In the Drone to 1K Podcast, we take an inside look at how successful drone business owners got started and scaled their company to making $1,000 per month and beyond. Whether you're just looking to make a little side cash with your drone or you want to turn your passion into a full-time career, we hope that the Drone to 1K Podcast will inspire you to take the plunge and succeed with your own drone business.
d1k matt harvey
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[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Drone 1K podcast. I'm your host, David Young. In this episode today, we have Matt Harvey. Matt has become a good friend of mine. We recorded this episode actually at a conference that we were both at, which is why Matt looks so good wearing a suit and I'm bumming it with whatever I'm wearing.
But Matt is one of the smartest people I know. He works as one of the lead drone pilots for a very large energy company. And he also has his own drone business that he's been running for a while, where he has a bunch of different B2B industrial type customers. And he's going to talk all about that and how he built that business and just share a lot of great insights along the way.
Matt is also probably one of the most successful people I know in the drone industry. He's had tons of experience with all sorts of different entities from Energy, all the way to working out in California with the wildfire stuff that had been going on. And just, every time I talk to him, I'm like, wow, this guy's bringing a lot of great information.
So, I know you're going to get a lot out of this conversation today. quick reminder, if you love t shirts, drone launch shirts, again, I'm wearing another one. We like to give these away [00:01:00] to reviewers. Screenshot it, send it to me, david at dronelaunchacademy. com and we'll get you a t shirt. Just for taking the time to do it and spread the word about the Drone 1K podcast.
Alright. Um, to talk to Matt. Thanks for tuning in.
David Young: Welcome
Marker
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David Young: back to another episode of the drone to one K podcast. I'm here with Matt Harvey of edge drone services. I've known Matt for a little while now, finally getting them on the show. We're actually at a conference here outside of Houston and we thought, why not? go ahead and knock it out now?
What's, what a better time. So thanks for coming on that. Absolutely.
Matt Harvey: You got me wearing my suit. So it's good.
David Young: look. I told you, you couldn't come on unless he's wearing a suit. Um, as you can see that I'm, you know, dressed similarly for those of you watching the video version. but Matt has a really interesting, background and story I think a lot of you will appreciate hearing from, so I don't want to give too much away, so I'll let you just start maybe from the beginning, all the way back, when was the first time you were like, oh, this is a drone, I can do something with this?
Yeah.
Matt Harvey: So, my drone story started in 2017, I [00:02:00] was, still in college at the time, and I was working for a construction company. And I had someone walk in the front door and they were talking about drones. And my job at the time was handling paperwork and not all that exciting. So this is probably the most exciting thing that walked, quite literally walked in the door.
And, I had a friend, or I still have a friend he had kind of photography background. And he worked for a small development company. And those two, the company I worked for and the company he worked for, became our first clients. So we went out. Bought the latest and greatest, which I think at the time was a phantom four pro.
Nice. We split the cost we started our company together we put together an LLC started doing some work for them between doing some video shoots and also helping with some tracking of some new construction projects and that was kind of the kickstart for us and so It was, an opportunity to kind of make some side income and do something new and exciting with
David Young: technology.
So you were working for the construction company, started up the [00:03:00] drone company, kind of also serving kind of the construction field?
Matt Harvey: Yeah, yeah. So, working full time, again, my role was primarily with paperwork. And so
David Young: what kind of paperwork are we talking about here? So
Matt Harvey: ironically enough, safety paperwork.
So just, uh, keeping track of, yeah. So, and really they just needed someone to sort it all and track it. And it's interesting construction industry as a whole and some industries tend to be very old school with a lot of things. And I think that technology is kind of moving a little slower for some of those industries and That was definitely the case.
I even pitched to my boss at the time, I was like, Hey, listen, why don't we digitize all this stuff? And they're like, Oh, you know, just, just scan it and put it in the, put it in the, you know, I mean, that's the reason why I had a job, to be honest. I was like, if they digitized it, they probably wouldn't have needed me, but you're
David Young: like, let me save you thousands of dollars and put myself out of a job.
I was like, nah, it's all good. Yeah,
Matt Harvey: yeah, exactly. So anyways, Somebody walking in, they were another aerial photography company and their story I think [00:04:00] actually started with the use of helicopters and they were talking about how drones were kind of disrupting the market a little bit and that they were starting to get more requests from different clients to start using drone imagery instead of the helicopter imagery.
Cause sometimes the helicopter imagery was a little too far away. Like if you had a big site, it might've worked well, but if you wanted to see something closer. You know, obviously the drone, get a little closer to the helicopter.
David Young: Not to mention it's like incredibly more cost effective to use a drone than to burn tons of fuel and buy a helicopter.
Matt Harvey: afTer listening to that conversation, I basically. Did some digging online and then I talked to my friend, his name's Sam.
and he was my business partner and he had a photography background. I talked to him and he was interested. And then that's when we went out. And again, the first job was, actually they were doing a bridge replacement, which was really cool, to be able to see them take this, you know, pedestrian bridge that they were replacing.
And so we got to. They paid us. I don't, I don't remember. It was a good chunk of change for two college kids. I [00:05:00] think, I think we maybe made like 2, 000 bucks or something. Not bad. So it was, yeah, and he was like, Oh yeah, I'll just pay you for a few hours every, every night and, every day. And then, and then that's it.
David Young: A lot of people start off their drone service business or whatever their entrepreneurship is solo, right? You went in with the partner arms. Did you guys say like 50 50 or how did that arrange?
Yeah. So actually that was
Matt Harvey: a good learned lesson for me is we did start 50 50 and I did end up buying him out, probably about two, two and a half years later. Okay. it ended amicably. There was no bad blood, it just, he wanted to move into the corporate world and kind of go the, not the safe route, but to just, he just preferred to have a job.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, we gotta, gotta start getting wise and get the job and all that fun stuff. And that's about that time that I actually transitioned to, to doing a lot of contract, subcontract work, which has kind of led me to where I'm now. Where? You know, it led me to being in California for about three years off and on, [00:06:00] acting as a subcontractor for Southern California Edison and then kick started me over here for the power and light.
And so we'll get into that. Yeah, I know. I'm
David Young: getting ahead of myself. No, you're good. I like the little teasers. People like, wait a minute. What is it? Yeah. On that note, so you had your partner because I've heard a lot of horror stories about partnerships saying like everybody goes in well intentioned like oh We get along it's gonna work great.
Let's go 50 50. Yeah, and then down the road It's like don't
Matt Harvey: don't ever do that 51 and you got it like have it have it just even if it's because because also the other big thing is is that For all the bank stuff for everything else. You need to have both people present. You need to have yeah, so it's Not even just that, but it's like creates a lot of other issues.
Yeah. You like logistically and you, you're both trying to go to school and work and then now we gotta get our schedules to align up. Exactly. Yeah. So that did also prove to be kind of a pain, but
David Young: Yeah. Um, well, I'm glad it ended, in friendly way. I just recently actually had a friend, it wasn't a drone business, but a separate business, a video production [00:07:00] style business.
Sure. Um, I don't know these people that personally, so I don't mind talking about it, but, they said, yeah, like one person, had a disagreement. They wanted to go one way. They want to go the other way. And the one guy said, well, then our agreement says that you have, if I want to leave, you have to buy me out.
And the guy's like, well, I'm not going to buy you out. And then it went to court and like, just got real messy. at least the lesson I've learned, haven't had this issue with the drone service business, but just. Whenever you go to create a partnership, imagine that this is going to end in the worst way you can imagine possible and go ahead and write that scenario into your agreements, to make sure that that's, but it sounds like you had a good, a good, turnout.
Yeah.
Matt Harvey: and to add to that, I have also heard another drone company that I won't mention, but I had, yeah, two friends that I worked with in California. They had a business together and then, I think just unfortunately, yeah, I wanted to go different directions and, and It's tough to see, but, that is how life works out sometimes.
But, uh, luckily, yeah, as I mentioned, mine worked out fine and I actually just went on a cruise with them just a
David Young: few, a few weeks ago. That's awesome. Okay. So it's, we still must be friends. That was part of the settlement agreement. [00:08:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Matt Harvey: yeah, yeah, yeah. He bought me a bar of drinks at the bar. Yeah.
David Young: Yeah. but you guys were together for like two years in business together. What kind of jobs were you doing during that time?
Matt Harvey: we started to kind of try and figure out what we were going to do. the biggest thing for me was following the money. So we did some work, like I said, he worked for a small development company and we put some, promo videos together for that client.
and that actually paid out pretty well. And then, and then we started to do some other, work within the, real estate market. And then I kind of mentioned to you earlier, I was like, I think I got Out just as fast as I got in doing that, into doing that, which is fine. That's a hustle in itself. but I had a lot more success with construction.
And so then we started to more or less just do research of like, okay, so I'm from Tampa. So we just did a simple search of, Hey, you know, construction companies in Tampa and just start calling, emailing. I even did some work on LinkedIn where I would message people and say, Hey, my name is Matt with insurance services. I'm giving the. The pitch, a lot of times you won't get some response, but I, I have gotten some work. So if you're listening and you're trying to think of different strategies for finding work, LinkedIn is, [00:09:00] is a
David Young: decent source. Yeah. I was going to ask of all the like random calls or emails or anything like what's been the best for you?
I would
Matt Harvey: definitely say going in and calling, is probably been the most successful and or email. So usually like an email and then you'll call and say, Hey, I sent you an email. I don't know if you got it, just wanted to talk to you about your, upcoming projects and then there's actually a separate company now that I use for, projects that are happening within the state.
And so I basically pay the company to provide, a slew of list of, projects that are happening within the county or area. It's kind of how they have it set up. and it's kind
David Young: of your prospecting
Matt Harvey: list. Yeah, exactly. And so that's, that's actually proved to be really helpful. I've actually contemplated hiring somebody else to kind of help do some of that work as well.
so currently I'm tracking, I think somewhere between 12 to 14 different projects, actively every month. So returning, work. And I really like the construction
David Young: industry. So you're saying those are jobs right now that you have? Yes. Okay. 12 to 14 per month that you have On top of your full time [00:10:00] job.
On top of the full time job, yeah. And then with the six minutes of free time you have a week, what do you do with that? So,
Matt Harvey: so, actually this year I, I actually fully transitioned to having all of my work done by contractors. Okay, so you built a team to help you with that? Yeah, so now I have, depending on what coast of Florida.
I have one guy helping with one side and one guy helping with the other side. That's awesome.
David Young: Um, so. Smart man. Yeah,
Matt Harvey: it's, it's, it's, you know, I don't make as much, but the wheels keep turning and I don't necessarily lose all my weekends. So how it kind of used to work is that I would, go to Tampa and visit family and eventually it just got to the point where I was just there and I'd go home and I'd sleep and then that's the only time they'd see me is I'm walking in to go to sleep.
Yeah. And they're like, you know, it's like, Hey, we love having you, but we're not seeing you. And then. It's kind of maybe reevaluate some things, but you're like,
David Young: well, come be a visual observer and then you'll come out
Matt Harvey: on this construction site, right? Grab your hard hats, hit the golf balls that way. No, no, no, no.
it's been interesting. And then for me, I think long term, I wasn't able to squeeze it all [00:11:00] into one weekend and so kind of had to do some readjustment. But I think long term, I'm going to want to. Uh, pilot and then also another, uh, sales rep. And I think I'm going to kind of maybe move it that way, but we'll kind of see, everything's kind of in a flux this year.
this has been a year of, just kind of not going with the flow, but, just kind of taking it day by day, week by week. I still have goals that I'm trying to reach, but, I'm understanding that it's not all going to happen at once and
David Young: that's okay. Yeah. So you had, Two years working with your friend, you bought them out and you mentioned that led into a lot of contract work.
Talk about what kind of contract work you've done. Yeah,
Matt Harvey: so a lot of my experience, again, started with construction. And then this other big segment of my career has been in the, utility industry. And a lot of it has to do with external factors, a. k. a. Mother Nature. I did some contracting work.
For Florida power and light during hurricane season. I think back in 2019 or even maybe before 2018 and helped the responders for for that [00:12:00] storm. And that pay was was exceptional. I don't I don't murders. They were given out. It was like they would give you a standby rate and then then they would give you an active rate.
And it worked out to where I think you would make 100 200 bucks on standby. Which usually means you're pretty much primed and ready to go. And then jumping into active storm response, it was like about a thousand bucks a day. Wow. Nice. Which is a good chunk of change. And I think a lot of it is because of the FEMA money.
It's a different kind of money. That's what I've discovered. Is that everybody is after the FEMA money because it's, basically just sits there waiting to be used when we have a big storm come through. So anyways, they took care of us and so that was definitely a very lucrative, gig and again, you were usually only there for a day or two days.
I think the longest stint I had as a contractor was maybe two or three days. but then again, a lot of the strums that we had during that time kind of weren't as bad as they could have been, which is, you know, pros is that there wasn't that much destruction. [00:13:00] So it was good for people in general.
Pros for everyone else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, It is kind of that fine line. I spent half my year kind of responding to that during the summer months. And then during the non summer months it was me in California for months on end living out of suitcase. the real big kickstart was up in PG& E.
They had, the really bad fires and, PG& E. Bankrupt.
David Young: Tell people what PG& E is and if you're from the West Coast. Uh,
Matt Harvey: yeah, Pacific Gas and Electric. Gas, yeah, Gas and Electric, thank you, yeah. And so The big West Coast utility. Yeah, yeah, yeah, big, big West Coast, uh, West Coast utility up in Northern California.
Okay. And they went bankrupt and they realized, okay, we'll spend millions to save billions. so that's kind of how drones got introduced. And I wasn't there the first season that that happened. I think that was at the beginning of 2019. And then I kind of came in at the back end of 2019 and I drove all the way from Florida all the way to California.
Drove out there, had all my own equipment, all my own [00:14:00] batteries, all SD cards, computer. They basically said, Hey, we need you to fill this role as the RPIC and you need to show up with all your stuff and we'll give you your per diem. I don't remember exactly what the pay was, but the pay was pretty good.
And then, honestly, we, we made, more money off the per diem because what happened was they said, okay, this is your per diem for food and for lodging. And then what we would do is if we knew where we were going to be for a stint of time, which was also kind of a roll of the dice, you didn't know you could be there for a week.
You could be there for a month. As I got further into the project, they tended to let you know a little bit better, but sometimes it wasn't. So, anyways, we would go and split an Airbnb, and we'd have the per diem, and then whatever we didn't spend, was pocketed tax free. And so I had a lot of PB& Js, and, uh, you know, you just, you take that room, and then I got this room, and, you know, at one point, during one of my seasons out there, We had like three or four guys all in one place and where you're saving a little bit more money [00:15:00] and everyone, that's what essentially everyone's there to do is make some, some good money and then go home to their families after traveling for, you know, again, it could be up to six months plus
David Young: before you get a break.
And what kind of, what was the work like out there? Like what were you doing drone wise? Yeah. So
Matt Harvey: for that particular program. it was either distribution or transmission. So a lot of folks within that industry, the T and D industry is like kind of the short term acronym. Everyone loves to, I know everyone loves to use acronyms.
So it was all T and D work. we were doing, basically asset inspections. there was, essentially an area where you were told to go inspect the poles. And it could be anywhere from 7 to 10 photos per, per poll. that number jumped significantly for transmission.
and so it depended on where I was in that, contract. If they needed more guys on distribution or they needed more guys on transmission.
David Young: And for those unfamiliar with utilities, transmission lines are the big ones that are sending it long distances. Yeah. Distribution is from there to like households.
So
Matt Harvey: think of transmission [00:16:00] as your highways of electricity and then your distribution is kind of like, you're, you're more like your suburbs or your neighborhood streets, neighborhood streets. I'm sure most of the folks listening or watching this have seen, you know, the long corridors, there's usually a large clearing, whereas distribution is again, much closer to your house.
David Young: Now, would you just collect the data, you're taking pictures and just sending it off to their teams to look at, or do they want you to look at it too and categorize and tag? Yeah, so
Matt Harvey: for most of that project, I know some folks have done different things. There was a RPIC, so I played the role as RPIC and then I was paired up with a VO, visual observer.
I think in the later years, the VO ended up. Becoming responsible for sorting the data. Okay. So what we would have to do is someone would have to go in and create a bunch of different folders and we'd have the asset number of the poll and say, okay, this is poll 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. You'd have to make sure that that all the photos got sorted correctly.
And so then from there we would upload it to whatever portal, the company that I was working [00:17:00] for, which was a bead bird's eye aerial drones, uh, was the company I know there's, there was a bunch kind of all over there. that was just kind of the workflow. But if we did see something, if we did see something even to who at the time I knew very little about utility infrastructure, it's like, oh, okay, there's a wire hanging or Something obvious.
Yeah, very obvious that even somebody from off the street, like me, would have been like, okay, there's definitely something wrong here. Then for that you would kind of tag it as a priority one or a priority two. There was a series of, Groupings of like what the level of priority was. So the P1s, you kind of have to stop and send it off right away.
It's okay, this is high level. This thing could cause something to happen now. So we want to let the client know as soon as possible.
David Young: Now, again, I'm not from the West Coast, so I don't know all the intricacies, but I know they have all the wildfires out there. And does that mess them up because it literally burns down the poles, or are these like transmission lines causing fires by like hitting trees or something?
Matt Harvey: Yeah, so part of the issue is, is [00:18:00] that the wind speeds get very high and it's very dry, in a lot of areas in California. And all it takes is is something where there's a malfunction on a pole and that could cause a spark, and the next thing you know you've got this brush fire that's just rapidly growing, and so it could be something like a tree falling or, the pole itself could malfunction causing that spark, I know there was at least one fire that happened that way, So
David Young: the issue is these lines potentially causing fires. Right.
Matt Harvey: Right. And, PG& E got in trouble because. It was beyond negligence. It wasn't just that they, knew and they chose not to do anything about it. they knew and they actively skirted around responsibility.
And then that's hence the bankruptcy and all that fun stuff. And so, I know that there's folks out there now that look at the poll all the time. And I remember going out there for a few seasons and you. See some of the same poles. You know, you go back and it's almost kind of like going home away from home
You're like, ah, well we're gonna go back to this area in the middle of 97, 8. Yeah. And, and you're some cow [00:19:00] past your farm or, or you're in some ravine or whatever. And that was the one thing interesting from some, originally from, from Florida, from Tampa going to all these awesome places where there's such drastic changes in elevation. that was definitely one of the big pros for the work it's like, you know, being outside your office is new every week, every day was cool. So if you have like a family and you have a wife or you get kids or whatever, that, that was, tough for a lot of kids, guys out there.
that wasn't necessarily my case. So it kind of worked out. Okay. But even then, by the end of it, you're like, okay, I'm ready to take a break. Yeah.
David Young: It worked out. So how, let's now talk about how that led you to what you do now. I still have edge drone services doing construction sites, but you also work full time with drones now. Yeah. Maybe tell us a little bit how you got into, you know, doing the contract work and what led you to.
Work, for a large company full time and kind of what you
Matt Harvey: do there. Yeah, yeah. So being out in the field, when I was in California, there was a job opening for, working with one of the major utility companies here in Florida. it was an opportunity to kind of change the [00:20:00] lifestyle of living from month to month.
Now to, okay, I can have somewhat of a quote unquote normal life schedule. That was at the time, hard choice for me to make because I really enjoyed and the kind of the group that I was with kind of becomes a family you're at. You're basically living with these people 24 7 and you become very close.
And so, ultimately I, I'm really glad and happy with the decision I made the company that I work for. I do work for Florida Power and Light. I can't speak too much about it, but, for those that are interested in learning more about what we're doing. My specific role is with our Drone in the Box program, and again, you can kind of research that.
We'll kind of keep a high level,
David Young: but, yeah. You guys have a lot of good press releases and stuff about it, so, yeah, Google
Matt Harvey: it. Yeah, topic of discussion is primarily about, Edge drone services, and not FPL, but again, great company, great to work with. I only have good things to say,
David Young: if you were going to give some advice to someone, I mean, you've been in the drone industry for a long time, right? Like years, I mean comparatively to most people. Sure. Yeah. Um, yeah. So you, and you've done everything from utilities to construction to briefly real estate, also [00:21:00] having a full time job with drones, with a company, right?
So you've seen like a very good broad spectrum. let's give one piece of advice for. People looking to start a drone service business if you were gonna like be in your first week starting a brand new drone services business company What would you focus on?
Then my next question will be about if you wanted to get like a full time job in drones like into the future Like how would you focus your efforts in those two different areas? Let's start with, pretend you don't have any drone service company. Yeah. You're starting. Today's day one. What would you do first week to kind of get going as quickly as possible?
Matt Harvey: Sure. Yeah. So obviously take the Drone Launch Academy course. Get yourself, get yourself up to speed. Here's your money. Here's your money. Thank you. Yeah. I was obligated to say that. But no, seriously, his course was great. I took it, many years ago and so that helped, but I, think what I've heard a lot of people don't find a good.
niche market you're taking an old way of doing something and you're essentially using the drone as a tool to help [00:22:00] create a more efficient process or something where the benefit and the output is going to be at a greater level than it was before. , so my advice to folks trying to get into using drones and they want to know what to do, I would say, A, take a look at their background.
if you have a background in a specific industry or something where what you're doing could be influenced in a good way by the use of drones. That would be my advice is, try and lean in, lean on that experience to create a new process.
David Young: Cool. And then on the flip side, if you are like, all right, an entrepreneurship path is not for me.
. I want more safety and security. I know at this point, 2023, It's not like there's like a billion job openings just for a drone pilot specifically.
But as the drone industry matures, there more drone related jobs that are coming onto the market. You are a, lucky person to have found, one. those will be much more prevalent in the future, is my prediction. So, if you are one of those people looking to [00:23:00] go that route, what's the best kind of ways to navigate that and get in in there?
Sure.
Matt Harvey: So, I would definitely suggest using LinkedIn as a tool for job postings. And, and you can actually set alerts to be notified and my suggestion would be to look at what those jobs are looking for. And just take a look at the experience that they're looking for. Or take a look at Any specific certifications that they may be looking for.
I do think that you will still probably need a blend of going and getting some experience. And then coming to them. But, at the same time, you know, I know we were talking to Michael earlier, who I guess is over at Liberty, right, he said. they have their own drone program, so perhaps you want to think about going.
to a drone program and having the ability to be exposed to different systems and, go that way. Now that wasn't the route that I did, but I think it would be helpful for somebody that wanted to go and work for a big company if you're looking to join a big group, you may have an opportunity to join as like a VO. I know for instance, going back to kind of the work that I did earlier as a [00:24:00] contractor, you know, for the folks that didn't have their part 107 and folks that didn't have any drone experience, they had never flown a drone before.
They started them off as like a VO and then kind of just essentially let them experience what the industry was like. and then from there they were able to. Work their way up to our pick type role. I think there's going to be lots and lots of need for our picks personally. I think the next big thing that you want to be looking for also is not only can you fly the drone, but can you manage data?
can you, do you work well with others and also. Pilots now, we're not becoming obsolete, but we're going to have to transition to operating remotely. So the days are going to start to be less and less where you're going to be. Potentially out in the field, or it's going to be a hybrid.
you're going to be sometimes in a command center flying or you could be out flying. But again, I think it's going to become more and more of a hybrid. And then eventually, you could have a potential role where you're in a room and you're still flying a drone, but you're just not doing it in person.
Or you're
David Young: monitoring 10 drones that are flying. You [00:25:00] might have to take over one that's
Matt Harvey: an issue or one too many is becoming popular.
David Young: I wanted to mention on one thing that you said that I thought was really important just because I literally heard it from a vendor downstairs right before we got up here, was on data management where I was talking a little about Drone Launch Academy and what we do and they have a service where, I don't know if you saw it, the Volt, folks, I think it's called virtual something lineman team.
So basically, like co ops and like electric utilities, they can. Take pictures of their assets and then they can upload it and then they can have Experienced linemen remotely inspect all the information to see like, you know, interesting anyways, so he said our biggest problem He's like people can fly the drone people can take the pictures.
They have their clueless about data management He's like once they have it They're like show should I mail you this this SD card and they're like no they can't remember which poll it was pointing at they don't correctly like label files and like organize the data. So he's like, you just need to train.
It's like if I were you, I would just train people on, how do you even, once you gather all this information, [00:26:00] especially if you're doing like utilities, but it makes it you probably got thousands of photos from it. You're not like, yeah, how do you manage that volume of information and know which picture goes with which things?
Like if you're taking an orthomosaic, It's a little bit easier because it's capturing all the photos. You toss those all into Pics4D something, right? And it's recognizing them and stitching them together based on the geotag. Geotag. Yeah.
Yeah. but if you're doing something else that's inspection related and you've got a lot of data, people just don't know how to manage that level of information. So, the more you can get familiar with. Making things easier on who you're sending information to. I think that's a valuable skill that apparently not a lot of people have.
Matt Harvey: Yeah, I'll even take it a step further is, is that I think they're another good opportunity to kind of set yourself apart from others is, taking some basic AI classes and learning about like image recognition there's so many open source platforms that you can go and kind of play and mess with.
maybe you come in with a cert from that company or whatever and say, Hey, you know, I've taken this course on the basis of image recognition and that's, [00:27:00] going to be the next big thing is, we have all this data and then now we want to have instant reports on, okay, what, findings matter from this?
It's like, we've come way over here from. The old way of doing things where guys were in a helicopter, writing stuff on a pen and a pad and be like, Oh, I hope, well, I hope I got that, that, that one looks, I don't, frankly, I don't really know how they did it now we've come all this way and, a lot of big companies and clients and everything.
we want the data and we want the results right away. Like everyone wants it yesterday.
David Young: There's a company downstairs, again, not today. We're just at a conference, so I got a little, the juices are flowing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. But there's a company downstairs. He's being a paid actor. Don't worry about it.
I'm not even mentioning it. Uh, there's a company downstairs and they were talking about, yeah, we actually now have like a chip inside here that again, we've trained like an AI model to recognize what the beginning of a forest fire looks like. So as it's flying around, it can instantly recognize there's a fire or potential for a fire here and it can transmit that back.
To stop it much more quickly than, getting video, hoping the person's watching the live feed or whatever, you know [00:28:00] what I mean, like, like you're saying, yeah, no,
Matt Harvey: that, that, that is super, ideal for, all folks involved again.
David Young: but anyways, listen, basically what I'm trying to say is listen to everything Matt is telling you, because, he's a wise man.
He's got a lot more experience than me with hands on the controls and actually working with the customers. really appreciate you coming on and sharing all your insights. And, um, Matt's actually about to speak in 30 minutes, here at the, at the conference. So I appreciate him taking time out of his time here to talk to us for the podcast.
So any parting words before we go, Matt? No, just do
Matt Harvey: what you guys can to, to set yourselves apart and, don't give up. I love it. All
David Young: right. Thanks, Matt.
Matt Harvey: Yeah. Thanks, David.