Adam Zayor, CEO of FlyGuys, an aerial drone services company based in Lafayette, LA, is our guest.

Attention to all angel investors....only 8% of commercial industries are currently using drone technology. The potential for dramatic increases in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, known as drones, is mind-boggling.

Fly Guys operates in all 50 states, in 72 countries worldwide, with over 4500 qualified and vetted contract drone pilots doing the work. It has 17 full-time employees overseeing operations and has experienced exponential annual growth of 200% per year for the past three years.

FlyGuys operates in a model similar to Uber; the company is responsible for contracting all jobs, and the pilots have their own drone equipment. "Our business is theoretically infinitely scalable in that we don't incur costs until we have revenue coming in from a confirmed job. Contract pilots range from full-time professionals handling large scale jobs to part-time hobbyists who will capture footage for a commercial real estate site."

The majority of FlyGuys' clients are large-scale companies that need consistent data collected across the country, such as telecom companies installing cell towers. In this example, the towers need to be inspected periodically, especially when adding equipment upgrades. FlyGuys scans 500 to 1000 towers every month or two, taking imagery at different elevations. The engineers at the telecom company can pull together dimensions from the data collected and build-out designs for new devices utilizing AutoCAD (commercial computer-aided design and drafting software), thereby accurately engineering new devices.

Adam Zayor started his company in 2017 with two employees while he kept his day job with Cajun Constructors where he worked in heavy industrial project management. It was on that job in Lake Charles, while working on the SASOL project, that he was introduced to drone services. Cajun Constructors would utilize drone aerial footage to obtain imagery for marketing purposes; Adam realized quickly that the technology could be used for much, much more in handling dangerous and tedious tasks typically handled by human labor.

"From a young age, I always knew I wanted to be in business. I loved building and creating things. I have to say, I wasn't as scared (about starting FlyGuys) as I should have been! I was a little blind about all the effort and the emotional toll that goes into starting a business. Especially one I was trying to drive in a new industry." Adam Zayor when asked about his thoughts on jumping in full-time to run FlyGuys.

With his background in construction management overseeing up to 2000 employees at one time, Adam explained that drones can now replace project managers who walk sites three to four times per week to monitor progress. With a drone, you can capture orthomosaic images, which are high-resolution aerial images similar to Google-earth views, where you can zero in to analyze work in progress, all from the comfort of your office and computer.

Drones were first used for industrial flare stack inspections to get footage a worker couldn't access by a crane. Today, as emerging software is being developed, it seems that the sky's the limit (pun intended!) for the usage of drone technology.

Pictures of Downtown Lafayette taken by a drone on the day of our interview by JP Juneau of FlyGuys

The agriculture industry is projected to be the biggest user of drones, but it is still early in the game. Drones can assist in precision agriculture by detecting the height of plants, the health of the plants, and projected crop yield, all allowing accurate financial metrics to be computed.