Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, guys, welcome back to drone on show. We have myself, Mike.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: I'm Hayden Crumb.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: And I'm Jason Miller.
[00:00:07] Speaker D: I'm Dennis Miller.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And we've had Aiden on. On the show before. Talked to you last year at the spray drone conference. And that's where we're at now, obviously. Dude, I find you so interesting because you're so young and you got so much knowledge.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: How old are you?
[00:00:23] Speaker B: So I am 20 years old.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: Are you really?
Dude, I thought you were like, at least 25.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: No, 20. I've got an ID I've had. I've been ID here before. Like, hey, dude, I don't believe this is so good. Dennis.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: You're going to. You're this kid.
[00:00:37] Speaker D: It's not even.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Sorry, shouldn't call you kid. He's going to blow your mind. He's.
[00:00:41] Speaker D: Dude, I've been old enough to be his dad, so.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Shoot.
Yeah.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: So, dude, tell me, how's the year been going? Cuz we've been on before, but yeah, it's been good.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: It's been good. So the sales have been. Been an increase, which is always good. The, the applications have been a little bit tricky. We've had a little bit of a drought year in southern Ohio, where I'm from. And so we kind of got into a little bit of a pinch towards the end of fungicide season. We're like, hey, we're looking for some makers. But so I started a Facebook group called Ag Spray Drones of Ohio just to kind of anybody, you know, any other operators who are looking for some extra help and that sort of thing. You know, if there's some makers that they've already committed to that they can't quite accomplish, there's other dealers out there, other guys out there that can kind of help. Help fulfill those already existing obligations. So we did that. That was huge. That was really big for us. We just kind of traveled all over the state just fulfilling obligations.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Hayden, how are you such a natural at talking?
Like, I feel like you're just primed for the camera.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say I've probably been in training for it almost my whole life. So I've. My dad's in. My dad has a retail business in sales. So he's always. We've always learned a lot of sales. But I think my original, originally, how I first got into it was through ffa. I was really involved in ffa and there was a lot of competitions, speaking competitions, a lot of livestock judging with a lot of public speaking involved, getting in front of a crowd talking. Talking on your opinions. And those are always some of the most stressful things. When you're telling somebody your opinion, there's always going to be people who have the most opposite opinion of what you are.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Dennis has his own opinions, let me tell you.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:29] Speaker D: I have the right opinions.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Exactly.
Everybody's got the right opinion. That's exactly right. So I was always kind of pushed. I was really early on. I was one of the more shy kids. I was one of those kids that didn't want to talk to anybody. But I really pushed myself in those competitions to try it because I knew it would be good for me, and it served me well. And that kind of thing kind of helps jumpstart the drone business as well. It started as an FFA research project on an ag sales competition. And so we just kind of researched some cool ideas, cool things to sell and different things. And dad's like, yeah, look into this. So we kind of started looking into it. I did some research, found there was only a few companies then. That was. That was almost six years ago now, which is crazy. So I was a freshman in high school when. When I started my drone business.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: So you've. You've been spraying crop fields even longer than I have.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah, this. This would been our. We just wrapping up our fifth season, so this next year would be our sixth season. That's awesome. Yeah.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, because we would have just wrapped up our third season spraying across, right?
[00:03:31] Speaker C: No, I think it's four season.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Fourth. Oh, yeah, it is. Because, yeah, four seasons, you'd have been
[00:03:35] Speaker C: a year in it longer than what we have.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. Y. Y. Yep.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: So it kind of started. I got my part 107 right when I was 16 years old, as soon as I could. And so, yeah, it's. It's been. It's been a heck of a ride.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Do. Do you think that because of where you come from, with your family having a retail.
Chemicals. Right.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, chemicals and seed.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Did that give you a head start?
[00:04:02] Speaker B: I think a little bit that definitely helped with the drone business because we had a little bit of a customer base to kind of start out with. We had some. Some trusted guys. So if we had a failure, it wasn't the end of the world. So we are. I'm very fortunate to kind of have a little bit of a. Of a jump start to originally get into it, but now, I mean, a lot of it's just kind of grown from there, and some of the. A lot of the customers anymore aren't even like our original Customers. So we've just kind of grown and expanded from there. So I'd say we did just as far as the drone aspect, but just me myself personally was like, that's all kind of FFA stuff.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: Is your main business now selling drones or actually doing application work?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: It's probably mixed. I mean we kind of get hot times like in the spray season and the fungicide season. It's mainly all. Just all application for the most part. We do like sales calls and tech stuff all the time kind of. I'm more of the multi tool. We're doing a little bit of everything, but it's pretty well balanced really. Winter times for the trade shows and then the summer times for all the work. But we've been constantly adding different portfolios to kind of diversify our business, trying to get into new avenues to kind of help advance and really diversify ourselves. So that's kind of been one of those, one of those big, bigger things in that.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's crazy.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Speaker C: You're in business with your brother, right?
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, sir.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Are you old or younger?
[00:05:22] Speaker B: I'm younger.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: You're younger?
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. He's 23. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Is he here?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah, he's, he's at the, the registration desk. He's working the registration right now. So we're on, we're on the committee for the, the drone conference here today. So we're gonna have some, some work involved with that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Do you have any speech or talks here?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: So I've got three sessions. I've got a kind of a hands on session and that's on Tuesday, I believe. And then I've got two Q and A panels, just like expert panels, that sort of thing. So.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's cool.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Selling a bunch of drones. Do you feel like your business will pivot more into a retail of the drones or do you want to be a big spray drone applicator?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So there's, that's a little bit of a loaded question, but there's really. Honestly, I think there's two businesses in it. I think at some point we really need to split Midwest Air into two separate entities. One is where like a brand that you already know is a sales tech team. Sales team. The other side is application. There's a lot of, there's a lot of potential in both avenues and both of them have served really well. But I think more so for us applications kind of been a little bit more of a cash cow. There's, you know, we can. It's something that's a lot more Reliable. We can always count on, you know, outside factors don't play as much of a, as much of a factor. Markets and economics and stuff like that. But I think it's really, definitely a two, two business type of, type of horse to kind of split those out. And there's a lot of potential in the application side, but they work together. So if you can apply for a farmer and show them this is what the product does, this is how well drones work, this is what happens.
This is, that's, that's, that's an easy way to make a sale. Yeah, we've done that early on. You know, hey, you don't you want to try it out? You know, we'll spray, see, see if it actually works. And then, then they're like, they always like, yeah, we got to have one.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: I was going to ask you that. The sales that you're making, how you probably won't know this on a percentage, but entrepreneurs versus farmers buying drones.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I would say probably, I would probably say 60, 60 farmers, 40 entrepreneurs, I would guess. Yeah, we actually, I think we talked about this. We sold two farmers. They were like in their upper 70s, lower 80s, and they were just, just far. They've been farming for themselves their whole year, their whole lives. And like, those are the type of guys who like, want to do everything by themselves. They hired us one year, but they're like, you guys are too expensive. I can't get a drone. I was like, yeah, okay.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: You know, 70 year olds are actually spraying.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that is impressive. They're like, they're really good at it. I.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: What drone did they choose?
[00:08:04] Speaker B: They got a T50.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I sold them a T50. It was pretty user friendly and, and I take a little bit more calls from them than some of the other guys, but they haven't had any accidents. They flew all their, all their corn this year. No accidents, nothing. I was like, these guys are great. They're some of the coolest and most very influential wise farmers. They're really good people to listen to and learn from because they, they've been through and seen it all. So I always, I'm always all ears when I'm, when I'm with those guys. So they're, they're great.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: And you guys sell dji, xag? What all do you guys sell?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: So, yeah, we have a Talos dealership. So that's the Talos T60 and then the DJI and then we have a Raptor dealership. So that includes the, the XAG Vector and the Series Drone. So Scott. I'm on the super user program. So we get to run the series drone for a year. Kind of like a research and exploration type of thing. So we're really excited about that. Very beast of a drone. But they're huge. It's a monster, right?
Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: I'm excited to see how that thing works.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's got to prove itself, right. So it's got to get a year under its belt. So it's all well and good in theory, but we got it, we got to take it out and see, see how it runs and see what kind of production we're getting.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: So let's pick on that drone just for a little bit.
Is it too big?
[00:09:19] Speaker B: I think for some scenarios, yes. 100%. Yeah. I mean there's, there is a lot of, a lot of our customers, like two 70 year olds, you know, go back to that same example. They're not gonna be able to pick up that drone. They're not gonna be able move around.
It's more tailored for, and I think they understand that too. It's more tailored for the guys who just big, flat, wide open fields. They want to, maybe some younger, younger guys, you know, that are a little bit more agile and some guys that can just absolutely eat acres. Let it let her rip.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Do you feel like that that team thought about the charging solution that it's going to take for that drone battery?
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's, there's still some, some testing to be done. So they're new batteries, they take three phase charging. So that, that's really tricky to kind of switch some things over. They're trying to, they're working on that.
But the battery from. We've got a T100 and just to be honest, we've had a little bit of issues. You know, we can't get a full tank out of 2 GPA, you know, with the T100. So the battery was one of the biggest limiting factors on how long of a run. I would say probably half mile runs. We had some pretty decent, like pretty nice 100 acre fields and we were pushing, we had, honestly we ran a couple nice open fields and we were getting, we were spraying 3 GPA and still only getting, only being able to fill it up like 22, 20 gallon.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: And so we had, I think that's, it's really great drone. We, you know, we like a lot of the simplicity, a lot of the, a lot of the cool features on it. But there is, there's a little bit of a, of a, of a battery I'm not afraid to, you know, be honest with my customers and anybody who's asking 100%.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: You know, I tell guys it's not a 26 gallon drone all day.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Exactly. Right?
[00:11:02] Speaker A: It's not.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Do you know why they did that? This is my opinion. Right. Like we all have opinions, we just talked about it. But I feel DJI did that 26 gallon tank because XAG released their drone and EA released their drone and they were 20 gallon drones and they're like, oh geez, ours is better, we can do, yeah, six more gallons. Yeah, it's totally because when I was in China they didn't even have that.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: That's what, that's what, that's what we, we talked about. Like they have in China, they have a 20 gallon one.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what's better suited for it, 100%.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: So if you are doing orchard stuff, it does help for some of those high GPA stuff. And there are guys, we have guys that do that. So it makes, makes sense. But it is a little bit of a marketing, marketing play there. It sounds better than it is, but in reality it's more of a 20 gallon drone.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: It's a 20 gallon.
[00:11:49] Speaker C: If you put 20 gallons in that sucker, it's crazy how much less energy it takes.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. That extra six gallon, it, it's huge. It take it, it, it takes a lot of energy out of it.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how have you been able to be so chill on what drone somebody should use? Because like I'm just, I'm done. I'm to the point where it's like, if we look at it as an overall best system, it has a great camera, it has good connectivity, it can spray, you know, a 20 gallon tank. The charging solution for it, the whole freaking system seems to work. But for you, you sell, you know, xag, you sell the other drones that you just mentioned.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Right. So really what we do, we take them and we just ask them questions. We have a five year old mindset. We are asking questions just like a five year old, just almost like where it's a little bit annoying. We're like, hey, what, what are you looking to get? And we essentially make them a tailor made suit. So what, what does your operation look like? For example, those older guys, like they want something simple that's easy to use, something that they know that they know that works. Something tried and true. That's where we find, you know, a T50 was a great option for them. Maybe some guys that were at the time the P150 had an 18 gallon tank, you know, 40 mile an hour spray speed. If we had some custom guys that were that big, wide open, square fields, you know, no obstacles and just wanted to run, you know, that was at the time that that would be an option. That was their, their type of options. So we like to make. We want to really be customer obsessed and find what they need and what they're.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: So, so you're giving us those scenarios based on the T100 was not available yet at the time. Right. And you're looking at somebody wanting to get a lot of acres done fast.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Or carry more load. But don't you feel like the T100 now will fit into almost any, any category, either small fields or big fields, fast or slow.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there is, it's a definitely good in between point. Maybe we, we saw. I've had some guys that's come down and like, hey, this is something I'm, A lot of times I'm, I'm, you know, by myself with my wife or something. This is not something I can't move, move around really easy. Where the T60 was. I think the T60 was really good kind of stuff. Single man, single drone operation or you know, that type of deal. So the T100 I think may be a little bit big and, but yeah, I think it is a really good one for guys to just set up and run. At the end of the day then you've got a 40 gallon drone over there that, you know, that's, that's also kind of like now we're just constantly advancing. It's unreal. The, the changes.
It's unreal.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: It is so fast.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Unreal, Unreal.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: You know, I mean just from last year to this year, what drones are available is insane.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: No. Yeah. I mean look at the, the trade show from last year to this year, what we got now. It's awesome. Right there's, it's a, like my brother said the other day, it's commercialized. There's plenty of different things out there. A lot of different, different guys getting into, into the playing field.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yep, yep.
[00:14:39] Speaker D: So you're spraying a lot in Ohio?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yes, sir. Yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker D: Okay. So you get quite a variety of field types. Yeah, some big one. And what's your favorite drone to run like when you're out spraying personally?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Well, so we have, we haven't run the T100 a bunch, so I'll kind of take that one out of the option. It doesn't have a lot of. We we did it a couple jobs with it. But honestly, and just from. From my perspective is a T60. It was something that was very reliable. We didn't have to worry about it just falling out of the field. No, it didn't have the biggest payload. Didn't. Didn't spray the fastest. But just for peace of mind type of deal, we had a pilot, one of our pilots. He ran all year.
We essentially. We have my. I have another brother. He's 15. He's. He's kind of our. One of our ground guys. He's getting into it. He ran with. With him all year while Camden and I. We were on the travel cruise up in northern Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, traveling. He was back home servicing customers at home. He ran all year. Fungicide doing that by himself. One T60 and never crashed. Never had one, which was a huge thing for, like, that just happened.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Why, why, why do you think the reliability of the T6ax was so much higher than models pass? Because we sold tons of them and we had very little issues with them.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: I don't think we had one T60 come to our shop to get fixed.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: I think. I think part of it is. It is very. The obstacle avoidance radars on it make it super safe. It's very protected. Sometimes a little bit too much where it's like wanting to kind of hurt. Jerk on. On some of those hills and maybe slope. But it's worth it. Just so you know, it's. It's very safe. I've seen it dodge power lines automatically and do. And some of these claim to do that, but I've seen them just run straight through them like it never happened. And not saying that. That things don't get by that one either, but I've seen it do some really crazy maneuverations and. And I think that's probably most of the time because I think most of the time it's a power line. Those. Those power lines that cut a corner off where there's no poles in the field. You don't see it.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: You know, if it's a big field, you're not. You don't really want to take the time to fly a drone all the way around. That or you get in the heat of the day and. And it's a business. You got to make money. So you're trying. Trying to, you know, get as many acres as you can in a day. You know, you got to pay. You got to pay your bills. So sometimes when you get hot and, you know, you get long, long days back to back, sometimes you're not paying closest attention and then things happen, you. Things slip by. So that's where I think a lot
[00:17:00] Speaker C: of those accidents, a lot of pilots complacent, complacency 100%.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Yep. And some guys, they're landing on top of the trailer. They're not paying attention. I've had. I fixed a lot of drones where it's fell off the side of the trailer, which I think the T60 has done a really good job on the positioning side of it where it lands right where it take off. It does a really good job with that. I've been impressed with that.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: When I was in China, before the T100 was released here in the United States, I asked a dealer there in China what has been your number one model that you've sold and he said, without a doubt, it's been the T60.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely been.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Because they didn't have the T70 yet at that time. So what they have had was the T60 and the maneuverability, just how agile it is. Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: I love flying that drone.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: I thought you were going to ask him another question.
[00:17:47] Speaker D: No, that's. That's great. That's good to hear. And I was just curious on. On your own personal beings that you deal with a lot more than just dj. I've not flown. I mean, I've flown a little bit, but I've never really tried any other drone and so I. I don't have a lot to go out of, but. Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: No, the software is like really, really worked out. Really. They got a lot of wrinkles out where we've had some other issues with some of the others. Just software bugs. It's just like simple things like you got to reset the app just a little bit. Just kind of takes or unplug the brain. Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: I had to do that all the time.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, it happens all the time. Yeah, it's. It's such a pain.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: It is pretty impressive to think where we've come to, but yet there's these little glitches that can shut an operation down just like that.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And the Talos one, we've never. That we don't have to worry about. When we change the battery and plug it in, it just. Just goes, you know, we don't have to. We're like, we gotta reset the drone and reserve. Reset the. We didn't have as many of those. Those issues. That's why. Kind of one of those things where it's just, you know, it makes it easier. You're not as wore out by the end of the day.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: How much night ops did you guys do?
[00:18:57] Speaker B: We did a little bit. Not a month, not a bunch. We've got some. We've got. Actually just got a contract, the guy in central Ohio to do. Do 2000 acres all night spring, because he's. He's got. And he's in an area where he's done a lot of agronomy testing, where the corn is a lot more receptive to a fungicide and to those types of protectives. At night, when you got a little bit of dew, a little bit of moisture, it's always accepting more because it's trying to bring in. Even in those hot days, it's shutting that plant off. It's rolling the leaves up. Essentially. You treat it like a solar panel. It's rolling those leaves up, curling up. It's essentially trying to take its nap. I don't want to take in anything.
I've had enough sunlight. So when you get into those nighttime operations, the plant is a lot more susceptible to take in and you get a lot more. Not saying you don't get, you know, you don't get the bang for your buck during the daytime, but you get just that much more in the nighttime. And that's one of those projects we've been working on. There's additional challenges. So there's operational challenges that come with that.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: I was going to say tell me because I freaking loved operating at night this season. Yeah, the T60X made it not nearly as stressful as it was with the T50. The T50. The FPV camera was hard to see if you were truly operating at night. So the T60X I preferred to run at night because I was able to pick up power lines easier. And as far as terrain following and just doing its job, it had no problem operating at night. So I wasn't sure if you were running the T60X at night with the black and white.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Not a bunch. We've done some where we've had. We've got the exemption and so sometimes we've. We've ran into.
[00:20:31] Speaker D: Haven't.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: We had one. One issue. And that was really the only time we've crashed the drone. It was. My brother was flying and he decided he. We were pushing it late and had to get done. And there was this really steep hill. I mean, we. That was around home where we get really big hills. And I don't know what happened, but. Well, he didn't. He had on flatland mode. And this is when we just got the drones. We didn't know much about it, so he didn't have it in Orchard Hill mode. And it, it just went straight into the hill.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Bang.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And it was like one of the few. Like it was, it may have been the second or third times we've had it out.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: So it was like, this is the
[00:21:06] Speaker B: way this drone is gonna be like. But then we had it made a huge bounce back. So yeah. Put some slap some parts on it and it was no big deal. Like. Yeah.
[00:21:15] Speaker C: What percentage of drones do you sell the most? Like what do you think? Like XAG DJI?
[00:21:20] Speaker B: I would say probably 60. 40. Again, 60 of the Talos or DJI Talos and then 40 of the Xags. It really plays through the really more so farmers. They, we get those, them T60s. Those are some of those big bigger operators who want to roll smoke and get those acres out there. We, you know, we hooked them up with a P150. So it's pretty much those same. It's. It was kind of easy to split it up that way.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: What type of charging solution are you using for the XAG P150?
[00:21:52] Speaker B: So we actually have a generator deal.
So we set them up with a, A lot of times with diesel Kubotas. Oh, those were, those are really nice. Oh my gosh. When you go from those, those DJI generators, oh, they're so quiet. They're reliable. You don't have to worry about them starting or whatever. They're just, they're worth the, the, they're. You know, there's a big cost factor to go into that, but they're, they are if you're wanting to get into it. And if you, you think, if you're a guy who's, you know, just getting into drones and you think you really wanted to go this for the long route or if you've done it for a few years and like, hey, this is something I'm gonna do for five, five to seven years. That's one you should definitely get into your five to seven year plan.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: You know, it is a diesel generator but, but they're kind of screwed to go the diesel generator if they want to get a T100. Because you need to have three phase to run the C12000 at supercharged speeds.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So that, that's where we, the, A lot of the generators we get can either do single phase or three phase based on the, on the generator company work. We work with essentially custom builds whatever we want around a, like a, you know, A Kubota or CAT motor.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: And yeah.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: So if we need to make any adjustments here or there, they're, they're really good to work with.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: And what's the weight on one of those? That's the thing.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: It takes 10 weeks. 10 week wait time.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Weight.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: Oh the weight. Oh, sorry, sorry.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's 1800 pounds. 18, 1900 pounds. So it's. Yeah, it's, it's big.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: So about 2000.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Pretty close. Yeah, pretty close. Yeah. It's so.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: And it's big.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Don't get me wrong, it's a big thing.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: That, that's my, that's why I, I don't recommend it. It's like it's going to take the, the weight of just holding your generator. You can't carry as much water. Now you get a bigger trailer. Okay, well now you got bigger everything. It's like we just keep going.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: And it gets really, really big. But you know, I tell people, yes, it would be nice to have a quiet generator. But I am out here supercharging my batteries on a generator that is gasoline and three phase. But yeah, yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: 100. Yeah. So they're have like if we sell T60, we just. It's generator is really like the only option. Like unless somebody's like hey, I've got something already or whatever. If they trying to do something on their own, we're like hey, but this is. You're at your own risk because we've just had very. It's a lot more simplistic with the charging and trying to work it out to get it to keep up. Very simplistic but.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: And they've become more reliable. The 14,000 versus the 12,000.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: I, I've. Yeah, we, we've definitely found that they've had. But at the end of the day it's a small gas motor. It's running all day long. You know, it's running all day long and you, you can tell it's, it's maxed out.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: It's, it's.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: So you can't expect it to, for, for what it is. You can't expect it to last more than three to five years. Right.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: You're not going to, you're not going to last 10 years. No, no.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: 100% where like that G will generate. It's an investment. You know, it's going to, it's got a lot of them. Ours come with a five year warranty. So five years, anything happens and we've had one that had. Had an Issue that was like pretty rare. You know, they replaced everything. So, you know, this is a, you know, big diesel generator. You're going to expect it to last at least 15, 20 years, you know, on average. So that's kind of, it's, it's more the investment. You know, if, you know this is what you want to get into and this is, you're in for the long run, you're not wanting to be a flash in the pan, then that's, that's kind of where like. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of things where, like I said, we can try and tailor, tailor, make all these scenarios for the, for the customer. So it's all about finding what they want. Try and have a little bit of a customer obsession. Just really listen to them and find out what works for them.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: When you started in business in spray drones, did you see this in your future? Like that you guys would be operating this or has this evolved?
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely not. We, we essentially, this was, I mean, very basic, very ragtag. We get a drone, we got a, we got a 250 gallon shuttle. We hand. We had the T20s in those days. So we had those swap out tanks that pulled out.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: And so we mixed them with little kitchen mixers. It was awful.
We were terrible. Yeah, we had that insecticide in that little tiny like kitchen. Kitchen mixer. And you got the chemical burn all miserable.
We're such idiots.
We didn't know anything. And we're like, this is no business. We wrecked. And we didn't realize. So we didn't understand that when the battery gets to. At the time it was 10%. It drops down whenever, wherever it's at. And then. And it had a big issue where it, it came in. We were trying to push the battery. It hit the trailer, bounced off, hit my hand. And we're like, we gotta shut this down. We had a serious scenario. We're like, hey, this is. We had a full team meeting. We're like, hey, this is. We gotta shut the, we gotta pull the plug on this. We gotta shut it down.
And we like, all right, well, let's, you know, just happened. Let's give it, let's give it 48 hours. They say before you make a rational decision, give it 48 hours. We did. And we're like, those are the tests. That's that, you know, you get those tests in life and it comes at you and those defining moments that define, define your character that really, really push you. And thank God we did. That was it was one of the greatest decisions we've made. But yeah, at the time, like, people were like, you know, we had all kinds of people who were telling us like, yeah, no, this is not going to work. This is. We had even family members like, hey, you know, they said my dad was in his midlife crisis by giving us an investment. Like. Like, yeah, yeah. Now it's like, oh, yeah, some midlife crisis it is now. It's, you know, we look at what we got now where we've got our own building. You know, we've grown three or four crews and we've got. Got a, you know, a drone fleet. And so it's been really very fortunate, very fortunate to. To have, to have what we have. We've. It's been a heck of a ride. Continuously growing, getting better. It's been, it's been great. Yeah.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: What are you thinking, Dennis?
[00:27:27] Speaker D: That's cool. I mean, I think he's saying some of the challenging, the dumb stuff that they did and think of, what are we doing? Yeah, like, even I, I started with the T40s and I'm out there spraying in the hot freaking sun thinking, why did I listen to Mike?
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the dumbest deceiver.
[00:27:46] Speaker D: He didn't tell me.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: This sucks.
[00:27:49] Speaker D: But, you know, you let it go for a few days, it's like, yeah, it wasn't that bad, you know, but where you're right, the moment when you're like, it's like, holy crap, this is a lot, you know.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker D: But man, I'm telling you, from my first season to my second season, we went from the T40s, T50s and it was already just totally different.
Yeah, way better. Way better.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Still.
[00:28:12] Speaker D: They had challenges and stuff, but still.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. This past year we were like, surprised. Like, we gotta have enough drones, enough parts to replace a whole drone. And we're expecting the worst. Like we had in our second and third year and it's like every year. And then this past year it's like, huh, we're actually starting to figure something out. Like, okay, it does take time to kind of learn those things. And some of that stuff you won't, you won't see in a video, you won't find in a book.
It's boots on the ground type of stuff. Experience related. So. Yeah.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Do you, do you create content yourself?
[00:28:46] Speaker B: We, we're not huge into it. We do. We have an Instagram page. We have YouTube. We do some videos here and there. We're not huge creators. A lot of our, A lot of our success we'd love to get into it a lot more, but a lot of our success has kind of been on word to mouth, doing trade shows, doing like this type of stuff, traveling,
[00:29:03] Speaker C: you guys, all over, all over the country and trade shows or.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: We do, yeah, we've, we've done New York. We have a sub dealer in New York's upstate New York. We did the Farm Science Review, which is in Ohio, hoping to do Louisville this year, the Louisville Farm Show. So we travel a good bit and we do a lot of local stuff, Farm bureau, swim water stuff. Just kind of get your name out there and those sort of things. And we, you know, being on the committee has helped us network with a lot of other industry experts. It kind of, it helps get our name out there too. It's like, hey, have you heard of these guys? Like, yeah, you know, they're from Ohio or whatever. This, you know, I can point you in their direction.
That sort of thing has been kind of been what's. That's really driven our early success. But I think as we grow, I think social media is something we're definitely exploring, trying to get into a little bit more. Yep.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Do you know if you being on the podcast last year brought any business to you?
[00:29:54] Speaker B: I think it's had some. I think I had a couple people was like, hey, I heard you on the podcast. It was great. He's like, I didn't know that you were 20 years old. I was like, yeah, but yeah, it was good. I think it was early on. So I think you're things been growing really good and people are kind of catching on.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, the re.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: The reason I asked is I'm hoping to have Yanni on again. Vortex Advantage Ag.
He got business because of the podcast, but because it was a lack of customer service from our point. So I wasn't sure if they called you and said something. You know, I tried calling New A, but they were so busy they didn't pick up my call.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: I haven't heard anything like that. No, nothing like that. No.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Well, that's good.
But yeah, basically that's what happened to Yanni. And it's hard to. For people to understand that we can't pick up your call when we're on four different calls at the same time.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: So it. But it sucks. It sucks to not be able to do that. Yes, yes. And we're humans, just like them. I don't want that. I want to build my team to the absolute best team as possible. But dude, sometimes you can't grow Fast enough and grow your team fast enough.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's a huge thing is growing pains. We've run into that. Trying to. Trying to find the right people in the right places and. And hire quick too. So it's. That's always one of those challenging things. You try and find guys in the brun. The season and find good guys. So it's. That's always. Always a really tough thing to navigate.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: So you're going through seasonal help, probably some too, right?
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Mostly college students. High, high school.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: So we had. We have one. One of our main pilots, he has actually has his own deer recovery business. So he does a lot of those camera drones while deer recovery is more of a fall thing. So his summers were kind of open. And.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: What's the guy's name?
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Xander partial.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: What's his recovery?
[00:31:47] Speaker B: It's. Let me think. It's elite deer recovery, I think.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I talked to him at the Farm Cents.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You saw him? Yeah, he was. He was there helping us.
He didn't get to make it here. Here today, but yeah, he's. So. He's one that already had his license.
He loves drones. You know, it's something he. He loves agriculture. We kind of met through an FFA thing again too. And so, yeah, we've. We kind of. He's. He's a couple years older than. Than I. But then we had a couple other helpers. They were actually customers. They're Mennonite fellas that we had sprayed for. And they're like, hey, you know. You know, you guys, we. He had. He is a kind of a smaller farmer. And then in the summers he had work construction just to kind of in late summers where he kind of ran out of work and ran out of things to do. He just worked construction. So we're like, hey, we've got a perfect fit during the fungicide time. So he's been helping us. They've been. They're really great. Some of the best workers, that's for sure.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: You brought up drone deer recovery. Do you do any drone deer recovery?
[00:32:42] Speaker B: We don't do any deer recovery. We sell the small drones. We have a drone nerds dealership. We sell those small drones. But we don't do any of the de recovery now.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: That's. We let. We send it all to Xander if that's. That can be our gift back a little bit. And so he appreciates that we send a lot of all that business to him. Yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Nice. Cool.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Well, 20 years old building a business. I wonder could you tell us like how much in X's that your company grew from the time you started. Like are you 10x20x?
[00:33:12] Speaker B: I would say at least gross wise it might be more than that. Maybe 2030. Probably 2030 x. Yeah, I mean we, yeah.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: And, and they're still. I bet you're going to 30x for many years.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: I hope so.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Well with, if you look at the, the industry and the growth potential.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Potential was so untapped. Yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: We're still barely getting started.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Cuz a lot of our stuff that's going out, it's going out to new ears, new eyes that are looking at the industry like you were back when you started, you know, six years ago and thinking, oh, I missed the ship. Well no, it's not even sailing yet. No, no, we're still at dock getting routed up still.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's still, still a dock. Yeah, for sure. I mean there's still, there's still a lot of acres that are being covered by airplane helicopters and kind of our, our personal task is like yeah, we, we, whether, whether it's one drone or the other, we got it, we got to take it over to get it, get in the drone world.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Have you gotten any heat from traditional aerial application companies like drone or helicopters or airplanes?
[00:34:18] Speaker B: We definitely have.
Not as much personally because we always, you know, if we do make a mistake, you know, things happen, we streak fields, we misapply whatever happens, we mix it too light or whatever happen, those types of things happen. For us it's really important to fix that mistake as soon as possible. You know, if we find it before them, we call them, let them know that this happened, we're coming back to fix it for free of charge. So we are very quick to do that. Where some guys we've had not our customers but some other customers or they just weren't trained, they didn't have, have a lot of that knowledge and they, they just didn't do a very good quality job and then just left and you know, it was crickets from there. So that's what had kind of put a bad taste in people's mouths. And then if it was a traditional helicopter guy and versus the a drone guy and he, he just has that example to go off of. He's immediately got a bad opinion and, and he generalizes it just for the whole industry. But we have a good relationship with the airplane helicopter guys. If we ever see each other flying, we'll call each other, give her, give her, give each other notams. And that's that sort of thing. We maintain a good relationship with those guys. It's important.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: And some of those guys, we've kind of helped them kind of add. Add drones to their fleets where you can get a man out of the pilot, you save. Save all that danger of having somebody in there. And a lot, A lot of those guys. I know a guy in northeast Ohio, he's. He's looking at trying to do one where it's like, got some of those smaller niche fields, some of those little bit trickier fields. He just can't get a helicopter into, have one have a crew doing those. Those type of stuff and then. And then another helicopter to eat the big stuff. And I think, you know, it doesn't have to be a parasitism type of relationship. It can. It can benefit each other, you know.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: But. But you can see say that there was definitely heat even a year or two years ago because these drones are coming in and they are doing some of their acres.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: I mean, I don't go on Facebook much, but there's literally always somebody 100%.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: They're definitely. I think, in my opinion is people that are afraid that they know this is coming and this is continuously taking over. And your initial response is to, you know, slash it and. And, you know, cut it down instead of open arms. And there are some that are open arms, like, hey, this is coming whether I like it or not, you know, and they accept it and open it in. And we really appreciate those guys. But yeah, it's. It's taken away their livelihood where it's been their family business that's been in business for 50 years, and that's how they made their living. So initially, you know, that's a natural human response to initially have a good pushback. So we try and educate and teach those people, you know, it's not the end of the world. These. It's just part of how civilization, I think, in general is constantly adapting. We, you know, we've started electricity. We get the phones. We do. We constantly have to adapt and overcome to get better. And that's just. I think it's just part of it, one of those things that's happening. So.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: But yeah, it was. I remember when I first we did a conference, like early on, this was T30 days when we were starting, we did a speech and we were like, this was cool. This is a very cool concept. And we had a guy who. So we have that ground application business and we have that retail store. So we had knew the guys we had sold chemicals for him, and he. He had. Was managing the helicopter company that hired all. All the acres. He did. He did like 2 or 300,000 acres of. In Ohio, just all helicopter stuff. And he did all of our farms, all of our customers. Wow. And he did everybody. And he just kind of had the monopoly on the market. And he left us high and dry the year, like one week before he was supposed to show up, he left our customers and us and said our. Our area was too dangerous to fly. He just left, didn't come. So that was the. In another portion, another step, we're like, we got to be able to take care of this in house. That's, you know, another step. We're like, yeah, this is. That was the. The final straw. We're like, yeah, we got to get in the drones.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: We hear that all the time. Yeah, like, that's one of the biggest reasons a lot of farmers are going the drones is because of scheduling.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. It gives. It gives the. The farmer operating days when it's too wet out to do certain things. It gives. Gives that extra control. Farmers are control freaks. They want to be able to have those because you can't rely on somebody else. Because that timing of the fungicide can be, you know, your profit and loss margin, you know, the timing is crucial. I mean, you get. You only get a certain amount of days if it's too late or too early. You know that. That you're. It's cutting into your pocketbook, if you can.
That's what is what's really great about this industry. It gives those farmers the power of choice and allow them to kind of take care of it in house, which has been a huge thing, because that. That can be in this industry anymore. In agriculture, that can be the turning point of a profit and loss year, you know, so, yeah, you can't blame them for trying to get into. Trying to do that. Right. Yeah.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: What was one of the most challenging things of last season for you and your company?
[00:39:16] Speaker B: I would say one of the most challenging things would be probably finding the right guys. So as we were trying to, we added on a crew and a half. You know, we were trying to scale up a little bit. Kind of like we talked about those growing pains. That was probably one. One of the more challenging things was finding the guys to. To kind of help man the crews. And then the other part was when once we had the crews, we had to keep the acres fed, which, like I talked earlier, we had a pretty rough drought in Southern Ohio, which is where in our first two, two to three years, that's where all of our acres came from. So that's when we started. I started the Ag Spray Drones of Ohio Facebook group. Trying to get. Reach out and like, hey, anybody else need help? We like, hey, I've got the guys, I got the crews. I got. I got to keep them fed, you know.
You know, I got to help pay. Pay for some of these things. So we had to really hustle.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: Just.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: I. I kind of just spent days on the phone just calling people up and seeing and. And just trying to hustle out there and get the name. Just call people and ask. The worst they can do is tell you no. So that's what I did. So trying to keep the acres in a tough year as agriculture, the markets are down. The price of corn is what it was in 1975. Fertilizer has doubled in the past year. It's been unreal. So there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things. Farmers are definitely struggling. There's not just in our area, but a nationwide thing. It's very challenging. So. And those types of things, we got to. We got to do everything we can to. To run very lean.
[00:40:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: What did you do any pasture land work?
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah, we did. We did pasture land work with the T60. Did great on those hills that it dominated. Yeah, did really good. That was a good late fall application type of thing. That was. We. So as a business, we've been trying to diversify ourselves. We're like, hey, agriculture is not looking so good. We got to find another avenue. So this past year, what we did is we got into power line spraying. We sprayed right aways over power lines in the Appalachian Mountains. We did about 30 miles. Right away, we just took the drone over, sprayed right over top of where the power line was. Kind of keep the brush off because
[00:41:21] Speaker A: you would fly over top of the
[00:41:22] Speaker B: line, over top of the lines. Yeah. There wasn't enough room. So they had 40 foot cutout.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: Manually flying.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we did it all in manual. Yeah. And they only had like 40ft wide swath cut out. And these trees grow in. And whenever a storm or windstorm comes in a little bit of snow, rain, whatever, those branches come in and knock down the. Those power lines, take out the power. So we just came in, sprayed over top of those. Did a great job.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Did you only make one pass?
[00:41:45] Speaker B: We did. In some. In some areas where it got really bad, we would do a down and back and just to kind of make sure we hit it pretty good. But it was really tricky. It takes a very experienced operator. So we had to play with a lot of adjuvants. We had to use what we called a. What was called guar. It makes those droplets really heavy and extends those water, those H2O, H2O polymers. So essentially we were taking those droplets and making them those. Those fines. And it kind of gets a little bit inconsistent with those atomizers. So what we did was put that wire in there, and that just made them drop like rain. So it was almost like it was getting a herbicide rain shower over top of those power lines. Because we're dropping it from, you know, we're chopping it from 40ft above. So we have to really manage. We're getting close to houses, we're getting close to maybe other fields, a lot of different obstacles. It's a whole new game. So. And when we're dropping it from that high, we. We have to take three times as much precautions. Very, very. Can be very, very risky at times. But for the power company, it made every sense in the world for us to have us do it.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: So that herbicide that you're spraying, where, say it gets on a tree branch, is it engineered to only kill the tree branch or kill the tree?
[00:42:59] Speaker B: It's more engineered. So if it's a small tree, it can kill like those. Just the tree itself. But if it was like a big mature tree, it was just intended to kill off those branches where it hit contact. That's cool. Yeah. So it's, it's. There's a lot of research that goes into it. So the trouble we had was a lot of people were just misinformed on what these herbicides do. They're like, oh, you're taking. You're killing the timber, you're killing the trees. Like, no, this is not what it does. I was like, I was like, here, read the label. Then it explains exactly in great detail what it does and how it targets. How it targets the plant. And we're not hurting the main. The big tree population. We're just getting all those stragglers, not worth anything anyway. And typically what they do is they hire a tree cutting crew. When it gets too bad, they just take a crew and mulch it down. And they're charging about four, forty thousand dollars for a mile. Holy smok.
And so we came through and we charged $3,000amile to just spray right, right through there. And that's huge difference.
No brainer, right? Yeah. So that was, that was a big thing. And. But there was a Lot a lot of learning to be done. A lot, a lot of pattern testing. A lot of work to get that. And that was, that was our maiden voyage on it. But it was, it was really, really good for us. And we hope to really advance that and kind of, kind of add on to it.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: So now you, now you mentioned, you know, doing power lines. Somebody that's listening or watching that has never done this. They're thinking, oh, I, I can start a business as a power line, you know, spray drone pilot.
That's very difficult to get in there.
How'd you do that? You, in my opinion, you had to have connections. Or was it cold called?
[00:44:35] Speaker B: It was. We had one particular connection came through Drone world. Just some guy that had, had seen us. He was a local guy, he was a tree care guy. He's like, hey, this is a great thing. I, he's like, I'll connect you with the owners of this power company.
Started from there, but it was all from those networking events that we did. And I don't even remember which one it was. But you never know when you go into these events, who you strike. You see somebody that's maybe sitting in the corner, arms crossed, never says a word, but then two years later, they call you up and say, hey, I've got 30 miles of power line spraying to do, you know, so you never know who. I'm a true believer. You never know who you touch in those, those certain, certain types of scenarios. And man, those. I've never met a bad connection because we're, you know, even if you have bad publicity, it's still publicity. So it's like still coming in. Yeah, but yeah, that, that was, that was. Been a really, he's, he's been a really good contact to kind of help.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: So is that something you see more miles coming in to do that in the future?
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, they've already. So like there was, was like 30 miles was like a trial for them. They're like, all right, next year, 100 miles and then that's one power company. Right?
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Now we, we've set up with bigger power companies doing, setting up because it's either they cut it out with those brush cutters and cut all the trees down to re. Reopen up the right of way, or they take backpack sprayers.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: You know, guys just out there on foot. When you get into these, these super hilly terrains, it's like, this is miserable. No, I, I couldn't do it. Couldn't do that.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: It's cool that you're sharing about that line of work. I appreciate that because there's some guys that will not share what their line of work is because it's like they feel like somebody's going to come take your. Their work from, from them. There was a gentleman I spoke to last year that was. He was showing me videos of what it was that he was spraying with spray drones. But he said, I'm not willing to share, you know, what I do. But essentially he was, he was spraying to kill invasive bushes out west, like New Mexico, Arizona type stuff where it's for fire protection.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: And it was the easiest flying ever. It was like he was way up high, never had to worry about hitting a power line, and he was just sending his drone out there, never losing connection because he was that high. But yeah, he wouldn't share because.
[00:46:52] Speaker B: No, I think that's one of the, one of the issues in the industry. Like, guys are so guarded over some of those things. But I believe if you do the job right, you know, you make, you make those contacts, there's so much untapped potential there. You have no idea how many power lines get sprayed by backpacks. There are so many miles of power lines out there. I am not concerned in the slightest of, of somebody take taking that over because it is so challenging that, like, I recommend getting into like, easier stuff to start with to get that experience.
[00:47:25] Speaker C: You're probably not going to want to start with power lines right off the.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: No, no, no, because. Yeah, because the other part of it is dealing with the people. People. You know, you got people who come out and cuss you out for 100.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: You remember when we were doing the gas line stuff, like cutting trees when we were doing that, they're like, oh, that's my tree. It's like, no, it's actually not your tree.
It's on the right of way.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: Yeah, you do power lines, gas lines.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: All types of.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Right away. Yeah. They don't understand, like, hey, like, we literally had to take this, this document, like, hey, you signed this two years ago, allowing us to spray. And he's like, no, no, no, I didn't. And we had to, to go back, get the document, show it to him. He's like, okay. It's like, yeah, so you. That's one of the biggest things. And it takes a lot of people's skills how to handle people. You get people that are super irate and it ruins your day. It is mentally challenging. They just come up, cuss you like a dog. They think they know all the stuff and, and you it takes a lot in, internally just to like be calm, defuse the situation and talk them through it, try and make them understand. If not, you try. You have to, you have to, you know, be strong with yourself and be like, you know what this is somebody who just doesn't know, you know, you have to try and understand where they're coming from a little bit and try and make it through. But those are really challenging days, I won't lie. That's. That makes it, that was one, one scenario where we didn't have to worry as much with the fungicide. And that's where it really was like, this is woof.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah, brutal was bad.
[00:48:53] Speaker B: Brutal bad.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: Yep, it was, it was very challenging. So.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: So it might be hard for you to think back as a brand new spray drone business owner, you're starting out this, this new business. If you can think back to that.
If a guy were to start a spray drone business, what do you think will be the number one challenge for that guy?
[00:49:18] Speaker B: I think the number one challenge, I think part of it is funding. So trying to get these, you know, any more of these drones are constantly increasing in price as they're getting bigger, better, faster.
So if for me, we had a lot, a lot of trouble trying to find a bank that would lend to us. So trying to get. But we had good relationships with Farm Credit, they're really good with lending to young farmers. So trying to find the right partnership there financially, it can be a big investment. But yeah, I always recommend guys like don't get the biggest drone, don't get the shiniest trailer out there. Start small and work your way up. These businesses take time, so that's probably one of the issues. I think it kind of depends on where your background is. So some guys are farm kids, they know agronomy, they know what a corn plant needs to survive and thrive, but they don't understand maybe business tactics or maybe they don't have the funding or some guys who are entrepreneurs in other aspects, but they have nothing to do with agriculture. So they gotta learn the agriculture side. So learning what you don't know, I think is one of those things that are a big challenge. But I think events like this, like the spray drone end user conference is one of those great things where you can learn, always kind of round yourself out and add on to your weaknesses and learn from people that's been there, learn from the experienced operators and keep that five year old mindset. Always ask questions.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry, I thought you had one for me.
[00:50:47] Speaker D: No, I love it. And the whole thing about your point about power lines.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:52] Speaker D: The thing is, you sharing that actually opens it up for, like, it gives people ideas like that. People never thought of that.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:51:03] Speaker D: There's so many use cases for drones that people that I think we haven't even thought about.
And so the more that you're doing that, okay, you're in Ohio, I'm in Ohio. Even though you're there, like, somebody else might see you spraying, then they go and look for it. It actually will increase and improve the industry overall. Which is also why these podcasts are pretty cool.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:51:26] Speaker D: It's awesome that Mike's willing to do this. You're interviewing your competition. You know, that's what. What people would tell them. Are you nuts?
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Like, you're going to. Right.
[00:51:35] Speaker D: But I. I really do believe in the, you know, no, we.
[00:51:40] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:51:40] Speaker D: You know, rising Tide raises all ships.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:51:44] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. It's like if I don't have him on our podcast, he's going to be on somebody else's podcast talking about the same thing.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: So at the end of the day, I think it's, you know, who supports, you know, it's all about. Some of. It's, you know, who's local, and then some of it's, like, who supports? You know, I think the proof is in the pudding. You know, sometimes you can get those initial sales, but can you follow up? Can you get them parts? Can you work them through those problems? At the end of the day, I think that's. That's those. Those sorts of things that separate out and. But, you know, I always welcome good competition because that. That increases the. That motivates me to do better. That motivates you guys to do better. If it was one person, then the industry would be terrible. It would be awful. Right?
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Fat and lazy.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, 100%.
[00:52:26] Speaker C: Anybody can sell a drone. Can you provide the after sales support behind that?
[00:52:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: That's huge.
[00:52:32] Speaker B: Can you get the next sale? That's. That's what we always pride ourselves on. You know, we get the next sale or we're picking up somebody else's where they had a bad experience with somebody else. We're picking up that sale and we're gonna. Even if you didn't buy a drone, we're gonna support you and help you through any of those challenges where you may have been led astray or if you, you know, have been let down in certain areas. So that's where I think, you know, those come from. Yeah.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: So you Want a big droplet on these power lines? I'm going back because I find it interesting. I was just told that XAG now has an atomizer that will go up to 1500 microns.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: The P150 will go up to 1500 microns.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: That is crazy wild.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really. It's more so like, it's, you know. So what we get with an atomizer nozzle is, you guys know, it's a disc that's cutting. Cutting the droplets, and how fast that spins is. Is, you know, how fine or coarse your. Your droplet size is. Essentially, it's like barely moving. So it's. It's almost like just not just dropping straight down. It's not atomizing at all. Okay. So we didn't. We had looked into it, but we didn't like the manual features of the xag, but we liked. Liked stuff like that maybe being able to turn the atomizer off. But the thing we didn't really like is being. Is the inconsistency. It was a lot more. So if you start too big, then you. Then you've got Mrs. In your pattern. So if we can start at a regular micron size, and just because we set our micron size to whatever that is, it's not exactly what it truly is. So when you add adjuvants and different things, you know, 230. I found that 230 microns on a DJI looks different on a spray carb than what, a 230 microns on an XAG. So there's. There's a lot of different things. And I. I teach people about this, and they had no idea. Like, I just. I set it to 150. That's what it is.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: So, you know, when we play around, we use a lot of guar adjuvants. Those are really good for drones to make because it helps. Really. The GWAR just makes it more consistent.
That size anyway, as a spectrum is an average of what all the droplets are together. And so we're moving the average. It's not every single droplet is the same.
So we're helping. If we've got a big range of droplets, then our pattern is completely changing around. It's very inconsistent. So we went with more of a 300, 400 micron size. And then we. We put the guar to it.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: We adjusted it chemically.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: Exactly. Instead of, you know, mechanically with the drone. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We did forest projects. So we have a lot of issues kind of similar with the invasive species. We, we have a lot of honeysuckle issues and we have landowners who have complete just tracks of forest and they have the honeysuckle completely taking over everything, destroying the wildlife, destroyed the plant life, everything. So we did 100 acres this past year of just spraying over top of the woods. So we did have some of that already existing testing. So we did that as well. That was an interesting one. A lot of learning. The trickier thing with that one is because is you do have obstacles. You're coming to the forest and the treetops are very uneven. So there's a lot of challenges. We did 3D mapping trying to get that to work and, and it's trying to contour.
[00:55:48] Speaker C: And did you use the 60 on that?
[00:55:50] Speaker B: We used, we actually used T100 on that project. Yeah, we, that was one. It did really good. Once we had a little bit of issues trying to get the 3D map uploaded to. To it.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: What process did you use?
[00:56:02] Speaker B: So we used drone Deploy with a Mavic3T and uploaded it was more just. We had never done it before 3T or 3E. It was a 3T.
[00:56:10] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we did it with 3T. Yeah.
[00:56:13] Speaker A: And so you didn't want to run it through DJI web.
[00:56:17] Speaker B: We. No, we didn't. We tried to do that which we initially thought we were going to have to do it on Talos, so we didn't even plan on doing that.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: So. And then the T100 came in and we had it and we're like, okay, let's, let's try this out. You know, this is, this is where it's going to thrive. Because we were doing 5 GPA. We have to get a higher. We wanted to get a lot more volume because you're only going to be doing 58 acres anyway. But it's very high value acres. That's, that's where the trick is. So that's where a T100 really, really shine there with that bigger tank. Exactly.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: So that was, that was really tricky. What we did was we actually mapped it with the tree leaves on so it was a lot more consistent. So we could kind of even it out versus if the leaves are all off. It's almost. It's not sent the, the, the scout drones not sensing all those individualities in, in those obstacles and it's harder to see sticks out in the fall. Right. So so we did that in the summertime when it was really bushy and green. And that way whenever we had the map it had that extra buffer make it a lot more safe. And yeah, it turned out really well. We got really good coverage. And that's. It's the same scenario. The only way, you know, in times before, the only way to do that was the boots on the ground. Backpack spraying. You've got these trees of honeysuckle groves. You can't even get in there.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: It's.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: It is unreal. And the government pays all of it. They pay, they pay the farmer to take care of all this stuff. They want the honeysuckle gone because it's such a, such an invasive species. The farmer wants it or the landowner wants it to clean up his forest and introduce new timber because it's cutting out his new timber growth.
And then he's got to have somebody to do it. So then he looks to somebody like us. But that was another one of those contact things. We sold the guy M30T and he did deer recovery and then, then he also did that backpack spraying. And then we got into there, he's like, hey, you guys got dirt spray drones?
Screw this. I need to add this. That's cool because he like for him in a season he sprays all summer and then he sprays in the fall. He could get maybe 100 acres in a season. And that was huge for him. That was, that was a big payday. It was a lot of work.
But we could do 100 acres in a day or two if we do it right.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: And it's like is these are the modern solutions for these problems are like. And that it's huge. Huge. And so we're constantly pushing, trying to find those new avenues. Like I said, agriculture, you know, right now is not the greatest. So we got to diversify ourselves. We got to survive. So we're trying to looking into all those different avenues and those two have been really, really good for us. It's been been those are brand new projects. We're constantly growing. And the amount of acres, the potential for that is humongous. Yeah. We've looked at even like splitting the application business just in specialty work. You know those forest and then row crop. Right. This whole other divisions where we've got a guy just bidding projects and those sorts of things. So that's. There's a lot of avenues. And some guys are like, I'm not in ag, I'm not a farmer or whatever. Like it doesn't matter what you are. There's a lot of different ways to go about this.
So many opportunities.
[00:59:18] Speaker D: Question. So how well did it kill it? Are you?
[00:59:22] Speaker B: So we, it's. We just did it in the Fall burnt it completely down.
Did a really good job. But we'll really see in the spring how well it comes. We'll really see how well it did.
[00:59:31] Speaker D: What did you use to spray? What chemical?
[00:59:33] Speaker B: Just. Just glyphosate. Just glyphosate? Yeah, no doubt.
[00:59:35] Speaker A: Glyphosate with a bigger droplet to go all the way.
[00:59:39] Speaker D: And you wait till the foliage of the native trees have dropped.
[00:59:43] Speaker B: Yep. Yes. The timing is really crucial. We gotta. We gotta have all the trees have to be. So that's why honeysuckle is so. Is so prevalent, is because it lasts two to three weeks longer than any of the trees. Yeah. And so it's got two or three extra weeks of extra, extra growing in the spring, two or three extra weeks growing in the fall. And that. That's why. That's. So we've got those two or three weeks to get in there and get it. Get it done. So the timing is very crucial for. For those sorts of things. But that we had to set out. Spray cards had a really good pattern, really good test. And, and, and like, the guys were like, I don't know how it's doing it from this height, but it's working. I mean, it's. It's great. It's a lot more. Because with a hand, you can't get as consistent. It's not automated. You can't. You know, it's hard to get those tops and. And everywhere, you know, so.
[01:00:30] Speaker A: So at that altitude, were you at 300 again or 500 and added your, you know, engineered droplets?
[01:00:37] Speaker B: We were. Yeah, we were a little bit heavier. I think we were. We were just 500. And then. Then that. The guar adjuvant in there as well. To. To.
[01:00:44] Speaker A: That's cool.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And make it a lot heavier. We just, we did the same thing and like a lot of even like spray drunk. Some of these guys don't know about this stuff, so you have to take some knowledge in there. But, you know, I'm willing and able to tell anybody some stuff.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: You just gotta try.
[01:00:59] Speaker B: Exactly. You gotta try for sure.
[01:01:02] Speaker A: But yeah, Autumn olive needs to be controlled using drones in a heavy wooded area. It can do it.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: Yep. It's the same thing. They have the same issues, same program. It's the same thing as honeysuckle. And, and it's. It's recurring work because it always comes back. So you. It's always there. And it's. It's a really good avenue. There's a very, very high market potential. It's. It's high margins Very difficult. Don't. Don't let me confuse you and say, like, anybody can get into this. Anybody. No, not even any operators. I know plenty of operators, and there are certain guys, I'm like, this guy can't do it. No, it takes. I mean, I'll be honest with it. You know, it takes a challenge, and it takes a lot of learning for this. But, you know, you have to be. You have to be like, okay, I don't know about this, but you got to find the right guys in the right position and, you know, be willing to learn. So. But those are. Yeah, those are good things to. For people to think about. Just like, how can I expand my. My business?
How can I diversify myself? You put all your eggs in one basket. You know, you, you, you susceptible. Make yourself susceptible to risk, you know?
[01:02:07] Speaker A: Dude, I couldn't. I couldn't say it any better myself. Hate it. I appreciate you coming on, sharing the wisdom. 20 years old. Congratulations on sounding like you got a very successful business, not only in an application business, but also retail else. And I just hope for the best for you.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. I appreciate it. Yeah, likewise for you. You're the marketing king, man.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: It's been good.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Awesome.
Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: Thanks so much for tuning in this week, guys. I appreciate it. And we'll catch you guys on the next one.
