Ever thought, “man, my wedding/reunion/home-I’m-trying-to-sell would be enhanced by drone videography?"
Well, Dave Brown has, and his Rhode Island-based enterprise, Droners.io, looks to make introductions between drone pilots and those needing their services all the easier.
“I saw a great opportunity to build a service that did all that heavy lifting.”
Droners.io connects users to pilots in a variety of different ways. They can request a private quote from a specific pilot in Droners.io’s location-searchable database, or they post a public quote and their reasons for needing a drone; pilots can then connect with users on the prowl. Customers also have the option of browsing established quotes and getting a feel for prices. Should they have questions, they can utilize a messaging platform to chat with pilots directly. The service itself is free to use, and customers aren’t fully charged until after they review the pilot’s footage.
The idea for the service was initially planted after a friend captured Brown kitesurfing using drone photography. The footage was impressive. “Everyone thought it was amazing to have pictures like this without having to helicopter or plane to drive by; that it was awesome as an everyday tool.”
This got Brown researching the cost of drone rentals, just out of curiosity, in June 2015.
“I wasn’t able to really find a lot of local pilots, so I started reading more about regulations from the [Federal Aviation Adminsitation].” At that point, in order to fly a drone, one had to have a manned aircraft license — meaning, one would have to be “an actual pilot” to legally take to the skies.
“It was a really big deal to hire someone, because there was only a couple hundred people in the country who could do it,” he said. “I saw a great opportunity to build a service that did all that heavy lifting.”
Brown is no stranger to that kind of work. In fact, he’s spent the past 10 years building various startups. “Some were my own ideas, the majority of them were from other companies,” he said. Before the idea for Droners.io, he had worked for nearly two years with CustomMade.com, another Boston-based startup.
In Droners.io’s case, establishing it was rather straightforward: Brown had to first start searching for pilots. “The FAA … used to publish all the licensed pilots on their sites,” he said. “I’d gather that information and hunt down their email addresses. That kind of started getting those pilots on-boarded.”
While Brown initially spoke with large investors, he decided to pursue funding on his own terms. “With my past experiences, it didn’t feel like the right move at the time. [Not moving forward with investors] positioned me a lot better in the market, and I want to keep it that way.”
Not a month or so later from his initial database building, Droners.io “honestly took off,” Brown continued, adding that the response from pilots had – and has – been so enthusiastic that his main focus is courting more and more users to “keep the pilots busy.”
He’s been successful there, too. “It’s been the first startup that I’ve launched that hasn’t been dead on arrival, or the typical, ‘if they build it they won’t come,’” Brown said. “This time, they came.”
As a result, the site was the top trending drone project, and also found itself featured in ProjectHunt, WIRED and Forbes. TV shows and networks like HGTV and the History Channel (among others) have used Droners.io, too.
Droners.io isn’t coasting, though; in about four weeks, Brown wants to debut the site in Canada, Australia and the U.K, with a potential for an Ireland showing, too. “Basically, we’re trying to cherry pick countries that are English-speaking and have similar regulations to the United States,” he said. “[It allows us to] easily ensure pilots on our flight are licensed, and to ensure their licenses are up to date.”
Brown manages all of this from his camper bus, where he works, beachside, 40 hours a week, all through the year (he has a propane heater for the winters). The rest of his team works remotely, such as his Operations & Community Outreach Manager, Amy Elsbecker, based out of Warwick, and a handful of telecommuting members.
“It’s been great,” Brown said. “I wish there were more hours in the day."
