Founder: Erin Morrow, 20
Business: Finger Flyer
What it does: Educational STEM drone-building kits
Founded: 2020
No. employees: 2
Website: https://www.fingerflyer.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finger-flyer-llc/about/
Instagram: @finger_flyer
As an education major at High Point University, Erin Morrow understands the importance of hands-on, interactive learning – and that’s exactly what she brought to her business, Finger Flyer.
Finger Flyer offers educational STEM kits to build handheld quadcopter drones that use gesture-controlled sensors. The kits, which also include an emergency remote, are paired with a full week’s worth of lab activities that explore the assembly of the drone, the physics principles and drone technology. The lessons also include answer keys and a suggested grading rubric.
Morrow helped create Finger Flyer with her business partner, Jacob Parker, a student at Georgia Tech. Parker is the engineer behind the drone technology while Morrow created the educational resources.
While the drones can be built by anyone over the age of 4, the lessons are designed for upper middle and high school curricula.
The content of the lessons and activities are designed to meet several educational standards across states. Since standards vary state-to-state, Morrow said that they tried to keep it broad to have a wide appeal. When creating the content, Morrow relied on feedback from educators.
Currently, Finger Flyer offers two products, retailing for $40 each online. One is a pre-assembled Finger Flyer drone and the other is the Finger Flyer drone kit. In this e-commerce B2C model, Morrow said that the drones do not come with the lessons, but lessons can be requested.
Finger Flyer has seen most of its success in its B2B model, having sold to schools in over two dozen states, Morrow told TBJ. Schools often buy the drone kits and lessons in bulk, with sets ranging from 12 to over 180. Morrow said that the B2B price ranges from $35 to $50 depending on the quantity ordered.
The company has gross revenue of $50,000, Morrow said. The drone kits are manufactured in factories in the United States and China.
In 2021, Morrow took home $10,000 for coming in first place in High Point University’s annual Business Plan Competition. Morrow, now a junior at HPU, said she also won $2,500 from the school as a freshman in an elevator pitch competition and received a grant of an undisclosed amount from the university.
As of now, Finger Flyer will focus on funding through High Point University as there are not many contingencies with High Point’s funding, Morrow explained.
Parker and Morrow are working on their third product for Finger Flyer. Morrow said that this will be bigger than the handheld drones the venture currently offers. She expects the prototype to be done by the end of the month and to be able to present it for the first time in November.
“It’s going to be more hands-on, more building and it’s going to cover a wide scope of STEM topics,” Morrow said.
