Commercial Drones FM

For Forbes, Ryan Mac has written some of the drone industry's seminal articles—covering DJI's Frank Wang, Parrot's Henri Seydoux, and now, Chris Anderson in "The Crash Of 3D Robotics, North America's Most Promising Drone Company". Ryan and Ian discuss the background of the 3DR saga, how the company burned through nearly $100 million, laid off 150 employees, and wound up where they are today. What really caused the crash of 3D Robotics?

Redbird, a French drone software company, was recently purchased by Airware, an American drone software company. A few weeks before the sale was made public, Ian and Emmanuel, Redbird's then-CEO (now VP of AEC at Airware), recorded this podcast episode. Emmanuel and Ian discuss how large mining and construction companies use drones and why they're important to them. Get a glimpse inside of Redbird as the negotiations for the sale of the company were likely well underway.

Ian is joined by Austin Smith, GM of Inside.com, a startup which focuses on tech newsletters. Inside.com produces the Inside Drones newsletter, a thoughtfully curated, twice-weekly digest of the most interesting drone news. Ian and Austin discuss how he started the company and chat about some of the latest drone news.

DJI has announced their Mavic Pro drone, the smallest and most powerful drone they've ever created. The new Mavic Pro drone platform has specs and pricing that best the popular Phantom 4 and newly announced GoPro Karma which make it a promising candidate for commercial drone operations. Ian dissects the announcement, features, and viability of using the Mavic Pro for drone inspection and mapping missions.

Publicly traded GoPro have officially revealed the hotly anticipated Karma drone. Incidentally, this first effort into the industry directly competes with the largely dominant DJI, a private company, who happen to have a similar drone of their own which will be announced the following week. Ian analyzes GoPro's new drone and how this battle will shape up. Which of these companies will reign supreme in the battle for drone supremacy—who is David and who is Goliath?

There's a favorable exchange rate when transitioning from bitcoin to drones, according to Dan Held, the co-founder of Hover—a mobile app for drone pilots that enhances situational awareness. Ian speaks with Dan about why he chose to make a drone app, the latest drone news, and gets his mind blown after igniting an exciting discussion on how a future, autonomous, bitcoin-based drone delivery fleet and service network could actually work.

Drone mapping can be a game changer for your business. Learn about why you should be making maps with drones and how to do it successfully. What kind of drone and software do I need? What does it cost? How do I make 3D models? Is it hard? These questions (and more) are answered in this initial episode about making maps with drones.

Co-founder Benjamin Benharrosh, lets us in on the evolution of Delair-Tech—the first company in the world to achieve BVLOS certification for their fixed-wing drones. Since starting in 2011, the French company has been involved with railroad and utility companies, SATCOM and 4G LTE radio links, and most recently, opened an office in the United States.

Drones are becoming popular among farmers for analyzing crop health. Cassidy Rankine, PhD and co-founder of Skymatics, proposes another scenario: using drones for crop insurance. Ian and Cassidy discuss this innovative method and even offer a way for you to become one of Skymatics' drone pilots.

Andrew Dennison, COO of LIFT Technologies, recounts his journey into the drone industry. Ian and Andrew cover topics from real-world construction and insurance case studies, the drone deliverables that enterprise clients expect, not flying drones during wildfires, and building out a national drone operator network.