of physical AI software that we're developing that will start thinking about routes so that that 20-pound drone, it might not carry a 20-pound payload, it might carry four or five-pound payloads and start to do, you know, all the routing and all the planning that trucks do on the ground.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And this is something that we're actively building.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: But the interesting thing about our drones is that because we're an airline, we actually have a part 135 from uh the FAA.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: We're allowed to fly remote and they want us to fly like air traffic controllers.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: Nobody has there are no sticks on our aircraft, it's fully autonomous.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: And they are working to get to the multiple uh aircraft per single pilot.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: That's where you really start to see drone delivery show its strength because you have one person who could be doesn't have to go to college, doesn't have to have an advanced degree that can be watching on a screen and up to 40 different aircraft flying.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: And there's never been anything like that in logistics.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: So that's where you're really gonna see the this start picking up a lot.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Not yet, at least.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: So that's interesting.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: So companies like yours, like DEXA, you guys are building the infrastructure, and it's not only the aircraft that's obviously unmanned, it's it's also the uh the traffic control, the infrastructure around it to make sure these things aren't crashing into each other and ending up in somebody's backyard, right?
13:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh it's a huge ecosystem um that we're developing to make sure they communicate with each other, they communicate with the stores, they're watching the weather, they have cybersecurity on board.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: There's so many different aspects of engineering that go into drone delivery that the drone itself is really just one small part of it.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And the most interesting, right?
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: But the only way to fly is to follow the regulations.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: That's very important.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: We really we spent five years becoming an airline and getting the aircraft certified as airworthy.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: So we have built both certifications, and that there's only four of us in the country.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: It's Amazon, Google Wing, Zipline, and little S.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Europe there with some really big names.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: That is pretty cool.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: So the the Kruger Kroger team, for example, are they your employees on the ground who are loading these packages, or do you train that team on how to help these things take off?
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you always have boots on the ground or do they lease these from you?
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is what does it look like to load these things up and get them ready to go airbound?
14:18
SPEAKER_02: So we own all the aircraft.
14:20
SPEAKER_02: We don't ever sell our aircraft.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: We're starting to do some defense uh selling aircraft, but really they're just ours.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: They pay a per delivery fee, just like we were any other delivery option available to them.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: And right now, today, we still load the package, but we are with our next, I can't say who they are, but our next customer that's going live, they want to load it themselves, their people.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: So that's something that we're working on them with.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: So we eventually want to be no boots on the ground.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like that.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't mind, can you describe to me the just the experience through Kroger for argument's sake?
14:59
SPEAKER_00: We can do Papa John's, whatever is easier.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: But like I am I'm a customer.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting at my home and I'm like, man, I love their Supreme Pizza.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: So I would go on my phone.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it look like that they do they choose to deliver via drone, or Papa John just knows it's within five miles?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, it's coming to your front door.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: So it depends on the customer.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: Some customers of ours want them to select drone delivery, others do it based on, you know, the amount, the cost of the order they assume that might give them an idea of the size, you know.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: So if it's too much money, it's probably not gonna fit on the aircraft.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: There's every like every customer we work with has their own way of letting the customer choose.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: But once they choose it, they have the same tracking.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: You see the drone still coming in.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: One thing we really want to add eventually, and we don't do it now because people are still scared of a little bit scared of surveillance, but we'd love to have our tracker, because it's so fast, show the actual video of the drone flying and actually see it going across across your neighborhood.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: We think could be a really fun thing to show everybody who's watching because the delivery is so fast, they're going to watch it.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: So I would I watched a piece of tracker at Domino, so I would definitely watch this.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite shows is Aerial America.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever watched it, it's beautiful sights shut from drones.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I could see that being a really fun feature to add in.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Privacy is another thing, I get it.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: So maybe not in the near future, but Beth, you're the right person to figure this out.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: The first thing we're gonna do though is take a picture.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: So when you're on the ground with your family and getting a drone delivery, you'll see a picture of the aircraft having completed the delivery, just like Amazon.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: That we think is gonna be something people will be excited about.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Also, so I I read recently Amazon, I think it was Amazon drones.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: They it's crazy.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: They're taking the packages.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: I saw a video and they're dropping it from 10 feet because they're not allowed to go lower.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: If I'm getting a pizza and groceries, sounds like a long way to drop my bag of oranges.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So, like, do you put it on my doorstep?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to go out and catch it with a baseball glove?
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, how does how does that work?
17:21
SPEAKER_02: So we have both.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: We drop or we have a winch that actually lowers it the rest of the way with a string.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: I think Amazon just drops.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we come down to this around 15 feet, and then we lower the rest of the way with a string and place it where it's safest on the ground in front of your house.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: And we were pretty accurate.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you can even change it.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: You could say, I don't want it in my front yard, I want it left in my backyard, and it'll change that for you.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: But the really cool thing about drones is if you're doing one delivery at a time, you don't need an address anymore.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: So, Uber, you know, can you imagine using Uber if you had to put in an address of where you're standing?
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Like you would never use it.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: But all of that technology is available already.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: So why are we still having to tell DoorDash or Amazon or anybody where we are to do a delivery?
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's because trucks need routing software.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: They need to be able to know how to plan a route.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: If you're doing one delivery at a time, that means we deliver to you where you are, where your phone is.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: So if you're at a hotel, it just knows you're at that hotel.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: If you're at a kid's soccer game and you're outside on the lawn and you're like, man, I forgot to get a water, I'm dying here.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: It can come to the park where you are.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: It's that's the real transformative piece that it's gonna break that link to an address because who needs an address anymore?
18:48
SPEAKER_02: You only needed an address because you needed a fixed endpoint to be able to write software around, but you don't need that anymore.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: So that could be, you know, that people will never go back.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: They will never go back to being like going into Starbucks and being like, is this where I am?
19:03
SPEAKER_02: Which store am I?
19:04
SPEAKER_02: It's just gonna know exactly which Starbucks is closest to you.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna pick it, it's gonna go.
19:11
SPEAKER_02: And you know, for New York, everybody asks how this will work in New York.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: And I always say, like, it's there's gonna be receptacles on certain corners, and you're gonna be walking down the street, order your Starbucks, and it's gonna say, meet the drone.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be at the corner of 35th and 3rd, and there'll be a locker there.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: You go in, you grab your coffee and you go.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and to your point, too, they already do it with Uber or Lyft when I land in a city at an airport.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not, they're not picking me up right out of the terminal.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: I gotta walk, you know, walk to this point and go meet your driver.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: So why wouldn't it work the same way for delivery?
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exciting.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: A lot of a lot of fun things are gonna happen.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: You're out of cutting edge, that's really neat.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: So, to talk about last mile delivery, you're you're working with Kroger.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Have you done any e-commerce or like have you thought about what it looks like to work if you were to get Amazon's business, for example?
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is there any difference between what you're doing now with in the grocery and food space that couldn't be done with Beauty, Sephora, Ulta, or any of these other uh big box stores for lack of a better term?
20:17
SPEAKER_02: It can work with anything.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we even are working with one big customer that's a home improvement um store.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And for these stores, I mean, we uh, you know, I this is our mission.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: We are really a mission-driven company because I have watched, we all have, Amazon just destroy retail.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and one of the ones that got destroyed was Macy's, and Macy's was a huge store, especially for New Yorkers.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Like, and they sponsor the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: They sponsor, right?
20:49
SPEAKER_02: They sponsor the Fourth of July fireworks.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: That's what community-based brick and mortar stores would do.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: They give back to the communities that they're in.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Amazon has never done that and will never do it.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: And we are choosing less quality stuff from Amazon just because we get it in two days.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: So now they're pushing into grocery, and that's really scary for me and everybody else.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: I do not want to know what an Amazon basics tomato tastes like.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: I really know it's coming, it's gonna be from China, it's gonna be grown in simulated soil, it's gonna be however cheap you can possibly make it.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: So I feel like grocery is the next one that if they don't get the ability to start delivering, they're to the next to go.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: Same as Ulta, same as every other form of retail that's out there.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: So drone delivery is finally going to give our local stores a fighting chance.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna say, for$5, you can get a delivery within 15 minutes from your favorite stores where the quality is.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's what we're hoping to see is like it's gonna claw that back from those online retailers.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's sad to have watched what we we don't realize it until you say it out loud.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: But you know, Kroger, the local markets, local stores, they sponsor the Little League.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: They're the ones who sponsor the high school band.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: They give us kids summer jobs and our friends jobs.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: They eat at our restaurants.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: All their employees feed, you know, eat at local restaurants.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: So every dollar you spend in a local store, brick and mortar, big or small, 63 cents stays in your community.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: We really want to keep giving, keeping that money there, whether it's a giant store or whether it's even your local friend, we need to have those dollars spent locally and stop this online destruction of everything that you know we hold dear.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: So I like to use the example of like a toaster.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: Like if you wanted a toaster, your toaster breaks, you're like, uh, you go on Amazon, you're gonna buy the Amazon Basics toaster.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: You know it's gonna be in a landfill in six months.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: You know it's probably terrible.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: It's created in a sweatshop, and you know your your gut is telling you, uh, I'm buying this thing.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: There's a Williams Sonoma in your town, probably a mile, maybe two miles away, that's got the better quality product.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: We just don't do it because of delivery.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: So now those stores, those quality stores, their reputation depends on it.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: They're local stores, you know who they are.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to support them by walking in and delivery.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: Like, boom, like that is where you're gonna see this really spur that, you know, innovation and that American ingenuity.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna see all different kinds of stores come back, you know, the cheese store, the, you know, the butcher, you name it, all the farmers markets.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: I was just talking to somebody who worked here, their family ran a farm, and they're like, we just couldn't get our product to people, yeah, and how how hard that is.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: And now you can get that.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: So you can just get the vegetables you need when you need them from a fresh from the farm.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Like that sounds pretty cool to me.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, it's empowering and it brings back something that's it's to your point, it's almost getting wiped away.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like Long Island, King Cullen, and different uh grocery stores like that, when Walmart superstores came in and they they really ate up uh that community, and those things became less and less.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And I've read different studies that consumers are willing to spend more for the convenience of getting it same day within two days.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: So essentially what you're doing is you're you're liberating these small businesses to have the ability to compete with some of these big guys and be able to offer products same day, next day delivery as long as like it's within a reasonable radius.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: So doing some really cool work, Beth.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty awesome.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, trying to change the change the world for the better.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: I say we're a technology that's finally going to bring us back together because most technology tears us apart.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can go all the way back.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: You can see air conditioning got people to start staying inside their houses, you know, even elevators started to build, you know, up into the skies.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: You didn't have the close little neighborhoods, cell phones, all of it, networking, Zoom, everything is like always finding a way to make it that we don't even shake hands anymore.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: And this is a technology that I feel is finally one that's gonna let our local communities thrive and start bringing you know us back out and back together again.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: So I love it.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: So it's not yeah, no, I don't think so.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: I think it takes wishful thinkers to actually make that happen.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: But you bring up some really good points.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: So in the current state we're at now, from an infrastructure level, like what's preventing you, if if money wasn't an issue, obviously, what's preventing you from rolling it out everywhere for to offering it to small and local businesses?
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Is there something missing with the infrastructure?
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Does the FAA regulations need to catch up to the technology?
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, can you discuss a little bit about the infrastructure and where it needs to go to?
26:08
SPEAKER_02: For us right now, we have all the certifications that we need.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: We have a federal license, so we can fly anywhere in the United States.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: What we're really trying to do is get to that one-to-many, one pilot to multiple aircraft and get it down where it's very precise, because then we can roll out everywhere and do it in a way that doesn't cost as much money.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: So right now we're rolling out, but it still costs uh money to do all of these integrations.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: So we're hoping to get to that point so it's a little cost effective.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: But the certifications are there, the capability is there, we're out there, it's just time to scale and show everybody what we can do.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's see.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: What role do partnerships with platforms like GrubHud and Wonder play in adoption?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Do these platforms promote that they have drone delivery and that they're they're your partners?
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Or are you is are you a nice addition?
27:04
SPEAKER_00: They don't really talk about no, they do.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: It was a pretty big announcement um when we went live in New Jersey, mostly because of the location, because nobody had had it, it was the first time in the Northeast that there was drone delivery.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: But um, they do because for Wonder, their stores are offering delivery for free.
27:23
SPEAKER_02: So they're losing money on deliveries, they're looking for better delivery methods and ones that don't impact the quality of the food.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: So it's not that this is going to take away jobs.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: The jobs are just gonna shift the people that monitor and work with these aircraft.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: But it's very difficult for a lot of brands who spend millions of dollars on the brand, on the customer experience, to just put it in the hands of a stranger who does whatever he wants with it for 10 minutes until it gets to your house.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Like that is a very hard pill for a lot of these stores to swallow.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: So they are really looking to partner with delivery methods that get it as close as possible to them putting it into their customers' hand because that's that's the ultimate goal.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: That's the best that there is.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: And there really is nothing like drone delivery.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: Autonomous technology on the ground, I'm a big supporter of it too, but it still has traffic.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: It still has, you know, things that can slow it down.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: And those things that slow it down affect the quality of the food.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: But drones rise above all of that, and it's really going to be, I think, the solution for food going forward.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: Because once you get it, you know, I mean, I every time I see one of those stickers on a bag that I get from delivery, you know, the store put it there so the driver would not eat your food or stick his fingers in there or do something.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they did a poll once a few years ago, something like 30% of gig workers uh admit to eating the food, uh, eating some food.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: And that's the ones who admit it.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: So I I understand that a lot of people want to make sure that when it left the store, it wasn't touched, nobody was like smoking a cigarette in the car.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Like there's a lot of things that will make it much better.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And as a relocated Yankee, I support anything that uh decongests the highways, even autonomous vehicles.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: There's certainly a place for it.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: But um, to your point earlier, getting the ability to move around and actually drive through New York City without bumper to bumper traffic would be wonderful.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So to talk a little bit about Dexa, so what does what does a company need to have in place to work with a company like yours?
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Do you work with any just big brands?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Is it only big box stores and kind of what what would it look like if we got in a relationship?
29:48
SPEAKER_02: So we work with a lot of different stores.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: We've worked from the biggest to the smallest.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, the smallest definitely have taught us a lot more because they really led us into everything, and they're the most excited for how they can help, how they can use their people in the store to make it better, how they can add something to the building to make it that the drones will be able to charge faster.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh, big stores do too, but they do it at a much slower pace because there are millions of different groups, and there's one group that handles the physical store building, and then there's another group that handles the API integration, and getting all these groups sometimes are is a little tough.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: So the smaller stores definitely are the ones that we really get to learn the most from.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: But anybody who wants to work with us, they can always contact us.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: We even do just demos sometimes to even test the aircraft and try to deliver something new.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: So we have um where our doors, we always say we're always open for business to try to hear ideas and what people think about.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, we've we've had a ton of different crazy ideas of what people want to deliver, and we love all of them.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, anybody can show up and we will become just another delivery service for them.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty amazing.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh last question on the business.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: So, how do you guys ensure safety, compliance, and reliability within your operations?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Is there are there um there's probably a lot that goes into it?
31:18
SPEAKER_00: How do you make sure a consumer doesn't lose a finger or somebody getting these things off the ground doesn't have any issues?
31:23
SPEAKER_02: So that's where all the regulations come in.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, being an operator to be a airline, a domestic air carrier license, you need that in order to fly cargo for compensation.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: And what that means is all of our pilots have undergone drug and alcohol testing.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: They have all medical certification, that they're not gonna, you know, have a medical issue that'll stop them from being able to work.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: And they all have to go through our training program, which is pretty robust, and our maintenance program for the aircraft.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: So how the air, so imagine Delta Airlines has the same process.
31:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, those things make sure that anybody operating or working in the space is secure, um, is trained and knowledgeable to how to do this safely.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: And then on the aircraft side, we had to go through an airworthiness certificate, which was five years of every single component vetting, every single part.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: We're American made through and through, which is like every single component except for two, which are allied countries.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: But you never have anything like that other than in aviation where it's so important.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: So manned aviation today is the safest form of travel, and it's because of all of these regulations.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: So we have to we have the same exact regulations and unmanned, except we don't even have the pilot.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: And most incidents in modern aviation today are either become because of the pilot or somebody on the ground, a person.
32:50
SPEAKER_02: So we without having any human element, we're gonna be even safer.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: So that's how we make sure that these things don't happen.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: We do, I know everybody asks me, well, what happens if somebody shoots at this thing?
33:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh I've heard stories.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we are a protected class, just like a helicopter, a rotor craft.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: So if you do shoot at this, it's a federal crime.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: So you get to go to federal prison.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: So we have cameras on board, we will know exactly where it came from and what happened.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: We will give that video over to the police, and I think it will be one of those things that somebody will do maybe once, and it'll never happen again.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: Because these are pretty big.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: If you are messing with this aircraft, you could really kill somebody if you really are trying to damage it.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: So it should be taken seriously.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: But other than that, as far as our operations are concerned, it's the safest form of uh delivery there is.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Pretty awesome.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: NFA has been around for a while.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm not surprised.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: If there's this is probably the safest uh era to be able to fly into be in aviation.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned it, I just I gotta ask now, how big and heavy are these things?
34:06
SPEAKER_02: So our aircraft total takeoff weight um with a five-pound payload is still only around 25 pounds, the whole aircraft.
34:15
SPEAKER_02: The aircraft itself is very light.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: I can walk, I walk around in the office with one hand carrying it.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: It's really the battery that's that's the heaviest.
34:23
SPEAKER_02: We have a six-pound battery on board the aircraft, and then a five-pound payload of whatever we're delivering.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: But with our certificate, we can fly much bigger aircraft.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: They just haven't been created yet, but someday they will.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: And our license to fly unmanned is how you get there, how you get to fly those bigger aircraft.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: It's not a drone operator license, it's an unmanned license.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't even care if it's electric, it could be a gas-powered bigger aircraft.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think a lot of people understand that, but that's that's how vital this certificate is and how rare it is that we have it.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh so many verticals you can enter as you get heavier and heavier.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that I think 70% of last mile deliveries are five pounds and under.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So you're starting off with a pretty good, a pretty good niche to to build, develop, and to figure it out.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Amazon said 86% of all of their deliveries are under five pounds, which is incredible.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: And we all get them.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: We all get those little bags, everything looks light.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Guilty for sure.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, Beth, thank you so much for coming on the show.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I have learned so much.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: I have a tradition here.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we like to ask the future of e-commerce and technology.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: So turn over to you.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: In the next three to five years, where do you see drones filling the last mile delivery?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: And if you had a crystal ball, what what do you think is gonna happen?
35:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I live 10 years ahead of where I am.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: I always say I am not a futurist, I just refuse to accept the present.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: And I truly believe that these aircraft are gonna be just everywhere.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And in two, three years, you're gonna be everyone's gonna probably have had a drone delivery and have constant drone deliveries.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: But what really gets me in the next five years is you're gonna see robotic robots start to work together because that's something that you can't do today.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Like DoorDash will never hand off to an Uber Eats person.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: Even if they would, how would that even coordinate?
36:21
SPEAKER_02: You'd have one guy waiting and another guy, how would they make sure they're at the same place?
36:26
SPEAKER_02: Drones and robotics, they cut through all of that.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna see drones handing off to robots on the ground, those little robots that'll take it farther.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: Drones can even drop it on a un, you know, an autonomous tractor trailer that'll take those.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: You they might even be open as they're driving down, and packages will be coming in.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: You'll be able to see apartment buildings, skyscrapers.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: They'll not only have a doorman, but now they'll have the robot for the building that'll know all the apartments and it'll know the whole who lives on what floor.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: So as deliveries are coming in, it'll know to go outside, get it from the drone, bring it in and go upstairs and leave it right in front of your front door.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: That is where you I get really excited to see how that's gonna shine because that is really what we need.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: We need to be able to time these things and just work in this ecosystem of robotics.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: So that's where I see us being in five years.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: It might be 10 years, but I'm hoping that you know, once those first drones start getting out there, it's just gonna be again, it's gonna be just another revolution of physical AI and all these ideas.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: And man, I can't wait to see it.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't wait to see it either.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: And man, why the picture you're painting sounds really exciting.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: I read a lot of sci-fi novels, so uh if if it does come true, you heard it here first.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Beth, thanks again.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Before I let you go, uh could you let our listeners know where they can find you and anything else you'd like to share?
38:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can go to our website.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: It's flydexa.com.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: And we're very active on LinkedIn and YouTube and even Instagram.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: And I personally have an Instagram too, where I'm trying to give some behind the scenes where I go in and show all the stuff about how the drones are made.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: So Beth.flippo, you can even follow me.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: And we we're we love to show off everything that we're doing here.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, Beth, thanks for sharing.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming on the show.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Just so all listeners know, the links will be in the show notes.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: So you can check out Instagram, LinkedIn, or wherever you're ingesting your media and connect with Beth and follow her.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And this journey is a really exciting cutting-edge technology.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Beth, once again, thanks for being on Selling on Giants.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Catch you next time.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: That wraps up today's episode of Selling on Giants with Beth Flipo.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Drone delivery is one of those innovations that feels futuristic until you realize it is already happening.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: The bigger takeaway is not just the technology, but what it unlocks for businesses and communities.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Faster delivery, more efficient logistics, and the ability for local retailers to compete in ways that were never possible before.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: If you are in the Green Book, New Jersey area, Beth mentioned you can actually try this today through their partnership with Wonder and Grubhub.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: To learn more, check out DEXA in the show notes.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: If you found this episode helpful, please like, follow, and subscribe wherever you're listening in.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: It helps more operators find the show and keeps the conversation going.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on Selling on Giants.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: This is Mr.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Will signing off.