Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, welcome back, folks. I'm Mike with the drone on show. I'm excited to bring you guys. Today's episode with Zach and Gabe, brothers out of Michigan. We're going to hear some of their struggles of starting a spray drone business, as well as the growth that they have experienced. These two brothers are great examples of young entrepreneurs want to get into a growing industry. You know what, I'm not going to say too much about it. This was recorded while I was on the road at a drone convention. So let's jump right into the interview with Zack and Gabe from Michigan.
Okay, so guys, we are still here at Alabama. We're. We're basically at this convention and pulling some guys out that are in this drone spray business and just having conversations. That's what we're doing here. So if you guys want to introduce yourselves where you're from and then we'll just get into it.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll go first. I'm Zach Martindale.
We're from Corona, Michigan, which is central Michigan northeast of Lansing. About.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Are you going to give me that Michigan hand thing? They say like, yeah, sure, right here.
So. So kind of from the thumb, just a little north of the thumb, but.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: West of the thumb. Yeah, the thumb's actually higher on the actual map.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Like a few times that I've met somebody in Michigan, they go like this.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: And then this is the Upper peninsula.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: That's funny.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Do it both.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Little bit of a diversified business. We sell seed, liquid fertilizer, chemical, liquid storage tanks.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: So you guys look pretty young. Actually. Let's your name?
[00:01:31] Speaker C: My name is Gabe Martindale. I'm 27 years old, and Zach and I have worked for our dad for quite a few years now doing the ag retail part of things.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: So you guys are brothers?
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Yeah. So we'll just hop right into it. So you were saying that you guys were into ag, selling seeds and chemical.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Yep, we've done a little bit of all that.
My background, the majority of my background has actually been spent in the Texas panhandle. I spent 12 years there with an ag retailer, and we actually sprayed. Big part of our business was we sprayed with ground rigs and airplanes. And I was a manager for one of their locations for seven years. I operated ground rigs and then spent a lot of time selling jobs for the airplane and ground rigs and then mixing loads and dispatching the airplanes and things like that. So I have some aerial background experience and some ground experience as well.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: And then I. I moved down there in 2016.
And worked for one of his customers on a harvest crew.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: And then moved back home after that. And then in 2018, I went back to work for a different customer of his down there, and I did all their ground rig spraying, planting, strip tilling.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: I did pretty much everything for that farm.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: About a 4,000 acre farm.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Yep. And then. And then things didn't work out with them, and I went to another farm down there and strictly spray their spray man down there. So with the ground rig. Yeah. Between the two of us, we have quite a few acres of ground rig experience.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: So you guys have a lot of.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Hours down there and in Michigan as well. So.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: So. Okay, so you were down there. What.
What made you guys want to get into spray drones?
[00:03:20] Speaker C: Well, I moved home before. A few years before he did. And I worked for a farmer, a local farmer in Michigan, and we ended up getting a New Holland 310, you know, high crop.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: Sprayer and braid. 6,000 acres of corn. And it sucked.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: With this. It was miserable.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Fungicide.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Fungicide spot. Yep.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: So. So I'm gonna slow it down a little bit. When you guys were south, did you guys already know about spray drones there and.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Not really.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: So we had one customer that we sprayed for with the airplane that hired a drone to come in and do some power line cleanup and things.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: But other than that, we all thought it was at that point this would be like 2019. We were all like, this is a joke, you know, I mean, honestly, small.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Like what, one and a half, two gallon tank?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:11] Speaker C: And we were.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: You're covering thousands of acres a day with the planes, you know, but it made sense for him. And he was a high management farm, so.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yep. So when you were driving that high clearance rig, you're like, this is good.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: I mean, you go home and lay down at night and close your eyes and you just see tassels smack and. And you're doing 12, 15 acre fields. You're just doing more damage than good.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: You know, he's got really bad allergies and asthma.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: And he's puffing on his inhaler all day.
[00:04:41] Speaker C: Inhalers come with swelling.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Shove.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: And I'd use one of those every two days.
Yeah, it was bad. I mean, the whole. The whole. You don't touch anything when you get out of the sprayer because it's just pollen.
It's just straight pollen.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: I didn't know that.
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Yeah. So I ended up going back to work for my dad at Ag Pro, and I got a hold of a Dealer or I saw an ad on Facebook, a dealer in Indiana that was selling T40s.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: And I got to looking into them and I'm like, you know, this might actually work out. And you know, in our area, the tar spot was getting more and more every year and there just wasn't enough people and rigs to cover it. So I'm like, let's try one.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So you were automatically thinking of having a drone spray business, like custom app or was it just to help?
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Custom app. Yep. Custom Apple. And so I got ahold of that dealer and we ended up getting one. And you know, I thought let's. If we can do a couple thousand acres a year, you know, let's do it just for a little summer income.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Fit our business model for corn fungicide application, specifically because spring is busy with seed and fertilizer deliveries. And then once all the crops are established, we don't do anything for the summer.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: And now we do. And so summer cash.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: So. So you bought the 40 and did you just have one drone?
[00:06:05] Speaker C: We had just the. Just the.
We bought the T40. I bought an 8 and a half by 24 foot enclosed trailer and we outfitted that with a thousand gallon. Well, it was 500 gallon water tank, 230 gallon.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Are you still operating out of an enclosed trailer? Oh, yeah. How do you guys like that?
[00:06:22] Speaker C: It's. We like it. I guess our main reason is, is when we move or if it rains or we just close the doors and go, okay, you know, we're inside out of the sun.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: He's got an air conditioner on his. I have a big portacool in mine.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Air conditioning and so two trailer setups now.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: Two now.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Two now.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: Two now.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Okay, so now how many drones?
[00:06:45] Speaker C: So I'm. This year I'm going to run two P100 pros and he's going to run one. We have a fourth just for a backup. Or if we decide that we need to get him going on two as well, we can hook.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: So no more DJI drones.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: We have the T20P still that we do some clover seating with and small jobs, little field stuff.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Okay.
What made you decide that you don't want to use DJI T 50s?
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Well, we went to the conference last year and we saw them demoing the P100 Pro. And speed is one thing. We like the speed.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: The acres per hour. I mean, with one, my best day was 495 acres with one.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: One drone.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Yep.
I left at 7am when I was home by six hours.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: I tell people that that's possible. They don't believe me.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: It's very possible.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: It is.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: Yeah, it's very possible.
And you can do that with a T52. You might be out a little longer, but you can do it. I didn't like being glued to the screen with the DJI's.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:48] Speaker C: There's certain things I like about both. Okay. The DJI's. I like how you just turn your controller on and you map a field and you go to work. Yeah, that's nice. The xag, you have to pre map with.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Oh, you have to pre map everything.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Which we do. You. You don't. You don't have. Yeah, you don't have to. But I prefer to because I pre map with the Mavic on rtk. So the map is set and when I pull up to the field, I can launch the spray drone and go to work.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: So if I can add to the mapping a little bit. So here's an example. I pulled up to a field and I pulled up with the dji. I pulled up the satellite image and I'm sitting on top of my trailer and I can clearly see that there's a brand new barn that's been built. And on my satellite image, that barn's not there.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: And so I have to guess when I build my map where that barn.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Oh, no way.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: They built the barn out into the.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Cornfield with flying the drone around.
[00:08:40] Speaker C: No.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: So we coach people. You. You set a hotkey.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: We don't.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: We never did that.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: So then do your pin. Yeah, yeah, do your pins and.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Well, but you.
Not as the aircraft, but the aircraft is following your cursor. So you set up a hotkey and then you fly around the boundary and you can just see three and if that new building go around it. And so you never have to actually go get all the data like the photos. Orthomosaic. Put it in a software and then export it. Put it in your control.
[00:09:08] Speaker C: Yeah, we never did that.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: You're just creating a boundary using the drone.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: And like your FPV camera, right?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we. We never did that. And I. We probably could have used that. It does take more time to fly the boundary.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but how much time are you guys getting in on sending your drones out to go take pictures and then put it in.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: We have the time to do it because we'll go do it when the corn's as tall.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: And we don't do much that time. And you already know the fields that.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: You'Re Going to go spray.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: We get all that set up.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: That's one problem with our operation because we, we cover so many acres, between 30 and 50,000 acres is we don't know exactly what the acres are that we're going to cover. And so, you know, farmer Joe calls us and he wants it sprayed in three days.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: And there's some of that too. We do quite a bit of in season mapping too, which does take more time, but we try to do as much pre mapping, set ourselves up for.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: Success in June and June.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Huh. That's pretty wild.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: So kind of how it works is, you know, we've been doing quite a bit this time of year and then, you know, it's hard to get with their customers during planting season, obviously because they're busy. But as soon as they're done, I tell them, when you're done planting, call me.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: And I'll go, I'll come meet with you, go to lunch or whatever. And we use Cheman and we'll put all their fields in Chemman. Just a quick map so we know where they're at.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: And once we get all that done, then we go to work mapping.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Yep. So. So you use that platform. We would use Google Earth.
[00:10:36] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Like the, not just Google Maps, but Google Earth. And then we come out there and we would build quick boundaries. You say this field. Okay. We'll boundary that. That way we can create batches and then send it off to teams that are gonna spray that field. That's interesting.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: So you're mapping everything. A guy doesn't get his stuff mapped. You said you're doing in season mapping. So you literally do not spray any acres unless it was mapped.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: So if we, if we get an in season call and you know, like if we have a day that maybe our next batch of customers aren't quite ready yet for their corn to be sprayed and we get a call, the guy's got 500 acres. We'll shoot up there and launch the Mavic and start mapping and start getting everything set up. And you know, there could be field here, here, here, here.
So we'll map the first one, start spraying, send the Mavic over, start mapping the second one. It's a lot if it's close, you know, it's a lot of work, you know, and it keeps you busy. But.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: And you're finding that Pix4D can process the images fast enough?
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Like low resolution, no.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Low resolution on the maps. If we're doing any NDVI or stuff. It's high.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: We did get some. We did notice the original computer that he started with running pix4d was. It worked, but it was somewhat slow window. We put it on my Mac and it worked faster. And then we bought another Mac that had more storage and faster processing. And then we're even going to get a faster one for this.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: So.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: So a. Like an 80 acre field on the windows. It'd take probably 5, 10 minutes to. To process it. Oh, wow. And now it's like a minute.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: Or less.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Because of a super computer that's in it.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: And that's, you know, it's an expense. It's a $2,503,000 computer that you.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: But it's worth the process, but it's.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Worth it for the speed.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: So.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: How many seasons do you guys have under your belt now?
[00:12:29] Speaker C: We have two. This will be our third this year.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: So two seasons under your belt. How much did you guys cover?
[00:12:35] Speaker C: Season one, 3500 acres.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: 3500 acres. How many with two?
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Well, that was with one T20P.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because we started.
[00:12:44] Speaker C: We started with the T40 and we got about a thousand acres done and it crashed. And our dealer was in Iowa and we had some issues with that dealer not answering his phone or emails or texts or anything.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: I hear that a lot.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: And so I ended up. It was August 8th. Like, wow.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Middle of it. Yeah.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: Right. In the heat of it, I went to the shop and my dad was there and I threw that T40 on a pallet and put it in the back of my truck. It's like, what are you doing? I was like going to Iowa, so I drove something. We didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know, you know. And I knocked on his door at 8 o' clock in the morning at a shop out in the middle of Iowa and he's like, who are you? I said, I'm Gabe Martindale from Michigan. He goes, oh. I'm like, yeah. Like, we need help, you know.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: So long. Long story short, I ended up just giving him my T40 and I took a T20P home, a brand new one.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: And we got done what we needed to get done. And then we decided that we were going to run two of them. So we ran two of them in cover crop and we were going to spray with two of them the next year. And then we ended up coming down to the conference and got a P100 Pro.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: So the first season, you got that T20P, you said?
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: How many acres were sprayed and how many acres were cover cropped?
[00:13:57] Speaker C: I think 3,000 was sprayed and about 500 to cover crop.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that's pretty good. Yep.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Is that a big thing in Michigan is cover crop?
[00:14:05] Speaker C: Yeah. There's the NRCS programs, you know, the state programs, the government programs, which I think they dropped one of them this year so the grower didn't have to pay for it.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Okay. How do you feel about the efficiency of doing seeding or fertilizing dry spreading with drones?
[00:14:23] Speaker C: So when the drone's up, it's fine.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: But the low.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: We've had a lot of seed handling and the loading.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Gabe and I have almost rung each other.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: I feel like there just hasn't been a good see system figured out for drones.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Because I feel that way. I think that the drones can do it, but there's just not a good, efficient way of loading your drones.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: We use buckets.
We have a seed tender that's got an air blower on it. So we have a box that's got £2,000.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: The first year, though, with the T20P, we were telling people, if you're buying seed, it needs to be in a bag.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: And we were doing bags.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: And then last year, we bought a yeter seed jet. It's like a tri wheel wagon that you put a pro box on with a vacuum and you fill our buckets.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: With that. And then just dump buckets.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: And I think we. I can't remember the calculation, but in 2024, it was like 18 tons of seed.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: That we bucket.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Impressive. So it was a fair bit to me.
[00:15:20] Speaker C: He bucketed.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: I did it all.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: I can't do the dust, so.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Worked out good for you.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: It did. Yeah. I got to sit in the air conditioner, so I did help.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: So are you guys running your drones from the ground? Like, not.
Oh, yeah.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Yep. Off the back of the trailer, on.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: The road, on the DJI trailer, we have a platform on the top of it. And I operated off the top of the trailer all year last year.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: But we wouldn't land up there.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: No. We'll sit up there for.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: For vo.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Have you ever tried a trailer that was set up to fly from the top?
[00:15:55] Speaker B: We've not.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: I should bring you a new way trailer and just see what you think.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah, we could do that. I almost remember we talked about it. I was this closer.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah. It's Fine. I took one to Arkansas and they were running xag.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Do you guys use RTK for every vrtk? Okay, the VRTK that's on the xx? Yeah, it's like their version of. Yeah, it works. It works really well.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: When I had an xag, it did not work at all. I mean, it worked one day and then didn't work the next.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: So yeah, I think they came a long way this year or last year with their softwares and everything.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: So the vrtk, you just get to the field and you say, I want to fly off a vrtk. How long does it take it to establish that point?
[00:16:38] Speaker C: 30 seconds.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: No way.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Oh, geez. I would sit there and I'd have to have this Internet service to try to get it.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Wheat. 2024. Yeah, it took a while. Like beginning of the year, it took a couple minutes sometimes, but into corn toward the end of it. It's pretty fast now.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: So how much do you guys make your first season? I'd be really curious to know that as in profit. Profit, not necessarily like revenue, right? You don't.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: I don't even know.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: Okay, well, we just saw it on the Chem Man, it was like 290 something.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: That was 2023 though. Oh, that was what was on chem man was 2024. You're talking about our first season with.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: What was it, like 3,500 acres?
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yep. Okay.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Probably 60,000. Oh my.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So you definitely paid that drone off.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So guys, look at buying this equipment. They're like trying to figure out how long it's going to take to pay it off. And I'm like, guys, you need to focus on getting acres. Because when you get the acres, the equipment, and when you say your first season, how many days was that of actual spraying? Yeah.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: 40, 40 days.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: A month? Yeah, a little over a month. A month and a half.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: I think we sprayed corn and didn't we spray corn in October that year?
[00:17:47] Speaker B: No, it was September 1st of September.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: We were still September 16th, I think we had a guy called. He still. You know, we're not the type to. If a guy calls and his corn's starting to ripen, we're not going to do it. We're going to tell him no agricultural. He was still tasseling and pollinating and everything. So we went.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Tar spot pressure.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's impressive. Like one drone technically, right?
[00:18:12] Speaker C: One five gallon drone. Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: That's insane.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: Two.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Two hard workers.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Let's talk about hard work because guys, watch my videos and they're like, they try to say that I'm BSing on how many acres I done. I was like, no, I actually did that acres. But it's hard work.
[00:18:28] Speaker C: It is. It's hot and it's early and late nights.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Our dad, you know, he's part of the business, but he doesn't do anything with the drones necessarily.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: He.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: He does the other stuff while we're doing the drones and we manage it all. We do all the work. We have helpers that help us, Interns. There was one day last year on a Sunday, let my intern take the day off because he was wore out. My dad was like, I'll come help. Well, it ended up being like 85 with 60% humidity that day. By the end of the day, he's 62. He's a hard worker, too, don't get me wrong. But by the end of the day, he's like, you guys can have this crap.
He spilled chemical all over. He was mad. He's sweating, pounding waters. I mean, it was hilarious.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: But.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: But yeah, I mean, that's one thing that we did a presentation at the Great Lakes Crop Summit this year, and that was one thing that we wanted to emphasize on for people that are interested in a farmer that's buying their own drone or somebody that's wanting to get into the business, is that anyone can operate a drone. It's, you know, it's fairly simple, but there's so much more that goes into it from the agronomy side, from the customer billing, invoice, licensing, as well as the work, you know, and it's hard work. There's always an end to it at the end of the season.
[00:19:45] Speaker C: Doesn't seem like it when we're in the heat of it.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Like, am I ever going to get done?
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Him and I are sitting at his dining room table at 10 o' clock at night on our computers going, when are we going to spray for this guy?
[00:19:55] Speaker C: It's.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: We don't have time. You know, it's like we told him we'd go do it when we got to do it.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: Everything we promised, though, this past year, we got done. It feels good at the end.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: So.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: And you feel like the XAG helped you be more efficient to get more acres. That's cool.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I'm not against xag. It's just when I had mine, it was a horrible experience at the time. But, dude, we're talking like almost three years now, right? And these things are changing so fast. The equipment's getting better every year. So I want to try one because I think it could be cool. The P150, I love it.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: I mean, we have a lot of square open stuff, but we have the crappy stuff too. You know, where you got to fly back a half a mile and, or a quarter of a mile into a field that's surrounded by trees and it'll do it.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, huh. That's cool.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: So it's a little nerve wracking, but it does it.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, would you say that the market is flooded for drone applicators? People that are wanting to get into it? They asked me.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: I would say it's becoming more that in Michigan. This is this winter during our, our selling season, if you will.
I noticed that for the first time someone said to me, we talked to someone else already, but I'll let you know that was the first time. And then there's a lot of operators that are operating already that we know. And just the other day we were getting some decals put on one of our trucks that we bought at the local sticker shop in town and we're sitting there talking, waiting for them to get it done. We look over and they're carrying the sign out and it says Scott's Drone Service. And we're looking at each other going.
[00:21:31] Speaker C: The heck is this guy in our hometown? Yeah.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: So I ran outside and introduced myself to him and we talked to him and he's from. He's about 45 minutes away or so and he's got a full time job but he's wanting to get into this. And so, you know, we bounced ideas off each other.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: It's coming, but it's not to the flooded point yet. Yeah, I think we got into it the right time.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So I, I think if somebody asked that question, is it flooded?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: It's.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: It's kind of. Where are they talking about specifically? Right. So if you're in a small town or a small state that doesn't have a lot of agricultural crops, then it might become flooded faster. But if you're talking big acreage, like in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, dude, it's going to take even around us. Like I know personally, like there's probably seven trailers just within an hour from us.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: And it's like, dude, we have.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: I've seen.
Last year was the first time I'd ever seen another drone trailer that wasn't ours.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: While you were operating?
[00:22:27] Speaker C: While I was out working.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's, there's plenty. Yeah. There's just so many Millions of acres.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: Yeah. You're never gonna run into someone.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: You know, think about it.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: If. If every acre is going to get covered by a drone in the month of say, you know what it, what would it be in your August? August. Okay, so how many millions of acres are in Michigan? And if every acre is going to be covered by a drone, how many drones would be needed?
[00:22:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: So if that's actually a thing, I don't think that saturation is even near there. In my opinion.
[00:23:03] Speaker C: We've experienced one undercutting so far on price of price from. From a local co op. And then.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: So if somebody comes up to you and asks, hey, I'm thinking about getting into. To a drone spray business, what would you tell them? Would you tell them to do it or.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: I tell them I charge 150 bucks an hour for my time because I, I don't know how my information got out last year, but my phone would not stop ringing with those people of asking and people stopping. It's like. Yeah, it's like.
[00:23:37] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. I'm saying that's good that you said it's 150 bucks an hour.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Cuz we.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: I just, I don't have time. I can't.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: Knowledge is worth something.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: Right. I. I have a select few that I've helped y.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: And I do too.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:49] Speaker C: But electricians and nurses and all these people stopping on the road, they're like, I've been seeing this and I want to do it. It's like, well, I'll help you, but I charge you.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: Because. Or, or find a dealer and they will help you. I'm not a dealer.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Just send them our way. Let us know that you sent them and then we'll kick you some.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Yeah, sounds good. Yeah. So. Yeah, so that's cool. I just, it was, it was a lot last year. The phone calls about, you know, I want to do. How do I start? And it's like, you know, then you got to explain it. And I did. I was doing.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: There's so much.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Dude, there's so much.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: I was, I was doing that. And then finally I'm like, I'm done. If somebody calls me, I just, I'm going to tell them I can't help them.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: You know, or I'm going to charge them.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: Because I can't.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: No, that's good.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: Like, it was taking up most of my days.
Some weeks people call and then they call you back too. Well, it's not Just one.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Well, now you can tell them to call new A.G. yep. And we'll help them. Yeah, let me know and then I'll throw you some cheddar.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Yeah, sounds good.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: All right, well, I really appreciate you guys chatting with us. Is there anything else you'd want them to know? Not really.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: I don't. I don't think so. I appreciate.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: What are you guys goals like? Are you going to be one of the largest drone applicators in Michigan?
[00:25:03] Speaker C: My. I have a goal for the next five years. I want to spray 66,666 acres at 15 bucks.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: That's.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: That's a million dollars in one season.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: And 67,000 acres.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: That's fine too.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Okay. Keep the sixes out.
[00:25:22] Speaker C: That's fine.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Keep the sixes out.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Perspective, you know, 2023, we did 3,500. And 2024, we did over 20,000.
And so, you know, we're hoping to be at that again this year because we don't think we can do more with the equipment that we have, but with the revenue we create this year, we're hoping to scale up.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: How far did you guys go from your shop?
[00:25:45] Speaker C: Like, our furthest.
Our furthest job was three hours.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Three hours north up in the tip of the thumb right here. Right on the lake right there.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: I know exactly where you're talking about.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Port Austin.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: And then the further south was 20 minutes from Ohio.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Okay, so you had to travel a little bit.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Yeah, a little bit.
From our first year to our second year, we weren't traveling so much, which is narrowed down.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Dude, I think you guys can easily do that. 67,000 acres.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: Our issue is finding manpower for that time frame because our business doesn't require.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Well, we're going to help you guys with that. So because of the media reach that we have, I can't tell you how many people are dming me wanting just a drone pilot job.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Y.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: So. And they're all over the country or all over the world. Like in South Africa. Like that when we have summer here, they have winter there, and so they want to come here and work in the summer.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: So call us.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so we're. We're going to have something on our website because I don't want to turn these people away because you're not the only one that is like, we need pilots as other big companies that need pilots as well. So if you tell us like that's something that you guys would be looking for. We're going to have a build out on our website. Just for those type of people, maybe they're even listening and they're, you know, they're in South America and they want to come up here. Yeah, we're gonna try to figure out.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: How to do that. We have one guy this year that. He's a. He's a school teacher. He was my. He was my high school. One of my high school teachers, and he teaches a drone class.
So he's licensed. He's not licensed with M Dard yet, but we're gonna. We're working on that.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: And Pegasus actually did the FFA giveaway and Corona High School won, which is a P100 Pro where he teaches. So, you know, obviously he doesn't teach in the summertime, so he's going to come work for us and learn. And he would be a good one. He would be a good one to keep around and, you know, especially those inseason calls and stuff. If we have another rig and it's a 300 acre job, just send them out.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: You know, having a drone spray business and having multiple rigs, that's. That's the challenge is getting people that are seasonal workers and then they come back. Yes, but I think there's some hoops to jump through, but it can be done.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: With people.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: 67,000.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Yeah, correct.
So. So people in other countries that have winter, they want to have that summer work, and then they'll come here and work for us in the summer.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: I used to think small and think like, oh, people in Ohio, they don't want to come in for a little bit and they leave. And then I started getting these dms and I'm like, okay, wait, this could help them and it could help me.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, one thing that we. We do, another thing that we think about often is we're a family business. And, you know, making a mistake with a drone could be very costly for our business.
And so if it's me that does it or Gabe that does it, it's us that does it. But if we hire somebody and they go make a mistake and misapplicate or it's our name, crashes the drone or something, it is our name. So. Which.
[00:28:50] Speaker C: Same goes for you too.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: So there's that risk involved in it when adding people and adding acres and more work and things like that.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: I thought about putting another rig together this year for that teacher, but let's get a year under him, get him trained, get him knowing these chemistries and everything, and then feel a little more comfortable doing.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: That's good. That's I mean, I don't want to tell you guys how to run your business, but that sometimes if you want to scale, you have to learn how to trust.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: And trust that they. They want to do as good as you. Obviously it's going to take a lot of interviewing and knowing if that's what they're going to provide. But when you scale and you start talking those numbers, there's going to be things that don't go well, but then how are you going to overcome those?
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So it's grown into something I never thought it would.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker C: For sure.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Our dad always says, if you would have asked me five years ago that at 62 years old, I'd be owning.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Five drones to spray crops.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: To spray crops with you, I would have told you I was. You were nuts, dude.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: And I just think that the growth that we're in, it's going to be normal. You're just going to drive down the road and it's normal to see drones everywhere.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: We still get people. I'm sure you do too, but everyone wants to stop and take pictures of it. What are you doing? You know, all day long.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: But.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: But it's becoming more and more where someone stops and say, I've seen these on the Internet, but I've never seen one live.
Things like that.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I. I can't tell you how often we pull into a gas station and just looking at the trailers and the drones on the trailers, they're like, that's.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Another reason we like our enclosed trailers. Cuz then no one talks about, you.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: Got to go get stuff.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: We're the exact opposite.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: We got the big AG pro drone sticker on the. But nobody thinks of any. They don't see it up there, see it, you know, and they don't think anything up.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, you got work to do. And you're like, I gotta get in here and get out.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Cool. Alrighty. Well, thanks so much for sharing.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Thank you for having us.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Hopefully you guys have a killer season this season. We're looking forward and you do more acres than you did before and everything goes good.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: All right, thank you.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Cool. No problem.
