Drones are disruptive technology
Small commercial drones fall into the category of a "disruptive technology". To a lesser degree a bit like transportation, where the automobile disrupted the horseless carriage industry or how the airplane disrupted the bus and ocean liner industries. To a larger degree however, drones are more akin to being disruptive on the scale of how the personal computer and internet have disrupted countless facets of human life.
Drones are already making early changes in how farmers monitor crops, how bridges, roads, power plants, refineries and large structures are inspected/constructed and much, much more. Drones are even saving lives by helping prevent shark attacks and preventing drownings through the rapid delivery of flotation devices. In the coming years, drones will impact daily lives in ways that are impossible to imagine right now.
What can other businesses learn from the drone revolution?
As one of the early pioneers offering drone services, Perfect Perspectives and Drones That Work have had the unique opportunity to have a front row seat to the birth and early first steps of the commercial drone industry. This got me thinking that there are so many incredibly valuable lessons learned working through the process of starting and growing our business. Lessons that apply to almost any other business that are worth sharing.
Lesson 1 - Be Early
Being early is one of the hardest things to do in business. It requires you to boldly go where no one has ever gone before. Even worse, the human brain is historically very poor at predicting the future. The best we can do is learn from the past or from others with similar interests to help recognize future opportunities. Twelve years ago we knew that there were opportunities to use unmanned aircraft (drones) in business applications but our imaginations seriously lacked the foresight to see the true potential as we know it today. We were certainly not alone. Insurance companies were not comfortable covering a new risk with so little claims history. But that's perfectly okay. What mattered was we stuck with my gut feeling that drones were something with true commercial potential. As the technology evolved, we were ready to extract maximum value quickly, almost always before our competition could.
Being early is often very expensive in fields of cutting edge technology. Careful thought must be put into business equipment purchases that can quickly become obsolete. There is always an optimum jumping in and jumping out point. A good rule of thumb is - try not to be the first to adopt new technology nor be the last to abandon old technology.
Lesson 2 - Be Ready
A good friend would always say "the only thing harder than getting ahead of your competition is staying ahead". We are seeing thousands of drone entrepreneurs making most of the same mistakes we made. The big difference is we made those mistakes many years ago and have moved on to making fresh new ones. Being a leader is not easy or painless. We are constantly trying new things and often fail spectacularly. The best way to improve/grow is to push beyond your comfort zone. The key is to learn quickly from your mistakes and don't repeat them. This mindset continues to allow us to do things few others can do.
Lesson 3 - Be Nimble
The pace that the drone industry is evolving is both exciting and scary as hell for those wanting to make a living from it. It's much like launching satellites - there only two outcomes - a good geosynchronous orbit or a fiery crash. To compete in today's drone industry requires waking each morning and hitting the ground at a full sprint - keeping close tabs on changing regulations, public opinion, customer wants/needs, rapidly depreciating equipment purchases and a landscape of overnight competition.
Lesson 4 - Be Versatile
Starting early in the drone business has allowed us to explore many different markets and applications. Many that we thought would end up being viable proved to be far less than expected. Conversely, others that we would have never thought of came about when a client called asking if we could do something new. Our response was usually "I don't really know but we're certainly willing to give it a try!".
Listening to customers is always a powerful business opportunity because if they need something, odds are there are others just like them that do too. Most important is listening to customers when you fail. It is human nature to want to quietly exit the stage upon disappointing a client but that's the worst possible thing to do. Take the failure as an opportunity to learn and move forward.
One of the reasons we have been able to make drones a full time business ahead of most others is our versatility, hard won by always trying something new. This versatility allows us to stay busy year around in a wide variety of markets and business sectors. When one sector slumps, the others pick up the slack.
Lesson 5 - Be Different
Being different is a very powerful asset in a competitive industry. When there are thousands of other businesses out there doing similar things, simply saying you are better means very little. If however, you have capabilities and experience few others have, well that's a whole different story! As mentioned before, in this age of global information sharing, being different for very long is very difficult. The best you can do is have a new idea in the oven, so that when your competition copies your previous concept, you have already moved on, forever expanding your comfort zone.
