Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 101 - Drone Tech Built in America

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Ep. 101 - Drone Tech Built in America · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Because it's always so hard, right?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I've talked to young entrepreneurs and I even contemplate it myself Like what, what's the right choice?
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: How much do you go raise?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: What are you going after?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: And I think it's wise to in that point, I haven't really thought about that but your innovation level, your team, your, your basically your tribe mentality and connection to innovate quickly, go to market quick, do the right things when you get past that, that threshold of those hundred folks.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: All right, it's great to be back here again on the show.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Are we ready to go?
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go, man, let's do it All right?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Well, we've been talking here this morning about the idiocy of boomers like me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: That's how we kick this thing off.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Well, just for the record, you're the one that said that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Like Vladimir told me, none of us said anything about that man as a boomer.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: You're talking about boomers.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Just make sure everybody in the audience knows that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I just speak the truth and I repeat what my 14-year-old tells me.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Which is what that?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a boomer.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: We don't know anything.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: They put us in our place, that's right, but anyway, no, we're here today We've got a special guest with us Long distance Tobin Fisher, and then we also have Vladimir Goforth.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Both of these guys are with Vantage Robotics.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Tobin is one of the founders and Vlad is in charge of marketing.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I guess or sales, sales, sales it's all the same thing, right?
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: yeah, oh, yeah it ties, it ties in together.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: I definitely feel like whenever we're, we're doing our work, that's a lot of it is tying those two together and making it happen.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Somebody's got to get the order right.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: And we want the POs Normally in those emails these days are saying looking forward to that PO back.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Well, you guys have a very interesting company, why don't you?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, before we get started, yes, I was just waiting.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: This is another episode of Big Talk about small business.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Tobin, how professional was that.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: That was pretty incredible.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: That was pretty good.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So tell us, though, tobin, tell us about this business.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: What all do you do?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: How did you get into it?
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: We make drones and enabling components and ground system for drones.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: We for first responders, national security and critical infrastructure inspections.
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: We have been in business now for 11 years Wow.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: I founded the company December 24th 2013, which my wife loved that I was handling a corporation on Christmas Eve.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Was it little Christmas at your house, Did you say like don't spend too much this year.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: This Christmas it's all about Tobin.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: We're going to need all the money we got.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So that's been.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: You said December 13th.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: December 24th.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Of 13,.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: It was 2013?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Where was this at December 24th?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: December 24th, I mean, of 13.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was 2013.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So where's the?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Where were you?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Where was this at?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Where did you find?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: What area were you?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Did you found it at?
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: San Francisco Bay Area, so I think it was probably my kitchen table.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, those businesses are founded from and yeah, we now are in.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: San Leandro is the midpoint between uh, my house in san francisco and my co-founder's house in uh in south bay, nice.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So what motivated you to start this business?
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: you know it's a combination of factors.
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know I've always had a fascination with flying things and you know my background is mechanical engineering.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: But I started a software company that did fairly well and it seemed like a chance to continue mechanical engineering, which is near and dear to my heart and I love and software.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: And you know I also work for a company called IDEO that is, you know, sort of one of the best design consultancies in the country and very close ties with Apple and very good at making those really refined consumer experiences and very good at making those really refined consumer experiences.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: And I saw a real opportunity when I got into it that drones were this kind of nerdy hobby tech that clearly had potential well beyond that nerdy hobby tech and felt like I had the right experience and skill set to take it there.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: It seemed like an exciting challenge.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: So you're kind of in the obviously the software side of things professionally but on the hardware side of things with your mechanical engineering previous to your software, like that was your studies, mechanical engineering.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I also started a micro fuel cell company.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: So I've got a bit of experience making physical things as well and designing them at IDEO and multiple degrees.
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: So some experience in that front as well.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: But you know I've always enjoyed the multi, multi-discipline challenges.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I think I went through five majors before circling back to mechanical engineering yeah, yeah, it's cool, and drones is like a perfect and robotics obviously perfect area to bring all those things together and then where you're located, obviously there's a lot of fuel to that.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of talent out there, yeah, a lot of talent.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: It's an unreal place to do innovation.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: It's an expensive place to live, but a great place to innovate.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially in today's time.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I mean it's even getting more like that right With AI and everything that's going on.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yes so when you started this business, were you thinking that you were predominantly going to go after a government client base, which it, as an entrepreneur, has always been?
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: try to have a positive impact on the world and make the biggest impact you can, and you know I've been very flexible as far as where that is and how that's done.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: But you know, initially we actually started out a consumer and, you know, saw ourselves very much as a creative tool and you know we considered a wide range of possible applications at the outset, you know, looked into farming applications, looked into law enforcement, defense and ultimately decided that those markets were too nascent for us.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: The consumer was going to be the first adopter and so the approach we took is went around, basically asked everyone I knew.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: When I saw them, I said show me your favorite picture, show me your favorite video that means the most to you and tell me about it.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: And everyone was showing me pictures of, you know, their kids and their recent birthday party and their engagement and, uh, and my thinking was let's make a drone that can make those pictures better and create something that will be effective and useful in social settings which didn't exist.
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: Uh, and so we set out to create a product that you know solved the sort of issues.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: It was, you know, easily portable and quiet and safe and, uh, and easy to use.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: And you know we were.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: I think we distinguish ourselves in that we were one of the only companies who actually did what they set out to do.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: This was a time when everyone and their brother was saying I'm going to start a drone company to do something amazing.
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: A lot of pretty notable failures.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: A lot of people like ourselves discovered it's really really hard, and one of the things we learned along the way, in addition to very, very steady stream of humility, was that while what we did was valued in the consumer space, those innovations were much more highly valued elsewhere, and so you know, the first pivot we made was really initiated when CNN contacted us and they said, hey, we're looking for a drone that we can fly illegally over people, and currently that's not possible.
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: Specifically, the frangible design of our drone, and so we ended up working with the FAA and CNN to demonstrate the safety of our drone.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: In the process, we created a lot of what's currently the method of testing the safety of drones, so some innovations there as well.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: But it ended up getting the first broad waiver in history for commercial flight over crowds of non-participants, which launched a transition into the most terrifying business you could ever be in of having a very high-tech, cutting-edge product flying over lots of people.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: But we were successful at that, and then that is what really got our foot in the door with government customers when that market started to develop for small drones.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, Tobin, real quick.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: What year was that?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: When CNN, when you did that flight over the crowd, you remember?
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was 2017, if that serves correct, maybe 2016 was the first I think it was we got the waiver.
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: 2017 was when you know the CNN was using it broadly.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because, like and I think that's important because the context, like when I've recognized what you're talking about because there's been, there's a lot of regulations related to these drones.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, in my experience, which is watching it from a retail perspective, like you know, delivery and stuff like that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Obviously those regulations have been opened up more since that time, but back when you're talking about it was a lot of regulation to prevent bad things from happening.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Obviously, but that's pretty a landmark scenario.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I just want to point that out.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: In that time period that you got that it's a big deal.
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we were excited.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: It was certainly an honor for us and uh meaningful to get to you know.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: Feel like we can move the needle on uh in a pretty, pretty major national level regulated impacted the whole industry.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Clearly it did it.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It basically opened it up significantly, I would for a lot of competitors too.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: At the same time right.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and you might appreciate that the backstory is a fun story where we our office at the time was on top of a Home Depot and the FAA was really stuck on this idea that safety was measured in joules in kinetic energy, and so they had this number I think it was 14.7 joules was what determined whether a drone was a threat or not, and no one really knew where that number came from or why that was the number, but everyone was like this is the number, 14.7 joules.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: And so I ended up digging around, discovering that it was actually based on a study from the 1940s on battlefield shrapnel and the lethality of battlefield shrapnel, and then noted as well that there are similar studies for non-lethal ballistics munitions, and for those studies, the, the numbers 300 joules.
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: And there are also studies on vehicles hitting pedestrians, and for that number, the, for that those studies, the number is 30,000 joules, and you might point to that because you look at the wrong number, this.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: You know this isn't really a measure of safety.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: And in order to prove this point to them, we got a piece of EPS insulation foam from the Home Depot we were conveniently on top of and we went to the top of our building and we dropped various objects on the drone, on the foam, and then we both took pictures of the impact craters as well as we made measurements on them.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: What's the total area displaced?
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: What's the peak depth?
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: We translated that into physics-based measurements and then translate that into medical studies of what's the risk of skull fracture, what's the risk of cranial vertebrae fracture, and compare dropping shrapnel-like stuff with our drone with other objects.
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: And that was ultimately not only the basis of our approval, but also became the at least last I heard the ASTM standard for evaluating safety of drones.
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: At the time, everyone was trying to drop drones in the heads of crash test dummies, but they were really expensive.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: Depending on where it hit in the head of the dummy, you get totally different results, and so it ended up being an effective innovation, as you said, kind of paving the way for other drone companies to evaluate the safety of their drones using a $15 piece of foam from Home Depot instead of a $250,000 crash test.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Well, this is pure entrepreneurism right To challenge old rules, right and old concepts.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we do.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: You know, why wouldn't we Right exactly.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, and one thing I think with Tobin is, regardless of what people think it did for our competitors, it's good for the industry.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you opened it up Rising tides raise all ships.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: That's right, and that's what we want.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: We don't want to make anyone feel like they're not allowed to succeed in the industry.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: You deserve to succeed just as much as Mark me, tobin, everybody.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: So I think that that innovation and I think collaboration between companies in the United States is necessary.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: I think we have a lot of people just saying we're on this side, we're on this side, we're going to go head to head.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: When you look at a lot of other countries, that's not really the case.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: They collaborate internally and make better products.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: We're seeing that out of China right now.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: So that's fair.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: That is happening a lot in China, right now and keeping up here?
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: obviously we pay people here good wages to live.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: We can't really keep up if it's a different kind of government that is.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Propping them up, basically and basically getting you know, 10 engineers for the cost of our one here.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: And so that makes it difficult to keep up, but I feel like we're doing a dang good job.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you make your drones here in the U S?
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: yes, yeah, interesting and fully compliant NDA compliant, which is the national defense authorization act here in the United States.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: We're fully compliant with that, as well as a blue UAS and green UAS list.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: So it clears a lot of that red tape for a lot of the departments and agencies we're selling to.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: So it makes procurement of our drones a lot easier, so you can use grant money, federal funds, a lot of things like that, and you know we're proud to be able to build these things in America and not source parts from other countries.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: I think I think it's important.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So you actually all the parts are manufactured in the U?
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: S and almost all of them there's little things like the, uh, the motors and things like that.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: That can be from other countries, but as far as the transmission and the camera, those are all made in the United States, correct?
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: Oven.
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: We are NDAA compliant.
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: The final assembly all happens in the US.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: We do sometimes make PCBAs and other sub-assemblies in lower labor rate regions in order to keep the cost down value high.
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: So we work with partners in India and Taiwan as well.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And is everything assembled and brought all together in the United States?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: For sure, right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: It is when do you do that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: About 50 feet from me right now.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, san Leandro, california.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Nice yeah.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: And one thing that's really great about our company is, if you look at our price point for the drones that we make and their capabilities, we have the best price point as far as american manufacturers are going american eoms.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: So I just think that ultimately, you know, we are in a perfect position to really help public safety, law enforcement, our government.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Our price point is definitely one of the best and, with everything that's going on in the country where prices are going up, we're proud to keep it low.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: So right now, like your market that you're or your, your market you're really serving is, like you mentioned before, tobin the first responders, government organizations, and that's kind of where you are really leaned into right now at the moment.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: So before I came on, tobin and team had secured a lot of funding through the, through the government, for you know, developing drones for the army.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: And you know, that you know, closer to that $50 million mark and above at this point, now that I'm on board and we're doing more public safety.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: I actually just got back into town last night from about a two-week roadshow where we went to different states.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: I started in West Texas, closer to Austin and Burnett, texas.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: I worked with Texas DPS and a lot of the guys that are working on the border down there, moved into Louisiana.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Then we met with over 40 agencies in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge two weeks ago, and then we proceeded to Nashville where we met about 25 more agencies, and then we went to West Virginia, virginia, and then I flew out of Washington DC last night to be here and each one of those stops we were just seeing sheriff's offices, state police, police departments and emergency management, fire departments, you name it.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: If we had the contacts and we invited them, they showed up.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: I can't tell you how many captains we had show up and say why do we not have this kind of equipment in our department right now?
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: And obviously you have certain things in certain parts of the country Regulations, like Nashville the metropolitan police actually cannot use drones because there's a law in place there where you cannot use aerial drones to watch people, and you know that just takes time for those things to change.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: Ultimately it would be safer for the city if that were to change, but we just have to work with what we've got right now.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Sounds a lot like reminds me of the alcohol industry right, where every county and every city has got a certain law right.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: There's distribution, I mean, there's just that's a little bit of a.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It's a significant challenge to scale out your business, but you guys are fighting it and making that change and we have to.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: We got to pivot fast, man.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Our competitors are moving fast competitors being not necessarily your product competitors, but you're talking about the solution well, ultimately we're up against a lot of different things.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: The biggest elephant in the room for us is a company called dji.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Out of china.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: They make amazing drums and because of where they are in the world, they can.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: They can pump money into their business.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And they were a first mover on the consumer side of drones, wouldn't you say?
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: I would say so.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I would say so.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: They were a pretty early adopter and just because of their ability to innovate and create new technology and new drones very quickly, they have a pretty good strong you know pretty good strong hold on our, on our drone space here in the united states yeah, we have a lot of departments, too, that expect a certain standard now because of what they put out, but with legislation coming down, as you know, the security thing that's coming into america, they're being outlawed, essentially certain states the government can't use them anymore.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: But it's because they found that, you know, there was transmission going back to shenzhen and yeah videos, pictures, flight data, yep, all was being transmitted back and, wow, we, we can't allow that to happen because ultimately, now you know, the entire united states has been mapped and they have I mean they got they have tens of thousands of drones over here.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Man Tens of thousands.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But have they mapped out Antarctica yet?
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Probably, probably.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: They say there's aliens, I would say I would say they've got it all.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That's your next market Tobin I want to know what that is.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Tobin now, have you guys thought about going after the private sector in a B2B?
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Is that a consideration?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Or is it all government and institutional type clients that you are working with?
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: No, it very much is, and in two ways.
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: So you know there are three primary customers that we serve, so defense, first responders and critical infrastructure inspections.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: That last one is sort of the public-private domain, but that's certainly in the private industry.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: And then the other one is other drone companies.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: So the controller you have there Vision 2 controller, I can humbly say, is the best portable drone controller in the world today.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: I wonder what this was.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It's the most portable controller.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: You showed it is the just flat out best of portable drone controllers, and the thing that makes it the best is we were we're the only companies that have the technical sophistication to actually make a mobile computer from the ground up.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: The person running the program actually created the first Android tablet ever at Motorola, and that led us basically build the controller, choosing the right screen, choosing the right processor and making a really effective mobile computer, whereas everyone else is taking tablets and putting sticks around them.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: Uh, with the screen that's ever intended to be viewed outdoors an operating system, they don't control the really bulky, expensive piece of kind of cobbled together hardware, uh, and so we offer that to other drone companies and uh so this is your, this is your product, right here.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean your proprietary and it's metal, that's cool, that's serious man, Is it?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, magnesium controller that can handle all kinds of conditions.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: And when you talk about institutional military, I mean that's extremely important obviously I'm sure they like that have it on your pack, say, you have a velcro on this, you just strap it to your shoulder, yeah, and just go up a mountain, launch it and the drone's super light, with a battery on it.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: It's 2.2 pounds and our battery life right now you're getting 50 minutes out of that flight time.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: You know that's unheard of in the american space right now that is a very simple, looking cool sort of apple-esque design for a drone.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: It's high praise, thank you.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so is this.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: This is the two.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: These are the two products you'll be selling to the.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: We have three, so we also have a smaller drone than the one that you see there, but when we flew back in last night, my teammate needed it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: We're doing a demo at.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Fort Rucker in Alabama.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: Here's the small drone.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: So this is the small drum with the controller in the packaging there, and then I'll pull it out so you can see it yeah, it's literally 150 grams with the battery so it is a 150 gram drone with capabilities that actually surpass a lot of drones that weigh two kilograms.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: So it's uh, you know it'll fly over six kilometers away.
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: It can fly on high wind about 42 minute flight time.
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: Uh has a thermal camera on there as well as a 48 megapixel eo, all gimbal stabilized yeah can we arm that thing?
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: that's what I want I'm sorry, I mean it's, but it's's the what's the benefit?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Why would you want the bigger one?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Does it have more flight time?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I mean there's some specs to it Like it has a little bit more battery.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it all depends on what you're trying to do with it, right?
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: So we also have a lot of different attachments.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: So when we are doing our demos for the narcotics units, for the police departments, yesterday, we have shrouds that go around all of our drone props.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: So for this and the trace, so they can fly indoors, so we can clear houses and actually alleviate an officer having to go inside and risk their lives.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: So the drone can go in, you can clear a room based on the officer's standards.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: They're like.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: We have to be able to see it like this check that room, move forward, cause if they send a guy and he gets shot that's, that's not gonna work.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: You're saving lives with this technology.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: It is shrouds being like they protect the props, yeah, yeah from hitting hitting something.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, sir, prop cages.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: So right here, those right there yeah, that's, that's super that's like the coolest shroud I've ever seen in my life.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And it's also it works really well.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Like we were testing it through like busted up cars.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Like we were at a public safety training site yesterday and they had just crazy burn in tactical houses all this different stuff on site there and we were having to just fly it through whatever they asked us to.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: They're like this is how we use this stuff on a day-to-day basis.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: If we had it in our toolbox, show us if it can do it.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: And man, the drones performed really well.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Can a consumer, can an individual, buy any of your products?
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: They could technically Tobin.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: What do you have to say about that?
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: They're not our target customer Right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: So you know if someone wants to buy it we won't tell them no.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: But that said, a lot of what makes our product amazing for law enforcement and our defense customers doesn't make it that amazing for a consumer.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: So the fact that it's secure electronics and encrypted communications and a thermal camera probably is not the best value for them at the end of the day.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so from getting into the business side of it, your objective is you probably want to sell these for our listeners, right, the business economic.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: You most likely want to sell these in quantities.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: You most likely want to sell these in quantities.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And more of a host You're, more of a wholesale type of, or bulk seller of, your products, right, like?
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: You're not going to sell one off to a they're a solution provider.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: solution provider, that's what they are.
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: It's a solution provider.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: We do both.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: I hate that cliche, but it's true.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an integrated solution.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Who's interested in trying one to potentially buy 100.
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we do try to look for larger customers and work with folks who we can scale with.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned this infrastructure stuff public-private.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I worked in the engineering business my entire career, business, my entire career and I'm actually I'm also an owner and a firm based out there in California that's a structural engineering, earthquake disaster recovery firm, but that's.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really good market that I hadn't thought of.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: You know some of these larger engineering firms that are doing all kinds of inspection bridge inspections or dam inspections or parking structure inspections.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: There's like all kinds of inspection bridge inspections or dam inspections or parking structure inspections.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: There's like all kinds of applications for this thing.
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: A hundred percent, and you know DJI has really owned that market for a long time, and you know we're very grateful to the federal government, you know, who's provided us with about 22 million in R&D funding to sort to develop our tech to start to be able to compete with DGI.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: And then the current laws being passed this year it looks like DGI is going to be entirely banned in the US by the end of this year, and we're in a really nice spot in that we have this technology that was originally developed for defense customers but is very relevant to these engineering customers, and so we've been in the process now of advancing it for capabilities specific to them.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: One that we're really excited about is we actually, just last week, did our first flight where we were able to get what's called RTK GPS integrated on this trace drone.
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: Rtk GPS is what those customers want, so it basically gives us the ability to know within about a centimeter exactly where the drone is on the planet, so it can then take pictures that can be geo-registered precisely, create precise 3D models used for as-built engineering inspections.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: Create precise 3D models used for as-built engineering inspections but the idea of doing that in a drone that costs under $20,000 and weighs under 250 grams has been pretty unheard of up to this point.
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: So we'll be the first of its kind and there's a big, big potential for that for a variety of reasons.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: If you guys ever want to reach out to the hundred fastest growing architecture and engineering firms, we have our annual conference.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's wide group.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: You guys should really be in front of that audience.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think they'd be fascinated with this.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: I would love to have that conversation.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: I yes, please.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but did you?
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry You'll have no, no, you are.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're the main man of the show.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not the main man of the show.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Come on, Mark.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Like anytime, I try to say something.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: No, I'm just kidding there, All right.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: So, hey, one quick.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: I heard the word the, the, the controller, the drone, all that put together and a trace kit with training, all for close to $30,000.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: So we're, not robbing people at these departments.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: We know that they've been underserved.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: With technology it's now very accessible.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So to put that in some context, this comparative to a DJI right when you can go to a Best Buy or Walmart or something and you can buy it for 350 bucks To the listeners this is a whole different spectrum.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: It is Of what we're talking about obviously, and I want people to remember that when you buy DJI equipment, you are funding the problem.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: We do not need to help how they are treating their workers over there.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of us have traveled over there and seen Shenzhen and seen the way that people are worked.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: You don't want that for yourself, man.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: You don't want that.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: And if you support American, we are building this here with people here and trying to make it for users that work on the ground in the United States.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Obviously, we have a global base, but I truly you know I'm an immigrant man.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: I think supporting this country is very important.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: It's the best place I've ever lived.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: So just to add to the sort of us versus DGI comparison.
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: I think it's worth noting that, yes, you can buy.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: You can buy a drone for $30 on Amazon and, man, it's amazing what you can get for $30.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: It blows my mind that said it's not what we deliver, nor is a $350 drone.
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: What we deliver, you know what we deliver is more comparable to, say, the Matrice from DJI, which is getting closer to the $10,000 price point, and so you know you can buy a full trace system for about $10,000 as well.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: So you know we're getting close in terms of value competition with China.
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: You know, as Vlad says, they're a hard one to compete with because you know they have access to labor rates and you know willingness to.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: You know perhaps bend, environmental or you know other human rights ethics that we don't have.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: But we're in the motorcycle manufacturing business, and so we deal with this all the time.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I mean what we pay for our engines, you can buy a complete bike in China from China, for I mean it's just.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: There's just no way you can compete on price alone because, like you said, they know labor laws, no environmental regulations.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I mean it's just you know, and then maybe the government props it up on top of it.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about your business itself, though.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So here we are.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: We've got the ideal stage to have this incredibly successful growth spurt, with the buy American push and potentially your biggest competitor being thrown out of the market.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: That's a great opportunity for whoever owns this business.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: What's the ownership structure of this thing, and has that evolved?
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're, we're a C corp and we have we've raised about 25 million in private investment and so those investors obviously own a piece of the company as a result.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: That said, you know the you know we're very grateful for the relationship we have with our investors and so you know we're certainly able to steer the company in the way that we think is best have with our investors, and so you know we're certainly able to steer the company the way that we think is best and you know it's been, uh, a very, it's been a wonderful company to have the opportunity to work.
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: Uh, in that, you know, if it succeeds, uh, we'll certainly grateful for everyone that that helps, has helped along the way, but if we fail, uh, we'll nail ourselves to blame yeah you know, on that, I'm glad you brought that because I was thinking earlier, you know, as you were talking about the competitor being knocked out.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: You know you got government, there's funding coming on and all that To our audience who might be an entrepreneur or thinking about it.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Right, that's usually who our audiences are, right, they're trying to decide or they're trying to grow their business A lot of different folks.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: But you know, if I put myself in an entrepreneur, shoot, I'm like man, what a fantastic.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, what an advantage.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I mean that some folks might go.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Well, how lucky that is.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Right toby now.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: You see already smiling because but to make sure that there are listeners are clear, it is not an easy ride to get to your positioning opportunity that you're in right now.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I mean like it took lots of time, lots of energy.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you slogged it out for 12 years.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man you work.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Like you know, I love Sam Walton's quote right Like yeah, I'm an overnight success, 40 years in the making.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: Right Dang right.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Right, and I mean it is a hard road.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So can you talk about that a little bit, about like it sounds really great right now, but it's been a labor to get here, right, yeah, it reminds me of the quote the best part of being an entrepreneur is you get to work half days and you get to pick which 12 hours.
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, yeah, amen.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: That's a get to pick.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: You get to work half days and you get to pick which 12 hours.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly yeah that's a good one, right?
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: So the journey to get here toberon has been it's been, I mean, like man, you've been hammering at it for years, right?
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Lots of challenges and obstacles, and to be in this particular position uh, that is a fact and man holy.
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: I cannot think of a harder and worse time than the one-two punch of a global pandemic and a global supply chain crisis.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: We had our product that cost $250 that suddenly cost $400.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: We were redesigning our product practically on a monthly basis to try to figure out how to work around the latest chip that became unavailable, and that is a period of time that I do not care to ever relive.
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: It was my life, that is for sure.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Not that I want you to really relive it right now, but I mean for real, like what, what was that?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I mean likeive it right now, but I mean for real, like what was that?
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I mean like, how did you overcome?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, give our listeners some tips if they're going through a hard time in their business.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: What was maybe one or two things that you did to break through that time period?
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, a lot of it was just putting one foot in front of another, I must say, and not giving up.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Yes, probably the most important part.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: And then, I think, recognizing as well to you know that it's a marathon, not a sprint, and that you have to take care of your health.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: You know, I've always had a firm belief.
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: You know your own personal health and your family's health has to take priority over whatever you're doing at work, because if that's not intact, whatever you're doing at work is going to be short lived.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: What does that mean, though?
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Like taking care of your health, Because that's a pretty broad statement.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Like I mean, what are you?
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I made the joke about working 12 hour days.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: I don't work 12 hour days, about working 12 hour days?
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: I don't work 12 hour days.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: I actually try very hard to you know, I leave the office often by 4.30 so I can get home in time to go get on the water in the bay for an hour before dinner, and that just does wonders for my mental health and my ability to sleep well at night.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: That's usually my canary in the coal.
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: Mine is I'm not sleeping.
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: I recognize something is off the rails and I have to make a change, or it's, it's.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: It's unsustainable.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Get underwater in the Bay.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: On the water.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: On the water in the Bay kite surfing.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: Tobin's pretty, he's a he's.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: He's pretty athletic man, he's out there, okay, yeah so so I mean, but I'd like to kind of break that down a little bit, because what you're really saying if you're mountain biking, right, or what you need some physical exertion in business like to really kind of help, like I mean, that's important right To keep your stamina going.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: Whatever it does for you to clear your head, to connect with friends.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: But you know, what I've found is that the, you know, our brain is a muscle just like any other muscle in our body and you can overtrain it and you know when you do it's not going to perform.
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: I remember years and years ago I tried to do a marathon that was coming up soon by just doing the training program but taking out all the rest sections, and I nearly made it.
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: But I remember when I did the 22 mile run I did it really fast and then my legs just could not recover.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: And you discover that rest actually does matter and it matters just as much for your head.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: If you want your head to be performing as well as it can, you got to give it a break from time to time and take care of it.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Have you guys heard about this Dutch concept called Neksen?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: By chance, tell us about it.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: You do nothing.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Seriously, that's what it is, you're not going to meditate.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: You don't meditate, meditate, you just do nothing okay maybe you sit there and look out the window and drink your coffee, just but it's doing nixon.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: They believe in that yeah, it sounds like nixon, but um, anyway, I mean hey, just reading about this, so it's well along the lines of what you're saying, though you just give your brain a rest.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean like there's been you know, like I've read articles and stuff about where and I do this accidentally, but you just daydream, yeah, like you.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Just you float off Like you can.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I've seen people do it Like you just kind of stare off and you don't really even know what you're doing.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: I fall asleep when I do that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what happens when you get to be my age.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: You can just take naps anywhere.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Dude, I have a great story.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I was doing this biggest Tobin.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: You'll like this too.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: You're glad I was doing the biggest presentation in my life about I don't know 10 years ago.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: It was like huge opportunity for my company and I go and I drive for like all overall.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Not, I mean, I am just wasted, tired.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: You know, speaking I'm not taking care of yourself, but I get in this boardroom and there's like 20 people in this company judging my presentation about what I'm trying to pitch them and the owner of it, older guy.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I look over and I'm like literally the middle of my presentation.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: He's just over there knocked out, just sleeping, and then he'd wake up and he'd look at me in the eyes and he'd laugh at himself and he'd look around and then five minutes later he's passed back out.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But he thought it was the funniest thing that ever happened.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm just like, dude, everything's aligned for me, bro.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: And you're taking a nap.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: That's like Mark Zweig man.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised you're not taking a nap during our podcast.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I'm going to need one one today.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I woke up at three o'clock.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Talk about laying awake, telling your body there's something wrong.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: I was up, dude.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was drinking coffee by four.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Heck yeah, man but anyway the same, I'm gonna get a lot done early.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: And it's not because I, like, got hammered last night when the booze kicked in, or something I went to the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: other way around.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: You wake up at night I went to bed early and I barely drink, but no, that's interesting that you do that and you're able to do that, tobin, and I think that makes a lot of sense.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: So where do you go?
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: How long are you going to do this?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Do you have any big like exit strategy for this business?
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: What's the plan going forward, aside from growing in this market that you're in?
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah well, I love what I'm doing.
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: If I do it for the rest of my life, I'd call it a good life.
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: So you know, I'm certainly in no rush to get out.
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: That said, this isn't my company, you know.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: My job is I am a custodian, taking care of everyone else's piece of the company, and I have, at the end of the day, a responsibility that is certainly bigger than me.
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: We've had seven offers for acquisition to date.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: Not surprised, my way of approaching all of them has been the same of asking the question of if we were to be acquired, uh, you know.
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: A is it good for everyone who owns the shares in the company right now?
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: Uh, and b and this is an important one is, you know, can we do what we're currently doing more effectively under this new ownership, because that's the only way we'll be successful.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: For the acquirer, the deal will happen, uh, and, and it certainly will continue to take that approach as we look at new opportunities for acquisition.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: I think, as larger companies recognize that it would be perhaps useful to have a small drone strategy.
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: I think that we're a fairly natural acquisition target.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: There aren't many companies like us in the world, and so I think that's certainly a plausible exit.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: That said, I remember an investor of mine of ours saying you got to want to ring that bell referring to taking the company public, and you know that would be exciting.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: I'm certainly if that's, you know, ends up being the right path.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: It's a path I would.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: I would be thrilled to, thrilled to do, jeff.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Bullas 00,00,00 and a little bit of time.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I got two questions.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Number one so from our tell me, from I'm pointing towards you on this the our audience or listeners right, I mean as any entrepreneur have as a choice, you start up Bootstrap, right, you can go that method, raise capital.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Obviously, in your area, in the Bay area, there's a lot of capital raising going on, right, that's kind of more, I would say, that's more of the natural thing that happened, I mean.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: I'm just taking an assumption there.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if there's any yeah, what?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: what do you think like from you being a co-founder in this?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: When did you make that decision?
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Or was that an obvious thing from the get?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Go on what you were going to try to build, and do you think that what you're trying to do triggers that decision?
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: most likely, or is it more of a?
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: When you say decision, you're talking about raising.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like we need to go raise a lot of capital for this venture, or can we bootstrap it and retain equity?
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: What was yours based off?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: What's your perspective on that?
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I kind of the mental metaphor I have is making a business, is there's at least analogies to trying to cross a body of water?
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: You know, if you want to cross a puddle, you're going to just step across.
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: If you want to cross a little stream, or you know a river, you could swim across.
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: You know, if you want to cross a lake, you know, maybe you can make a little boat yourself and paddle across.
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: But if you want to cross an ocean or go around the world, you need to build a bigger boat and that's going to, you know, take more time, more money to do so.
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: And you know, I think in our case, and that usually requires investment at the end of the day, and I think in our case, and that usually requires investment at the end of the day, and I think in our case, it's worth noting that Russia, who makes nuclear submarines and manned spacecraft, has been unsuccessful making small drones.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: Huawei tried to make a small drone and failed.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: Gopro tried to make a small drone and failed.
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: Gopro tried to make a small drone and failed.
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: So we are, without a doubt, crossing an ocean, a really big ocean, a really hard ocean to cross, one of the technically most complex products ever, and so we do need to build a big boat to do so, and that requires money.
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: But I think that's the crux of the question.
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know, in theory you can, you can kind of make a you know boat piece at a time.
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know kind of the bootstrap method in some markets, but I don't think that ours really lends itself to that.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Especially in your market, right?
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: That is like you reckon, like it's just going to take time to engineer.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, so you and your co-founder, y'all knew that going into it.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: So it was like an obvious go get, we need to go raise capital, we need to support the time it's going to take, the money it's going to take.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: That's why you went on that journey.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: That said, one of the great things about being in the Bay Area is you get to know a lot of folks who have started other big successful companies, and one of the things I have seen is that the number I hear from most people is that once you go after about exceed 100 people in the company, it becomes a lot harder to innovate, and most founders I speak to have grown companies to.
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: You know thousands of people say that their favorite time, the company's most effective time, was in that 50 to 100 person range.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: And so you know, while I do recognize we have a big challenge and a hard challenge and that there's a minimum viable scale, I am a big believer in small teams and the power of small teams and creating a company that, can you know, built with people that are capable of doing more than the average person, working really closely together and being conservative in how much money we raise.
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: You know, one of the challenges if you raise $200, $300 million is you're really limited to a $3 billion, $4 billion exit in order to make a success.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: In our case, having been more conservative, I certainly would like to cross that billion dollar mark, but if we sell the company for $500, million I think a lot of investors would say they're happy to get the investment.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: That is a really good point, man.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I think that will give, because it's always so hard.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Right've talked to a young entrepreneur and I even contemplate it myself like what, what's the right choice?
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: How much do you go raise?
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: What are you going after?
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: And I think it's wise to in that point.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I haven't really thought about that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: But your innovation level, your team, you're, you're basically your tribe mentality and connection to innovate quickly, go to market quick, do the right things.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: When you get past that, that threshold of those hundred folks, it becomes money and a little bit bureaucratic and political.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: You know there's, there's other things that start becoming more precedent than than staying nimble in that.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So my other question, if I can ask so, vlad, how long have you worked with the company now?
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: So Tobin just brought me on a few months ago a few months ago.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: How did you learn so much so fast about this?
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: Well, I've been in the drone space for a while.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: I also have known about their company for a while, and it was just the right time.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: You know the the director position was open.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: I'm great at sales, I love Tobin and I love the team there.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: That's really one of the main reasons that I wanted to come over there was because of how they've constructed the team and the way that Tobin lets me work.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: So you know, when he brought me on it's, I'm not going to micromanage you.
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: You're going to, you're expected to do your work and you do it, and I love that because I just I know what it needs to be done.
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: I'm great at developing business.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Whenever I'm in this stage and he's just letting me move forward, Like I just got back in last night, we're doing this today and then we're going to be right back out again doing more demos in Arizona.
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: We have a huge one coming up in North Carolina and there's just a lot of good things happening for the company and we also, you know, big deals coming down the pipeline too for for military and international military as well.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: So we just things are really coming together in a very interesting way and I really love that he brought me on at the time that he did.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: It was a pivotal moment, especially for growth in the company, to really hit these markets hard, and it's, it's been a great ride so far.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: I love the team that I'm with, I love what we're doing and, like Mark you say, it's really easy to learn when you love what you do.
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: So I really love what I do, so whenever I I knew I was going to be selling these products and it was pretty easy for me to just sit down and learn learn exactly what they do.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: And even though I'm in sales, I love to fly.
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: I've had my part one of seven.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: You've got to.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's got to make you more effective when you actually understand how to use the product.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's where I started I mean that's such a key.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Do you love to fly the drones or fly in the airplanes to meetings?
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: I do both for sure, both for sure.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: I love meeting customers.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: So, as you know, I love getting out being you know, being extroverted just seeing the people that use these things.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: I love getting out and doing that.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: And then, you know, I love flying drones.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: It started my love for this started, you know, when I was taking them apart in the very beginning.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: You know, whenever I first found this technology I was just tinking around with it.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: And my guy, chris, at UVT, actually brought me on for my first drone position, and there is where I really just started to take these things apart, learn why they work, learn what's going on in these things that makes them do what they do, and from that point it really drove me into sales, business development and ultimately led me in some really solid positions that I can just really, you know, get out there and show people why this technology is necessary and why it can help it.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: There's no reason departments shouldn't have it.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I'm a big believer in generally in marketing.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: That makes the phone ring Okay, yeah, and the sales is a is sort of an afterthought in that environment.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: In your case, I can see why you've got to be able to really get face-to-face and demonstrate this stuff.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just too complicated to just sell it to somebody over the phone or whatever and people lie all the time.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of companies and, as Tobin said, in the American space we've had hundreds of companies start up and fail, and it's because they're trying to do what you're talking about sell over the phone.
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Tell people this is our spec sheet, buy it.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: A lot of people know you're full of crap if you do that, because the reality is we have to show up on site, show the departments how these work.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: They even we let them fly.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I had multiple captains of departments yesterday that I have pictures of them flying this equipment, and one of them it was his first time ever flying a drone.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: He flew it just fine.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: We did have to teach him, obviously, what the joysticks do, but he's played a video game before.
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: So he goes all right ascension, descension on the left stick, and then the right stick is my directional, actually moving forward, and then that knob right there with the left trigger is your gimbal, so you can control your camera just from right there and he flew it around for about 40 minutes, just tested it out, and we think we're going to have a sale with them in Virginia coming up pretty soon.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: So it's it's just one of those things where what I've learned is I can tell you about it or I can fly to you and let you freaking fly it.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so, and that's what really sells it for me.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: I'm not hiding, I love getting out, love showing people what our products can do, and I want people to really trust us and partner with us and give us an opportunity to show them why we're the better drone company.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Other than the fact that your market, your audience that you're talking to right now, right is some of the wonderful people on planet Earth, right in our country, right is some of the wonderful people on planet earth, right in our country, right, that are first responders, military, etc.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: The the fact is that they're what they all do has substantial responsibility, right?
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, like if you first responders, like if they don't have good equipment and it doesn't work and they don't know how to use it and it's not trained on it and it's not good product, it can put some people in some really bad positions.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: People die you can't mess up.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: For example, we just had a department in Tennessee that we're working with in Montgomery County.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: They were using our drones for search and rescue.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: Kids went missing in the woods.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: They couldn't find them, they just strolled off.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: It was freezing outside.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: They got the drones up up, set a search grid pattern up on our maps and the drone automatically sets a flight plan right, set the thermal camera to nadir straight down, flew it at 250 and they actually ended up finding the kids using our drones that's awesome so lives saved.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: And then, not to mention, yeah, you have other situations where, like, we just use the drones to clear house if they see that person with a gun and get him to stop before he shoots at an officer.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: That's another life, absolutely so any captain you talk to will tell you that any purchase.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a noble endeavor.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: You can feel good about what you're doing.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and it's I like.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: I like it and I think that's why it really drew me to the spaces.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: It does make a difference.
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: I do enjoy what I do and ultimately we're doing it at a price point that we're not price gouging our customers and we're building great relationships.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, it definitely helps sales and marketing If you have people that understand how to use the product and and and are passionate about it.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I mean I know that sounds so obvious, but then Harley Davidson just hired a new CEO who's never ridden a motorcycle and came out of the Pizza Hut chain and some other business I can't remember what it was and I mean I question that whether that's a smart thing to do.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Tobin can attest to this.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: This is happening in the drone industry right now.
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: We have large drone companies that are getting to these points in their journey where their valuation is getting super high.
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: They're kind of like pushing certain leadership out and then the board is bringing these guys in that can run the company because they're a CEO at some tech firm.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: They don't know anything about what we do do.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: We have talked about this before on this show.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: It's so common.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: It's like get the entrepreneurs at some point they can't grow it.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: Now we gotta get these institutional type managers.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm very skeptical of them.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: He needs to be our ceo, because not?
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Only is he the guy building it, but he believes in it exactly he knows what the product can do.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: He's not some guy that hasn't flown a drone exactly and that's what we needed fundamental yeah, fund, it's fundamental.
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: But guess what it doesn't seem to make sense to the people with a hundred million dollars I know cash.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: No, it's like let's go get brand managers or whatever we're gonna get that guy that ran arby's for 20 years he knows he knows how to exit.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: He, he knows how to scale and exit.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's so true, and it's brutal because it's caused some companies to fail in our space that I don't think deserve to fail.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Well, that's one of my personal passions is this whole idea that the entrepreneurs need to get run off at some point and bring in professional management?
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I and bring in professional management.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I know that's what everybody likes to say.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I hear it around the halls of the business school.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Well, anytime that happens, there's a big hole, a mysterious hole that the entrepreneur leaves when they're out of that company.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: Took the heart out bro.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Take the heart out you took the heart out, yeah but then all the good to great people will say but that's level four management.
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: Did you learn that business school?
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: We need level five managers here.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, they're not inspirational or charismatic.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: You know I think it's bullshit.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, I agree.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's easy to replace a level five manager.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: They're not passionate.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Nobody cares if they're there or not.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: So I I mean, you know, it's like, it's like, but that's not the point.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so anyway, tobin, you've been quiet over there.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Anything else?
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: you want to add, just letting the rant go we need to wrap.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: We need to wrap this up and and get back to work.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: But anything else you want to add for our audience?
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: well.
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for the conversation here.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: This has really been a pleasure and you know, at the end of the day, as far as you know, adding for the audience, we are always my favorite conversation is having conversations with customers.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: So you know if anyone in the audience is interested in drones, interested in our products, you know, especially in a space.
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: You know if anyone in the audience is interested in drones, interested in our products, you know, especially in a space.
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: You know that's maybe off our radar, that we're not thinking about.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: You know you mentioned, you know, some of the engineers.
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: Those are my favorite conversations to have to learn more about challenges people have.
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: So certainly welcome, welcome that and again, thank you so much for the conversation.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: It's been a lot of fun Speaking of how do people get in touch with the company, when do they go?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: What do they need to do?
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: Website is the first point of entry.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: So go to vantageroboticscom and then there's a contact us page on your button on just about every page on the website and that'll ultimately get get to me you can find us on linkedin easily too okay, so you know people reach out to us all the time on there and if you really do just want some help with drone, drone industry knowledge or whatever it may be, we're always willing to help people great all right.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for your time for coming on it's.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a really good combo.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: It's been very interesting yeah, yeah, we appreciate you guys having us on man, it's, it's great and you know it's awesome to have stuff like this in our area in northwest arkansas california.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Just happening in our country right now.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: So we appreciate y'all we ought to get y'all back in too in a few months, you know as things develop and we get an update.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I mean I think I think it's been fun.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: It would like the.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: I think the positioning that you're in is pretty awesome, but, as we know, I wonder how all that stuff will develop out, we'll see.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: We think we're in a good position.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Sounds like it.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: We're just looking forward to the ride, man.
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: The end of the year is going to be fun.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of cool events set up.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: A cool one that I don't know if you all have heard of is called International Association of the Chiefs of Police.
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: It's happening in.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: Colorado this year.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: That's something we're doing in October as well.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: So just get you know in front of all these people.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Don't do anything stupid there, vlad, that'd be stupid.
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: That's the perfect opportunity to show out.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: All right guys.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, we got to get there somehow.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Well, it's great having you on the show.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: It's definitely a different topic than we've talked about before.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: And we're always glad to do that.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: And so, for those of you who are interested in either being on the show or sponsoring it, check us out at wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and reach out to Eric or myself.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: And, in the meantime, this has been another episode of.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Big Talk About.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Small.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Business.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: Thank you guys.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Thank you guys.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: Thanks so much, Been a pleasure.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
• 1:00:32
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