0:01 hello and welcome to people making money one of the way to wow shows we're here every Wednesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time to talk about all those things related to Business and Professional success and wealth building and today I'm very pleased to bring to you a a pretty unique individual uh David Daly so if you've seen any of the social media posts promoting this particular episode uh I labeled it flying with his feet on the ground because uh David's business
0:37 is really at the Forefront of how technology is is impacting the business world he is a drone pilot and and has become really a nationwide expert in in very many different aspects of of you know what's going on with drones and so I don't want to spend too much time talking myself um I want to you know get going with with uh David but one other thing I will mention is David is also a Marine Corps veteran um and and you can probably hear in in the back of your
1:12 mind the connection between um the two but uh but you know right straight off David thank you so much for coming on the show today thank you for having me I'm I'm excited to talk business with you about uh anything related to the Drone industry for sure it's my passion yeah great great so before we get into what you're currently doing as I do with you know all my guests on this show I'd like to have you go back as far as you're willing to you know talk about with us in in you know in in forming your professional life and and so my my
1:49 typical quick kickoff question is you know when you were a kid uh what is what did you want to be when you grew up because I I know for me like I you know wanted to be an astronaut know um I think I wanted to be a scientist at one point I wanted to be an animator you know and and of course never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd be doing what I ended up doing so I'm I'm just curious if if if you're willing to sort of delve into that you know what what was that like for you yeah you know it's it's interesting uh to ask that question at the point that I'm at right now my life uh because uh when I was a
2:26 child I really thought there were three professions that I was focused on one was astronaut uh another one was paleontologist and the third was archaeologist and uh you know I I went in a much different direction uh you know as I I Grew Older but um you know my partner had actually asked me probably about three or four years ago that same question of what did you want to be you know when you were a kid and I thought well yeah I really didn't want to go to war a bunch of times and and I didn't see myself as a a person working in Corporate America for you know
3:01 massive companies like Amazon and whatnot you know I wanted to be one of those three things and when I when I thought about that question again at this age I was like out of those those things Archaeology is what I really would like to do and so I actually a couple months ago um you know my my bachelor's degree uh which you know I got 20-some years ago is in oceanography my uh I have an MBA with an emphasis on geographic information systems which was all you know related to my my Corporate America kind of stuff and uh I thought uh I want to go back and become an
3:36 archaeologist so I actually started going to school again a couple months ago to get uh a degree in archaeology uh which thankfully a lot of the Drone work that I do is used we got you frozen heavily in archaeology so it all kind of now that I'm I'm at this point I'm going to uh pursue that as well oh wow very interesting well so so be before we go farther with that yeah we're getting we're getting a little lag on
4:13 the the thing here so um so as as a kid you're thinking astronaut archaeologist paleontologist um you know you get through school you went you said you went to college oceanography what made you choose oceanography then as you know as your college program uh I was lied to I I went to the uh the Naval Academy you know for my undergrad and time I you know was very focused on I want to be a marine officer you know that's my goal
4:48 and so uh on the day that you went around choosing a major and you know the the Naval Academy the time you know probably you know and amount and so I went to the room to check out their it was economics you know the instor you know how does officer and he's like
5:30 do really that's how I got into it actually really like okay so so and that was at the Naval Academy wow okay yes so you know four years at the Naval Academy Marine Corps option right uh you graduate you're a second lieutenant and and you know you're what was your what was your first uh Duty station and what was it like actually being in the Marine Corps as opposed to you know being being a student you know very I
6:06 think when I was in my you know two pieces I spent the first year uh doing a lot of uh you appointments at uh the Navy hospital uh and eventually ended up getting a spinal fusion so that that first year was a lot of recovery time and whatnot but uh once that was completed uh I
6:42 was officer so like sort of like on the job training while I was healing and then know shortly after I was uh you know I was just out of the academy in May of 2001 so a few months later when 911 happened everything changed you know especially if you were in the re you know it wasn't a matter of if you were going a war was when and how many times you know and so once I was healed uh it was you know almost a Non-Stop cycle of of going back and forth and you know in my case it ended up being you know four
7:18 tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan before I had you know completed my time you know in the Marine Corp and and you were with um what third third Marine Division at Pendleton is it first Marine first Marine Division division so you know mainly in you know was you know
8:00 and then the fourth tour I was back in Iraq fuah Iraq with a first Recon Battalion you know which is also out of got out of the Marine Corps for a short bit uh and then they asked me to come back back and so I was at the time I was actually well so I agreed to do that tour and uh you know I think that was one of those like maybe I had made a mistake getting out and you know after I I did that tour when I came back in I thought I made the right choice it was time to
8:36 go so so how many how many years all told did you spend in the Marine Corps uh I think to was when you had uh all my my active duty time and then the the last tour they had made like a reserve time I think it was around 12 years total uh in the service oh okay yeah something like that so it that's interesting because usually once someone crosses over the 10-year Mark they feel like well I might as well stay for 20 years right and get a pension so what
9:11 what was it that made you decide that you know after 12 years essentially um you were going to move on so like in my case I moved on after 16 years but that's because I hit maximum age so it was going to be uh you know not not a fight per se but it going to be a a long process to apply to get to stay right Beyond maximum age but in your case I I don't imagine that was the situation so what was it that you know motivated you to you know move on as as as you mentioned well I you know really there were there were two factors in it uh the
9:47 first was uh I enjoyed a lot of the more kinetic uh sides of of the military and so you know when I was uh a captain and and lower you know you're doing a lot of the on the ground kind of stuff and and and you know that the the door kicking kind of deals you know like that was uh what excited me and what interested me and whatnot and um I remember towards the very end of my last tour the one in Afghanistan the uh Colonel of the unit I was attached to had asked me to put together a presentation on on the
10:23 overall you know scheme of how things were were moving in an area and you know when I completed the present showed him he said you know you have some qualities that are going to make an excellent staff officer and I was like ah sir I was like you should have just shot me you know and that's just not you know it just wasn't uh what I was in the military it's a young man's game you know a woman's game and and uh at at you know the point where I was at you know I was probably uh you know almost 10 years
10:59 out of that back operation and and just beating myself you know down and and it couldn't uh continue you so I know I'm not at a to stick around if I couldn't give that you know 100 and honestly another factor that I didn't realize till a little bit after getting out was you know I had developed over those tours a very high level of PTSD and I was having issues that you know I just uh you know was not addressing and so it it was the right time to leave for those
11:34 reasons yeah I mean that that that that absolutely makes sense so what what planning did you do for transitioning from you know active duty Marine Corps to civilian life I look high you know for
12:09 that I got to the you know getting out uh the first time uh you know I had a job lined up before you know I even left and and you know they were uh yeah I had actually gotten a job in the Aerospace industry and was uh you know flying around the world doing uh all kinds of stuff you know related to uh uh we built various components for aircraft so it was a lot of meeting with engineers and whatnot but uh you know at the time it seemed like it was getting phenomenal uh job and so uh before I even E I had you know everything lined up
12:44 and to go to our first and all that so it was it seemed like I had a job lined up that I was really gonna [Music] enjoy and but and and you got out around what 202 12 13 something like that or the the first 2008 and part of the reason that brought me back to to the war zone was because you know in the Aerospace industry you usually have about a two-year lag from like the overall economy you know versus the impact that it has to you know the airline industry when you're talking about the manufacturing of it and so as
13:19 a result I entered into the workforce during Great Recession and so um at first things were going really well for the company but then as things started hitting the Aerospace industry you know Airlines were more concerned about critical pieces of gear like landing gear stuff that my part of the company was manufacturing likeets or hinges for overhead compartments so with the economy turning it very quickly became uh you know the company just started laying off massive chunks you know and eventually most of of the people on my
13:56 you know we were all let go and you know that actually uh brought me back into the contractor world where I said well you know I guess War zones are so I went back to you know to be a contractor right right and and this is all before there was any kind of significant transition assistance program as I recall right so you were you were they had a very basic yeah it was a onewe program they didn't have skill Bridge or like that you know it was which is unfortunate those are programs to have now um and so you essent went to class for a week and
14:34 they they looked at what you did in the military and you know in my case as an artillery officer they said yeah pretty much none of the artillery stuff transfers over gonna ask you to blow anything up you um so uh you know was it was a very basic check in the box and you know here's how to apply for your VA stuff that that was really fortunate you know but assistance you sure you got your e and we're out the door you know yeah yeah I I went through um um
15:09 transition assistance program in 2012 and it was it was still pretty much like that and right Frank Frankly not really worth the time so yeah I mean you know and it's it's interesting because I um when I got out of the military initially what I did is I coached service members coming off active duty transitioning to civilian life in terms of getting a job and I would hear this from Marines all the time they would say well you know I'm a trigger puller and you know nobody in the civilian world needs me to pull triggers and I'm like well I mean that's
15:47 you know may be true although there's lots of you know jobs in law enforcement and such where you know being good with small arms is is a big Advantage but it's it's all of the things it's the Marine Corps ethos that is embedded in in marines that makes them the most valuable um you know milit former military people you in terms of the civilian world and yet there wasn't any sense of that given to to Marines at least at that time you know in terms of this this is really what you know the
16:22 civilian uh you know business World um this is how they will value you you know as an individual so I think there's more of a sense of that now than there was you know 10 12 years ago so easier you know coming out as an officer because people recognize like well you're a leader so so that's what I'm hiring you for I don't care that you can you know lob an artillery round you know 18 clicks this way you know whatever uh you know where your leader but especially for you know the uh enlisted service members uh yeah I think there was a huge
16:57 disservice done you know in those days to to not give me the best chance and and you know the the numbers showed that when you looked at you know unemployment numbers homeless numbers you know uh addiction suicide you know all that stuff you know from the VA in those those years they were much worse than they are now uh and I think directly as a result of not being properly prepared to you know change from a completely different environment into you know one that that has whole set of playing you know roles and and you ways of doing things yeah the other the one thing that I I would also try to stress especially to Marines is uh the military is a
17:35 pretty ordered environment and civilian life is not civilian life in some ways is more like combat I think you know sort of the the unpredictability of it and and the you know just the the the the chaos of it obviously it's not nearly as lethal um but you know the you know for for Marines who have actually been in combat I think they they in some ways are better prepared to face the civilian world where it's it's so atavistic that it it's really it it can
18:11 be very daunting after the Fairly regimented life that you know we we LED in the military so and again that's I I I think that's not something that a lot of people think about a lot of military people think about and and so it needs to be brought to their attention so they can you know have that Advantage so so so now you're I'm sorry go ahead go ahead yeah I think another component is is you know within an organized system like that you have a a well-defined purpose and you know in the civilian world even you title for specific ambiguity that
18:48 that's in that and so you don't I know for myself a lot of M and former Serv members I've spoken with understand very difficult if you're not period and it's it's actually it's very interesting you mentioned that because the first part of the program I ran was to help service members understand what is your purpose and Mission in civilian life going to be because what I found is without understanding that the the chances that they were going to successfully transition were
19:24 dramatically reduced um and in fact I did a I did a it's kind of an informal survey of about a hundred service members who who had been in transition for anywhere from a few months to in some cases you know 20 or 25 years and what I found was the longer someone was in transition the less likely they were to really understand what is my purpose and Mission in civilian life and the flips side was once somebody understood that he really you know he could step forward smartly as we said
19:59 and and like I said dramatically increase the chances of of his transition being you know not just successful but meaningful because I think that is a big part of what we lose it's the work we do in the military is very meaningful and it's it's not a natural thing to find that in civilian life right right very much so yeah yeah so okay so now you're you're you're absolutely getting out of the Marine Corps right um and um this you know the kind of the second time you got out after
20:34 Afghanistan what was what was your experience like what what did you end up doing and and how did that fit with what what you thought life would be like well when I when I got out I I did another contractor tour you know because uh you know at the time the money was just really went back to Afghanistan for another year as a civilian and uh you know essentially ran a base for the Army uh you know I was like the the camp mayor you know if you will for you know a base out there and uh once that year
21:09 was completed you know I I met my uh we kind of decided hey you know the the the going back and forth to war zones and stuff that's just not the life that we want you know and whatnot so decide okay let's something here I worked for years um out of that and then went into the construction industry I ran a construction company out in the Anaheim and um ended up leaving that after a little over a year and kind of was at a point of transition where you know I wasn't sure what I wanted to do
21:46 and you know we had had a um natural disaster kind of thing destroyed our house and so we had lost our house and it was you know really one of those things where we were like well you know we don't have a house we can you know kind of decide where to go from here you know uh and so we decided to go to Montana and in Montana I started kind of figuring out like what is it that I I want to do from there you know and for that uh you know I had and was starting to have a lot of issues with uh PTSD and kind of on a whim I had
22:21 gotten a drone and you know was flying this this drone around and I noticed uh that when I was flying the Drone I received a little bit of relief from my PTSD symptoms and so um you know my my wife had commented that uh you know you're getting this this benefit from flying the drones can you make that a business like why don't you you know make that a business and at first I was very hesitant to do that and I was I don't know anything about drones and this is kind of in the infancy of of the commercial drones out there so there weren't like a whole lot of options you
22:57 know it's it's not like where you know everybody has a drone and and whatnot and uh there wasn't anywhere to really go to learn about it you you had to kind of you know just learn it all on your own and uh eventually though uh you know she kept giving me a lot of positive reinforcement like no I really think you don't need to find another job and and run some company or something you can start your own thing and So eventually I I you know was like yeah let me see if I can make you go out of it bought a a little bit of a better drone and I kind of started it from there you know so I'm I'm I'm curious about this idea that flying drones helped you deal
23:32 with your PTSD what what is your sense of why that was the case not a doctor so I I can't give like a professional medical opinion however my thought is you know with my PSD I've done pretty much every therapy that's out there you for it uh so one of them is uh uh there's a therapy where the the idea is that part of having PTSD is that the two halves of the brain have not proess a same way and so you do things
24:08 like you follow a a moving object or it's like a light that flashes in sides event it so my my personal thought is that um because when you are flying a drone you have to use both sides of your body to operate it with the control you're effectively
24:46 activating you know the Rel my thought is they're fine traumatic you know day in uh you know that that was in effect seeing it on both halves of the brain and then I not as anxious right now or my uh alertness you know isn't as high you know and I think it also helps that you know when you're looking at the you're visually screen for me and for a lot of the other
25:22 you know veterans and and who just have experienced that benefit from drones I think that different perspective allows you to kind of back out for a second from that in a different kind and see if if same effect from the the eye movement therapy you know would translate to doing something like you know drones because actually think that would be a great application for for you know people who are suffering all kinds of trauma to be able a fly drone and
25:59 maybe that activates that same kind of resp yeah yeah I mean that that is that is fascinating I mean you know like as you said there's all kinds of therapies out there with animals I know someone who takes veterans out on on on sailboats and you know these kind of things um and my my sense is that flying a drone could be a very sort of peaceful thing at the same time that it takes a lot of concentration to keep it flying and so yeah there there's a lot of aspects of that that yeah could could potentially be therapeutic so it it
26:36 certainly makes sense so you're you're you're in Montana and I'm I'm just curious why did you choose Montana as a place to go to uh because I had a lot of ptsp you know I want it to be way from everything as I could and so um you know I I look back now as it it probably wasn't the best decision because I was I was giving into a lot of ptsc rather than addressing it uh but uh we went to a a town in the literally the geographic center of the state of Montana you know only a couple thousand people there and
27:13 uh very and you know for that isolation you know to just get away from you know and so it was not a healthy decision to go there uh but um you know that that was that was why we chose Montana and when I say we I really mean me you know saying like I need to get out of here that right right and and the de your devoted wife went along with the with the plan so so you're in Montana your your your flying drones your wife is convinced you that you should make a
27:49 business out of it so H what did that look like in terms of going from kind of flying drones just you know is is a hobby or or or therapy to figuring out how to turn turn that into a business well I looked at you know what what could you do with the te technology you know and now there there's a lot of options but at that time drones were essentially flying cameras you know so it's like well what's the the you know data you can collect that interested in uh and so you know I actually started
28:24 doing things like uh from you know uh landscape photos even for like Photo cont or something you know to to just to bring in any revenue and then I that uh people in that area asked for things like um Insurance flights you know there was snow damage to their roof and so they needed you know you fly over and film that and so it initially started with with smaller kind of random gigs uh you know that people had again it was a very rural area you know but but shortly after uh you know
29:00 we were only there for about two years or so we moved back to there the market was much and so I was a you know focus in on man photography the same also finding the infancy of the industry people writing about it and and
29:35 so not knowing what you know actually became some of you know many internationally espe like 18 2019 time frame picking up with the the quality accessibility and uh you know the FAA
30:11 put out the the licensing and everything and so you know there was a lot of content that I was able to put out you know definitely hundreds of of Articles uh on that and so those two aspects initially became the main bread and butter of the business so so you you talked about you were really servicing uh the real estate industry what kinds of um jobs did you do or or projects did you do working with the the real people in in the real estate business and and what what kind of clients did you have uh you know among uh real estate professionals or
30:48 people involved in real estate yeah it was it was a very diverse uh group you know uh everything from from speculators uh investing on you know large tracks of vacant land for uh various industries that were popping up in a given area everything from like growing hemp to you know building shopping malls or or whatever uh you know all over the the country and uh you know it was primarily in the residential uh Market but also some commercial real estate and you know when you look at like uh the National Association of Realtors I have real estate license for a little while um
31:26 just decided not to make that career let it expire but uh you know when you get into that uh you see the statistics that you know if you have a property that is um you know just photos on the ground it doesn't sell anywhere near quickly as if you have aerial photos of it you know showing different aspects the number I want to say it's something like the says or the N I'm sorry says it's something like um 60% more likely to sell if it has aerial uh photos you know because you know the
32:02 national Realtors is you know most real that conation and they just know that you know people want to see what it looks like from above and you know what the the you from different angles and the streets you picking up and at the time so a lot of estate you development going on and whatnot you know the interest rates were a little more friendly they are now you know like for sites that were
32:38 people looking to Le they already made big vetan right right and and during this time so you're you're now a a drone pilot right um but maybe two years before that that was completely unknown so what made you a drone pilot or or um how did you this may sound a little bit sort of you know new Agy but how did you um build into your identity being a
33:15 drone pilot if if you know go kind of going back to what we were talking about in terms of purpose and Mission right right how how did how did that work really helped with that because with with the writing you know I was putting out a decent amount of of content so that you know my name was getting out there and there was always something I could relate back to like you know here's article that I wrote about what you're asking you know about as far as drones in agriculture drones for so there was always content I could connect
33:52 back to talk to about this and if you need somebody to fly do that as well and the writing the content really was of build and then this because before I always like well you know the business that I'm starting is is ancillary to whatever Fortune 500 company I'm working for what not and you know I think that if you really want to get into entrepreneurship
34:27 uh it has to be an Allin you know kind of thing you can't otherwise it's just going to be a side hustle you just it's not going to work and so this was not going out to to Amazon to find a job or or you know Google all that kind of stuff and so that bu what I do networks around that
35:02 time for you know industry or uh and come you know the changes it starts to become your identity because you've made that commitment of all in you know this has to be you know what I do you know it's uh just a side project you know and so I think that the the purpose grew out of the you know um involv you know and uh you have to get involved into it if you want you know
35:37 and really everything industry and and you know the goto a my area and and at the same time I think you mentioned the uh FAA was starting a a licensing program how did your work in in writing and in actually piloting drones how did that um intersect if you will with what was going on with the FAA and and what is you know oops oh
36:12 no we we lost David I I he's I think he's been having uh uh bandwidth problems there so let's let's see if he comes back because uh we're really getting into the the uh Crux of of you what he's doing as a drone pilot and uh and all of that so we we'll we'll see if he comes back here minut I'll I'll I'll tap dance here for a few minutes um so you know what what's what's interesting and and what I'm what hopefully um I'll be able to ask David about is what it was like to being involved in
36:49 a nent regulatory environment so this is something I went through when I had my real estate company before joining the Navy um one of my main activities was real estate appraisal and prior to um uh 1989 I believe it was um there was there were no licenses for real estate appraisers it was pretty much oh there we go great
37:25 okays okay I was doing a a little bit of a Time step while while hoping you'd be able to get back on so I was I was addressing uh the the issue that I was was talking about was being at the ncy of of a regulatory um the creation of a regulatory regime so uh I know for myself before I joined the Navy I had a real estate company and one of the activities I did was being a real estate appraiser and which was a essentially a completely un well as a self regulated industry prior
38:00 to um a law called FIA being enacted in 1989 which created state-by-state licensing for real estate appraisers but also imposed all kinds of new regulatory requirements on lenders and so I remember being again at the very beginning of that and my clients were coming to me and saying well how do we comply with all this stuff you know I was I was an appraiser right and so presumably I know everything there is to know about appraising right and I I very quickly had to you know dig
38:37 into all of the depths of it and and you know it was new so there weren't a lot right there wasn't a lot round so so I'm what was your experience like being at the ncy of the creation of the regulatory structure for you know for drones and drone piloting okay how yeah I it was uh I was actually really fortunate because at the same time that uh the fa you know I started the drone company officially as an LLC in uh I want to say it was either June or July of 17 and so it was right at that time
39:14 when the the FAA had put that out so since it was still very new to be a licensed pilot you know I was able to jump into that right away and what that allowed for was you know you were one of the few Li pilot and that became you know a marketing tool that you could say well you know like you don't want to break the law you know that that you're hiring a illegal pilot and you know I think initially people didn't care and to some extent that's still prevalent in in people that haven't taken the time to like read that you as the real estate agent hiring somebody would be liable potentially for damages that a drone
39:50 pilot you hire caused and so since I was able to say look I'm licensed I'm insured and I've been doing this you know already uh it was you know uh uh kind of the right time right place to be in that and then you know as more and more pilots kept adding on and it was like well most people aren't going to hire somebody who's not you know a licensed pilot at a minimum uh you were able to say like I've been a licensed pilot since 2017 and not had any issues and you know flown you know hundreds and hundreds of of gigs you know kind of thing so uh you know that it was it was
40:25 actually a real benefit to just happen to be getting into that industry when you know it was a right opening up with the licensing process right right right that that that's interesting is that was very Sim similar to my experience because I got involved in the appraisal business just maybe like a year before the whole regulatory regime started and I did the same thing um basically a aggressively marketed being a licensed appraiser um not just you know a a member of a professional association kind of thing and it had interestingly enough it had a
41:00 very um well had a dilus impact on these professional organizations because all of a sudden uh lenders especially were saying well we don't care if you're an maai a member of the appraisal Institute we can go get a certified General real estate appraiser licensed by the state of whatever and and that that sounds better right so yeah it's interesting how how that works out uh so how how have you continued to grow and develop your business um you're you've been in business now for what about seven years
41:35 um how how is it how has it changed over that that time period well one of the the most exciting things is uh you know I had been writing uh content for a company called uh altitude University that is a uh online platform uh that has uh classes for uh learning the material to become a drone pilot and then some additional uh course content for you know improving your your uh abilities as a pilot and uh I had been writing content for a while and then after talking to the owners in uh uh 22 they had said uh you know hey we'd like to
42:10 bring you on board you know for a a piece of the company uh you know and so I effectively uh in uh 2022 uh became you know a part owner in that uh company and effectively am the uh coo uh for altitude University so that was a really big expansion because you know it went from just providing the Drone services and you know being an industry analyst to actually having a a you know uh a significant play in the bringing up of new uh pilots and So eventually it got to where you know now
42:45 I I you know run altitude University on a day-to-day uh basis and put out a lot of the content you know for their uh YouTube channel so we have uh a really uh uh strong showing on YouTube channel for altitude University of uh little over 27,000 subscribers wow and yeah we grow probably probably between 400 and 500 a month uh subscriber base and our content every Friday we put out a new video on something related to the Drone industry and so that's actually been a great way to you know gain more and more
43:20 attention and you could start to see you know as you know you'd show up to like the Drone conference people would be like oh I saw your video you know or whatnot you know kind of thing and you know that really helps because I think now you know just as as we're seeing you know right now that I think is the way people want to take information in is seeing you know video content you know that's it's quick it's it's easy to interpret and you know that's that's what people want and so you know by putting that content out there I think it it gives a lot of credit to you know anybody who's who's doing that and you know in my case it certainly helped uh you know I've had lots of customers uh you know say hey I saw your video you
43:55 know can you do this gig for me or what not and and what what do you see as being the future how how was the how do you see the Drone business uh changing growing um comp some kind of competition coming that you know might um impact their drone business what what do you see happening in that respect well there's there's two things one I think you know if you look at all the the estimates uh the the growth of the industry is is you know very solid for at a minimum the next 10 years but probably you know beyond that um you
44:31 know the the competition out there I would say is it's it's a little difficult to call it competition because you know drone technology is uh rapidly evolving you know it's it's h very similar to like the smartphone business um you know where uh the new phone that you get now six months from now is dated and it looks like it's a complete failure you need to get the newest latest thing um but the reality is that things like Ai and you know machine learning once uh they become more prevalent in drones I think you're going to see the uh
45:07 adoption and adaptations for drones rapidly you know grow uh and the reality of it is that in most cases technology is not the issue for the Drone industry it's regulatory issues you know so for instance you know if you could have a drone like right now the FAA requires drone pilot to constantly keep a drone in visual line of sight without the aid of anything like binoculars or whatnot you know so you can't really fly a drone Beyond you know maybe a mile mile and a half you know or so is is where you're you're getting the point where like realistically you're not going to see
45:42 the Drone you know anymore but the technology is such that you know most off the shelf drones that you have can fly six seven eight miles away from your location and still operate fine and so you have to get waivers to do what they call Beyond visual line of sight uh flying well once regulatory conditions change and say now that we're comfortable with the technology and we're comfortable with the safety of it you know you can imagine if you no longer had that restriction well there's way more applications that you can you know have uh for that technology so I think that when you look at things like uh the the way that the industry is
46:17 growing it's going to be rapidly growing because it provides so many benefits you know that are are no-brainer kind of things you know like just to give one example if you look at the UN reports for population growth uh associated with the uh food production in the world I believe it's by 2050 we're not going to have enough production at the current methods of of producing food to feed the population of the world so that's where you look at like okay we have to do Precision agriculture well you can take a drone and you can fly over a field and see nitrate levels in the soil you can see
46:53 how the water's being un distributed You Can Count crops you can even detect disease on crops all from you know flying a drone over now before that would have taken somebody you know a long time in a field to test soil samples and send them to a lab or whatever and you know in 20 minutes I can fly over you know a few Acres of a a field and give that same information and so it's like well now you've got you know lowering cost higher efficiency you know better data that I can go back to not just I saw this you know one sample from the soil that I took it's like well I can look at the whole field and tell you where the nitrate levels are and you know whatnot and it's like that kind of
47:28 of you know beneficial and advantageous uh you know aspects of the technology are going to make it that it's like it just has to be adopted you know because there's things like food production that without it we're not going to be able to sustain you know and so um I think that the future holds an enormous amount of applications like that and once the regulatory side catches up to it then you're going to see you know more and more IIA controlled or AI controlled uh platforms you know things that instead of having like a single pilot controlling drone you have a pilot controlling 20 drones or you know a node
48:03 Center controlling you know 50 drones or whatnot and having the ability to have you know a much greater impact on whatever the application is than you can now with you know the restrictions that we have I mean one of one of the you know uses for drones that's been talked about now for I think at least a couple of years um and and this this kind of dovet tales you've mentioned Amazon a few times s is is for deliveries whether it's you know deliveries by Amazon or I'm thinking about my you know local you know sushi place right they could get a drone and it would seem like they could
48:38 you know attach the bag to the Drone and and basically just program in my address and and have you know they wouldn't even need to have someone watching it the Drone would would come and you know drop it off on my you know front step and you know and go back to the restaurant but if it had to be I didn't realize they had to be in Vis you have have in visual contact so there's no way that a delivery business you know could could do that so what what do you what do you think is going to propel I I assume it's the FAA that is the major regulatory agency what do you
49:14 think is going to propel the FAA to start um reforming I guess the regulatory scheme um you know I don't mean this is a political statement but you know government bureaucracies are notorious for being you know slow to to evolve and and and to be behind the curve with with business and technological changes so how how is that going to work its way do you think well you know I I think
49:50 there's there's really two bodies that are the main ones that that are regulatory you know when you talk about drone technology the FAA is the biggest but then you also have the FCC you know because you're using radio communication to to control these drones and so if you if you look at the bigger picture and say okay you know the FAA is looking at everything in the air you know that's all the crude aircraft flying around uh and then when you look at drones you know the FAA has this great page that they update every couple of weeks called uh drones by the numbers and they tell you how many drones are registered now and how many Pilots there are and whatnot there's almost 800,000
50:26 registered drones in the US and that's that's just registered drones you know that's not kids playing with toys or or you know whatnot that aren't being registered or people that haven't taken the time you know to register so if you think about you know the the whole history of flight in the country and all the aircraft that have gotten a registration number there are now in a very short time you know that's that's about a hundred years worth of of history for you know crude aircraft flight um there are now in a in a relatively short time for the commercial drone industry more more drones have been registered than crude aircraft in that entire history and so when you
51:02 think about the airspace you know around uh you know just our country for instance that's a really complex problem you know to sit there and say okay we can fly all the crude aircraft that we have going whether that be the military the commercial the private stuff you know everything now let's throw hundreds of thousands of drones potentially in the air you know that is a massive problem and so to the faa's credit although you know as a drone professional I would love to see a lot of the regulations you know uh uh Loos it up a little bit uh to their credit it's a big safety issue and they're trying their best to say how do we move
51:38 forward but move forward safely you know with this massive you know problem that they're under tanking and stuff because they realize the benefit and when you hear you know the FAA Representatives at like the Drone conferences speak they're all about it they just want to do it safely you know and so I think that the the more technological advancements that come out that show this technology is safe because there are a lot of waivers that the FAA gives to allow people to fly Beyond visual line of site you just have to go through the process of saying this is why it's going to be safe enough that you can loosen the rules for this one particular thing I want to do with
52:13 the Drone you know um I think as the technology starts to get you where the FAA is more comfortable with saying like Okay this isn't a fluke that your drone didn't have an accident I can see where these algorithms and this machine learning and these you know uh sensors on the Drone to prevent it from hitting something have made it now that I'm comfortable with saying I can throw this in the air without you being able to see it you know and I think that that technology is is moving along very quickly and so probably in the next couple years it will be where you know you can fly without seeing it and that'll just be you know normal I mean when I first got my license you couldn't
52:48 fly at night without a waiver now you can fly at night you know because the you know and like I had to go through the process of you know writing this big complex report to the FAA for them to give me my night waiver so I could fly you know at night and all kinds of this how it's going to be safe and you know whatnot but now you know if you get your license you know the rules and as long as you stay within those you can fly at night you know and I think it'll become like that in a couple years so that you're going to start seeing things like the drone delivery you know become you know more consistent because again it's just like with the agriculture there are so many benefits to that technology that you can't ignore that you know you have to you know let it be safe but you're
53:24 not going to say like ah we're just not going to do that you know it's just it's it's not feasible right what what advice do you have for people who are thinking hey you know this this drone uh piloting or the Drone commercial drone industry this this sounds pretty interesting I want to check this out or I want to get involved with it what what what advice do you have for you know for someone who's thinking that oh I would I would definitely say you just have to go into it right away you you know like uh uh the barrier to entry in this industry is
54:00 so low compared to others you know where uh we had a video for altitude University that we put out where uh we showed how for $3,000 or less you could start a drone business you know everything you needed that included like filing the regulatory paperwork to make it an LLC or whatever you want to make or whatever and it's like you know there aren't many businesses where you can do that uh you know and then when you look at the like even at a a start salary you know you or a starting pay you'd probably be looking at about $50 an hour for a drone pilot you know whereas like you know I'd say you can pretty quickly
54:35 get to where you're making 150 an hours so if your total investment is $3,000 you know you're very quickly making that up uh you know uh so that your your break even point is is you know very easy to attain you know within a month or two you know if not sooner and so for me I say that you know it's a fantastic industry that you know there's a little bit of knowled you have to learn but you know like uh in our course at altitude for that you know it's a $97 course it's all online self-paced you know we have like a over a 99% success rate for people who take that course and
55:10 you know pass the FAA exam on their first try and if you really wanted to you could probably complete that course in a weekend most people take about you know two three weeks to do it but so realistically you know if you just dove in and did that within a weekend you could be ready to take a test and then now you have a mark marketable skill you know that you can go out and and test out so I would say you know uh just jump right in you know take take a course learn the material get your license and then just like having a driver's license it opens up a bunch of you know uh Revenue generating potential streams for you to tap into and that's where for a very limited amount of money you can say
55:46 let me see if if there's anything in this do I want to do this as a side hustle or do I really want to get into it you know and then you can get into maybe I want to work for a company as their drone pilot not my own business which you know offers benefits like 401ks and Healthcare and you know all that so I would say it is a industry that is projected by pretty much everybody to be you know growing especially for the next 10 years it's great to jump into so now is the time that if you're thinking about it you should already start stepping in and and just moving forward with it you know there's very little saying don't do this you know yeah I I mean the the kind of income potential that you're um that
56:23 you're you know talking about I mean it's it's much greater than you could get you know as an Uber driver for example or you know all of these things right I mean even even $50 an hour um and I mean that that of course is not your your net income but um it would seem to me the expenses of of running a drone business are are you know pretty low so you're gonna right you know the Lion Share of your hourly fee is is going to be you know income to you as as the pilot so so let me broaden this out now a little bit you you are a a
57:00 successful entrepreneur in in the um purest meaning of that word you're not just someone you know who started a business but you're someone who in essence innovated to create to to create not only a new business but but be at the Forefront of a of a new industry so what what do you think are the or were the keys to your succeeding in doing that if you had to pick say three things that that have made you a success as an
57:35 entrepreneur what what would you say those are and you don't have to be limited to three by the way but just you know sometimes it's easier to think in terms of a a six number I I would say first of all you know just like I had said earlier you know I was very fortunate to have a partner who was saying you know you need to go all in don't get a job you know this is your your thing so you know if you want to be success as an entrepreneur you have to go all in to whatever that that business is uh so that's you know one the second one is let me just clarify when you say a partner in this case you mean your wife yeah we're actually uh separated now but we're still you know very close
58:11 you know friends and and fam and so uh that's why I say you know partner okay but uh you know with uh uh entrepreneurship you have to go all in I think that's first second I think what's uh you know important is you have to understand like it's not going to be easy at times and you don't want to go into the Panic mentality of you know like I'm not getting enough drone gigs maybe I should go back and and jump back into corporate you know America uh you know you just have to keep going with it you know and then the other thing is it's networking you know I I think as a
58:46 uh uh Marine I found a lot of success because I was surrounded by a lot of fantastic people that were really all good at what they did when I got out into the civilian world one of the biggest m I made initially was like I got to have all the answers I got to be that guy you know it's only me I'm the one you know whatever and then you realize it's not that it's you need to have just like you did in the service a team around you and that's where you start networking with other you know in my case drone professionals and whatnot and you learn from everybody you you share that knowledge and whatnot and those I think are the real Keys you know be 100% in don't give into panic and make sure you network and build that
59:21 team around you I mean that that that is that is as cogent a theory or a CO as cogent a program I should call it of of entrepreneurial successes I think I've ever heard I I agree with that absolutely 100% And and I I I you know for those of you who are are watching and and are thinking about getting into some kind of entrepreneurial entrepreneurial um Venture those three perspectives if you will certainly I can say that that's
59:57 that's what powered my own success in in the various companies and such that I've been involved with and and the other thing is is is you can do all three of those things they're not a guarantee of success um but what they are is they're the best support you can have for being successful and if you couple them with hard work the chances that you're you'll fail are actually reduced significantly so everybody hears these statistics about how four and five businesses fail and blah blah blah blah blah but you
60:32 have to really dig behind those and figure out why did those four and five fail what you know what what caused it and often times it's a lack of one or more of the three factors that that you just mentioned so right so you know we're we're we're um kind of running out of time here so but so but before we uh sign off just want to you know any kind of any last thoughts that you'd like to to share with people yeah I would just say you know that that from my perspective you know the Drone industry is one of the best ones you can get into
61:08 and that you know if you're looking to start a business like I said the the you know uh barrier to entry is so low compared to something else with a great return on the flip side so I would say you know now is the time to dive into that and you know it's been fantastic for me and I think it'll be fantastic for a lot of people great well David thank you so much for coming on the show today I appreciate it um I'm going to have you hang T I'm G do a little wrap up and then we can talk offline for a minute but um first of all um I'll put your contact information in the show notes after the show posts so if people want to get in touch with you both at
61:43 your own business and at is it called altitude University yes yeah okay so I'll put I'll put information from both of those there so if people want to follow up with you they can and I'm um I I'm I'm sure that David if if you're interested in the Drone industry I'm sure David will be happy to um help you uh you know find the information you need Etc um so you know I would say don't hesitate to reach out to him and and I'll I'll also put a link to the altitude University YouTube channel where you know if you're a viewer or
62:20 you're listening to this you can you can get information you can see the kinds of things that that David has has been talking about so I I I have to tell you as you're saying you know go and get your I'm thinking maybe I'm going to go get my license because a lot of the work I do is in real estate and there have been several times when I was thinking gosh I wish I could just see the top of this building you know to carry around a drone these days is nothing right I can have it in my car or my my Jeep and you know I could launch it in like right now we're dealing with a roof leak in one of the buildings it' be nice just to be able to go over and really see what's
62:55 going on there right so uh you know for a few thousand dollars it could be worth it just for you know to enhance my the ability for me to do the work that I'm already doing right rather i' happy to consult you on all that okay I think I'm gonna take you up on that so um for those of you who are watching thank you so much for joining us uh today and uh just real quickly wrapping up tomorrow Thursday 5:00 pm is my every other week's show jiggers his place this is an this is an opportunity for us as the
63:30 week is coming to a close to relax have a cocktail and talk about all those subjects not related to business and professions and so we are going to be talking about the ages long existential question Faith or reason right there it seems like for Millennia the two sides have been duking it out and and and we're I'm going to hopefully going to give you some thoughts on on why that's the case and and what that's all about um while we while we have a Divine logic cocktail so
64:06 if you want to get the recipe just go to my website scroll down to the bottom and and um uh subscribe to my email list and that way you'll you'll get an email before each show and for jigger's place it includes the recipe for the cocktails that I'll be making and then next week on Monday okay normally is my show trust and Estates weekly but this coming Monday is Columbus Day so there'll be a special edition special edition of the way to wow shows marking Columbus Day and then Tuesday at 10: am is my show business lessons from the military and
64:42 then of course a week from today will be the next edition of people making money so once again thank you so much for joining me wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie darling you really you really are my bell courage at all times my friend