With the intention of starting my own business, I recently passed my part 107 certification test. I was able to do this by listening to the Drone U podcast and signing up for their test prep. This was a great experience (A review of this is coming soon), and on their podcast, they mentioned one of their sponsored Drone Base. Allured by their perceived easy non-commital Attitude towards drone jobs, I soon signed on. In my hometown, there are currently over one-thousand "jobs" available. This sounds great, but I have some issues with it. Lets get started!
What is Drone Base?
Before we get started with the pros and cons of drone base, we need to first understand what they are. Drone base is the AirBNB of aerial photography. It is similar to Uber in that it provides jobs and customers for your service, and in return you give them a 50% cut. They also edit and cold call for you, so all you need to do is fly and upload (which is basically the fun part).
____________________PROS_____________________
Cold Calling
Warming Market
Practice
Practice is key in a drone business. in order to succeed at business, you must be marketable. It doesn't matter if you are the best marketer in the world: if you suck at flying, your business WILL FAIL. Drone Base provides an incentive to create high-quality images. If they don't look good, they won't sell. one of the primary uses for this company is for businesses to practice their photography skills before stepping into the "big leagues".
Website
Editing
All this makes Drone Base look pretty good, but there are some things that you should know about before you start working for them.
____________________CONS___________________
____________________CONS___________________
They own you while on shoot
You might not get paid
Remember, Drone base is cold calling for you, but that doesn't mean a payout is guaranteed. On the flip side, client missions have a 100% payout guarantee, but they are much rarer. More likely than not, you will not get paid on the first several missions, just because of the warming market I mentioned above. Later, however, you might expect to see about 3/4ths of uploads paid. Also, one of the main things about Drone base missions is their panoramas. If an agent's website cannot support panoramas, though, wat use does he have for them? Also, because of the high volume of pictures and panos coming their way, it could take a while to hear back from a potential client. You can expect to see wait times anywhere from 24 hours to around a week. The amount of time also depends on the time of year as well. winter is an especially slow market time for real estate and marketing in general.
You are not Insured
THEY DO NOT INSURE YOUR FLIGHTS. IF YOU CRASH, YOU WILL PAY OUT OF YOUR WALLET! Drone base does not include hull insurance (insurance for the drone itself) or property liabilities. This scares me! I ALWAYS fly insured just in case, however, this company, like I said, is geared towards newer pilots for the most part. instead of causing a warmer market, uninsured pilots flying at locations without the client's knowledge could shut down the market completely for some who would otherwise be interested. I use verify for all my missions insurance, but his costs money and every mission you are not paid to fly is money wasted. It is important to note that, since you are flying over the street, you are less likely to incur damage from a crash, but I still would recommend getting the insurance anyways.
you need to have all the certifications
They get 50%
Clients don't know
Final Thoughts
In my opinion, Drone Base is totally worth working for if you are just starting out, or hate calling potential buyers yourself. Once you get your business up and running, move on and work on your own platform. Several things to look out for when using this company are insurance, wait times, and your 107 certifications. Give it a try!
StatiK
