Drone Business Ideas and Startup Opportunities
Drones are increasingly becoming must-have gadgets in a wide array of industries today. According to Goldman Drone Market Research, There will be a $100 billion market opportunity for drones between now and 2020.
That’s right, if you are a tech enthusiast and have some business aptitude and, there are plenty opportunities in drone business. Today we will be exploring some great drone business ideas that may inspire you to start your journey.
1. Photography and Filming
Not long time ago, taking videos on air was done by airplane and helicopters, and it was so expensive. Today, most high-quality drones come with high quality cameras, some are 4K cameras. With drone you can get unique shots that human photographers simply can’t capture. If you have ever seen images taken by one of those drones, you know what we mean here. The potential for drone photography and filming is really limited only by the imagination of the photographer.
2. Real Estate Aerial Footage
Aerial photography companies are highly useful to real estate agents in marketing their home properties. Aerial photography of a large land or house can create another angel of view, those footages on real estate depict the agency’s professionalism and attracts more potential buyers.Since there are many land sellers or leasers in need of professional videography and photography across the globe, why not put your drone to work.
3. Drone Repair Business
Open a shop to sell parts to build and repair Drones. Many people would find buying another drone once the previous has broken down irrational and expensive. In addition, since drones are prone to being damaged owing to the uncertain conditions some operate on, there is a wide business gap in the drone repair sector. You can invest in a drone repair parts shop or offer to repair drones. Many people will get drawn to you more so if your services are high-grade.
4, Drone Review Website, Blog or Youtube
There are countless drone types, brands, model, sizes, and capabilities. A huge number of potential buyers are unaware of the best brand or model to choose due to product competitiveness. If you are well conversant with drones brands and features, you can take up this opportunity by creating a drone review site or a YouTube Channel that directs clients on the best drones to choose. Some most popular videos viewed on youtube are about drone review. Casey Neistat, a top youtube influencer, constantly post Drone Review video, his DJI Spark vs DJI Mavic video got over 4 million view. Another way to monetize your drone review is by affiliated with retailer such as amazon, you can get commission when user click your link to purchase a drone. For example, tome’s tech time site.
5, Build Customized Drone
While there are remarkable drone brands in the market, drone innovation is still progressive. If there are features you think drones could work best with on certain conditions. You can step in and create customized drones for such purposes. Innovation rewards!
6, Drone Coach and Test Preparation
Good drones come with hearty price tags, and though many of them do have some decent built in safety features that will help you avoid catastrophe, there is still an undeniable learning curve. If you are a skilled drone pilot with lots of knowledge you may consider getting into the business of teaching people how to fly drones.
Now FAA require that drone pilots to get drone pilots certificate to operate a drone, even it’s for recreational purpose. This certificate demonstrates that you understand the regulations, operating requirements, and procedures for safely flying drones. The test is not that easy to maneuver, and that’s where a business opportunity comes in. Thinking of SAT of Drone Pilots.
7, Construction Inspection by Drone
Construction companies and builders handling huge projects are days after day finding the essence of using drones to monitor their projects. Due to the size of construction, it’s time consuming to inspect by human previously, now drone can help. This is time-saving for them, if you know construction and flying a drone, you can take the opportunity in this field too.
8, Drone Wedding Video Shooting
This is part of number 1 idea, but we still want to mention it separately due to large demand. People are more amused by the “eye in the sky” than conventional cameras and would pay anything to have this on their big day. You can rent out your high-quality drones during weddings, or even offer the drone video shooting service.
9, Drone Insurance Company
If you have ever driven an automobile, you get to have insurance. Flying drone is like driving a car, accidents happen, many drone pilots have experience of crashing a drone. Think of GEICO of Drone. There are some company already step into this business, such as Skywatch and Verify.
10, Drone Map Survey
When creating an area’s map, surveys are significant. It is quite cumbersome for a human surveyor to craft a huge area’s map with traditional survey tools. And today, drones are rampantly used. Drones present more authentic maps using GPS and Base section Reference Data. With a drone well equipped to gather three-dimensional cartographic information accurately, the map survey can be done easily. A good drone will help you survey archeology, urban planning, mining, oil, gas, forestry management, population and flood planning management, as well as construction maps.
11, Agriculture Survey by drone
Farmers can reduce the variable cost of manually getting their farms inspected. Planners and stakeholders of huge plantations are ever in need of convenient monitoring. Farmers can also use UAVs for pest and blight identification, crop health and weed identification, and agriculture applications such as fertilizer, pesticides, and water distribution.
12, Drone Delivery Business
Drone delivery is another industry that already has legs. Amazon discussed using drones for their delivering system. Drone delivery services are getting popular all over the world. Drones now can deliver small mechanical parts, emergency medicine, and sensitive documents. This is an area yet to be taken full advantage of, yet open to innovative entrepreneurs.
13, Emergency Response
Drones are useful in offering public safety officials video footages of areas hit hard disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes in real time. With suitable drones, you can collaborate with rescue organizations in offering search and rescue services. Also drone can be used to gather car accident evidence from air.
14, Drone Software Business like Drone Buddy
Software is eating the world. Launch a drone flight need support of software. Most consumer drones already have native application to track it’s flying. For example, when flying DJI drone, you need using DJI Go app to track the entire flight. It’s a like a dashboard of airplane. It give all the parameter of your drone such as height, distance, GPS signal, speed and real time camera view. Drone Buddy is mobile app we created to help drone pilots pre check the flying condition, from weather info to no fly zone, reduce the chance you run into trouble. Other application in this field could be autonomous waypoints flying software, drone flying logging, drone video editing software.
15, Drone racing sports business
Last but not least, we have drone racing. Drone racing already exists, and as you would probably guess, it is extremely cool. There are already leagues, and various other competitions that net surprisingly big audiences. Drone pilots can even make fairly considerable money out of the work. At the highest level, big drone racing competitions are already hold in several major city such as LA, Las Vegas and New York. However, even if that’s not quite where you’re at, there is still money to be made in drone racing all across the country. If you are a skilled pilot, you may consider hitting the track (so to speak) yourself. Or, if you own a unique venue you may consider opening it up to drone league nights, and other racing competitions. There is money to be made on every side of the business.
Conclusion
Those are many profitable drone opportunities, with many more business gaps untapped. As you can see, there is plenty of money-making potential in the world of drones. It is no longer a question of if you should start a drone business. The question now is what sort of drone business should you start?
This story is brought by Drone Buddy - Drone Pilots Best Friend. Check your surrounding and have a safe flight!
