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A podcast about drones and the people behind them. An educational and entertaining take on the current state of drones and what flies ahead in the drone world.
Mike Yoder (00:00)
I was for real like skiing behind a a drone.
Mark Masterton (00:03)
Look like an episode of Jackass to be honest. This is Jackass and today on the drone is the future podcast, we get the pleasure of talking with Mike Yoda of the Drone On Podcast. He tells the origins of going from drone deer recovery, his new way ag spray business, the community he's created online.
With a passion for drones and an ability to lead, tells his story of leading others to using drones and how his inventiveness sometimes butts heads, powers that be. From the fields of Ohio to one of the top YouTube accounts, educating and entertaining the masses about drone use. Tune in to our conversation that takes off now. Drone as the Future is made in partnership with Drone as a Service. Make your survey, mapping, or inspections safer, faster, and more efficient.
With the help of our team. Elevate what's possible with droneaservice.com. Hello, Mike, and welcome to the Drone as the Future Podcast.
Mike Yoder (00:58)
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Mark Masterton (01:00)
Yeah. no stranger to podcasting, obviously, with your drone on show. and I just wanna shout out the amazing locations you do many of your podcasts from. Been doing a deep dive and whether it's a cattle field, an onion field, a golf course. Super jealous of the places you've been recording from compared to our little Vancouver studio here. We tried to get out where we can, but
Mike Yoder (01:23)
Yeah. No, I I I feel blessed for sure. I I've gotten to go in some pretty cool places to check out drones and then just sit down and chat with people is a lot of fun.
Mark Masterton (01:36)
Yeah, it's it's pretty cool. I like that you just set up in the middle of a field and start recording and it all sounds and looks looks great. we should probably start right at the beginning of your story. I've I've seen the the video that you posted on on YouTube of your your life and your story, but for people who are coming to our podcast who haven't seen that, can we go back right to the start when you were a young Amish boy growing up in Amish country and how how do you go from that to becoming a a multi million dollar drone?
Company. Yeah. It's crazy your story. Give us give us the cliff cliff notes.
Mike Yoder (02:10)
Well, sometimes I'd I'd I'd take it for granted of where I came from. but I I try not to. I I still live here on the farm. dad sold me some of the home farm for pennies on the dollar. But yeah, it started as growing up Amish. My my whole family's Amish, they're still Amish. I'm I'm the only child from that family that decided to not live the Amish lifestyle.
When I was about, I would say sixteen and a half, seventeen years old is when I decided that I don't want to live that lifestyle and I want to have a car. And so that's when I started going out on my own. when I say out on my own, it's like buying a truck and buying different clothes and that type of stuff.
Mark Masterton (03:03)
Mm. And you you were an entrepreneur from the from the jump, right? you started a few businesses before you got into the the drone space. How did that how did you get into that hustle hustling way? I mean I mean you've you started off by cutting trees, right?
Mike Yoder (03:19)
Yeah. Yep. I would say it just it's probably our heritage. So Amish men and I are very hard workers and my dad was his own boss for many years. That's what I remember seeing him do is go out and cut timber and that was his business. So I've always thought that it'd be good it'd be nice to have my own business, but I just didn't know.
How to do that when you're really young. So I I had jobs with with other people and just gained experience through multiple different jobs. And at some point along the lines, there I was doing trees for a different company. And I would have been the guy that got the whole job done, but did not sell the job. and so I was like, I I approached that guy. I was like, hey, would you
Would you have any interest in being business partners? because I really wanted something that I could call my own, not just go work for somebody and then, you know, go home and yeah, have money, but not not stuff that you could build assets on. And so I approached him and he was like, No, I'm not interested. Business partners don't work, like partnerships don't work. And I was like, okay, well, whatever. And so I kept
working with them for maybe another year or so and we just had a bad falling out. And then I went out on my own, started my own tree company and did very well with it. became successful in my own way is what I is how I would put it. And you know, had a house, had a family and had money up to that point more than I had before and had a business. But that was not
I I kinda hit a plateau because i it was fun building that company. I you know, as an entrepreneur, it's it's for me, it's I like from the ground up. It's like really making it work. And so when I got the tree company up and going, then I kind of felt like I hit the top. I was like, Okay, I could do more, get more equipment, get more people, but it would it was just not in it for me. And that's when I started thinking outside of the box.
on other avenues to go out and try to find a different company. But in the meantime, when I was doing trees, I actually injured my back, my L4L5 disc. I I injured it because I was picking up a log that I was frustrated at myself that I forgot to pick up this log and I went over there and I started chunking these logs in there and then something popped in my back. Didn't do anything for a couple years and finally
I did go get an MRI and that's what they told me. While that time was going on, we actually went through a really bad audit with Workman's Comp here in the state of Ohio. And we had a bill of eighty-seven thousand dollars and it had to be paid in full. And it was it was a downtime of my life. and I started drinking and I was like, gosh, what am I doing with my life? And I went to a buddy's house and he
mentioned something about using a thermal drone to do commercial roof inspections. they used them to check for leaks where maybe the insulation got soaked or something like that. And I was like, Yeah, I thought about getting one of those to look for deer. He's like, that'd be a great idea. So I went and bought one. I bought an eight thousand dollar drone and now this is history.
Mark Masterton (07:07)
Wow. Wow. So it just it I mean you saw the tech and you saw an opportunity in bringing it into what you do in in hunting as well. Yes.
Mike Yoder (07:17)
Yeah.
Mark Masterton (07:19)
how did you get into hunting and and that world as well? You started off quite young.
Mike Yoder (07:25)
So my dad was never really like a deer hunter. My uncles were. and so we would go with my uncles hunting with guns. but never really like seriously like big game hunters, that type of thing. we just did some whitetail hunting around here, around the farm. but the more I did it, the more I wanted to do it on my own. And so I got myself a a bow and arrow and started going out by myself and
was able to harvest a couple of deer like that. And yeah, it just kinda evolved. not necessarily from my dad, but is something I found interest in.
Mark Masterton (08:05)
So the the thermal scanning drones really helped elevate your your drone deer recovery business, but that's just one aspect of how you use drones in business. Now you're you've also doing ag spraying as well. how did that manifest? You you you got great success with the deers and they thought what's what other avenues can I start using this tech for?
Mike Yoder (08:26)
Yeah,
so I I give a lot of my credit to social media. and that goes for the agricultural side as well. So when drone deer recovery was really taking off, getting millions of views on that channel just the the very first month or two that I started it up, it it got hundreds of thousands. And because of that reach,
Somebody that was a deer hunter but also a helicopter pilot was following the drone deer recovery channel and seeing that I was getting a spray drone or something like that. Yeah somewhere along the lines in my content. And so he DM'd me and he was like, Hey Mike, I got this big project in Indiana. if you'd want, you can come out and run a spray drone trailer and you know, spray as many acres as you want. And I I didn't know anything about
spray drones. Like I knew that there's drones, but I didn't know how you operated them. But he g he offered that up to me. he told me what trailer I need, how the drones are gonna work, the software, all of that. All I had is the go-getter attitude. And so I was like, I'm determined to figure out how to make this work, in in the spray drones business. So I went out there as a an absolute rookie.
and people, you know, might watch the content and they're like, you did it all wrong, this and that. That's probably true, but I did a lot of things right too. but yeah, went out there and just hammered hard and figured out how to cover acres, figured out how to improve equipment, how to build trailers. the whole thing my brain started looking at is like, okay, we can make this process better. And that's when we went into
manufacturing our own trailers, obviously distributing spray drones, retailing spray drones, and yeah, we just kept building
Mark Masterton (10:31)
scaled huge. yeah, it's crazy the success that you've had in in the drone space already. but were was it all plane sailing or was there a few hiccups that you had to
Mike Yoder (10:42)
Yeah, there's there's never I don't think there's any entrepreneur that's ever going to tell you that it was just blue skies and roses because it wasn't.
Mark Masterton (10:51)
if we rewound back to the beginning of I mean, you say that you were a total rookie going into the the spraying business and you know, I guess you might not have been y you were heading into the thermal drone business from an outside's point of view as well. What what were the hiccups in the very, very beginning
Mike Yoder (11:10)
The very first
Mark Masterton (11:10)
into drones?
Mike Yoder (11:11)
Yep. So the very first thing that I had a massive challenge in is just learning how to use the system, how to use the thermal drone and be very confident in the equipment. there was nobody really that was next to me teaching me how to read thermals. There there weren't hardly any YouTube videos online to to see how to do a grid pattern, what altitude to fly, all of those things. So
In the beginning it was just school of hard knocks, just just fly as much as he can and learn as much as he can. Now there's a lot better ways of learning the system than just unboxing it and flying and, you know, aimlessly f looking through the timber trying to look for a deer. There there's a process that goes about doing it. So the very first big challenges that I had is just knowing how the equipment properly works and then
putting it into a system that you can, you know, duplicate it, meaning you're not just going this way and then that way and then up and down. So yep.
Mark Masterton (12:20)
so was that just hours and hours and hours and flying flying over your acreage just figuring it out. What see what worked, seeing what didn't work.
Mike Yoder (12:25)
Well not easy.
I unfortunately didn't have the drone long enough before season st opened. season opened and I was actually in Colorado on a on a hunting trip that was not my hunting. I took an Amish guy out there that needed a ride. And so when hunting season opened, I had two calls already and I hadn't even flown my thermal drone that much. I had bought a it was a DJI dual is what it was the first one. It was like eight thousand bucks. But then
In 2022, in around August, I bought a Matri 30T. Back when they were still brand new, they were like $22,000 when I bought one. And so that's that's the drone that I actually kind of opened my business with. The the the dual was a drone to get video footage of thermal signatures on the ground and then zoom in to see what they were.
And when I took that video to an outdoor show, that's that's the booth that people talked about. Did you see that drone that can find deer? Well, I knew that that drone could find deer, but it wasn't actually that good that I could charge somebody for the service. And so I I knew I had to buy a bigger drone, but I didn't want to buy a Matrice 300. That's that thing was way too much money. but so the M30T had just come out.
I believe it was that year in two thousand twenty-two and here in the States anyhow, right? It was probably in China, but that's when I bought that thirty T. And when I was in Colorado, I got those calls, I was like, geez, like this is gonna get serious. And so when I got back home, yes, calls got serious and all I could really do is and the truth is if we if if guys go back and watch my YouTube channel, the very first buck video I ever
put on YouTube was one of the first. It was probably one out of three of the first deer I ever went to look for. And I was a nervous wreck. Because they didn't, I mean, I knew I was just being honest with them. Like, guys, I don't
Mark Masterton (14:38)
You're asking them for money, right? Yeah.
Mike Yoder (14:40)
I'm asking them for money, but I'm I'm like nervous because I'm like, guys, I know that it works, but I just
Haven't done it yet enough, right? You just need experience to be comfortable. Yeah. And so I was like, my gosh. I w I I couldn't hardly eat because we were going out to look for that deer that night. But thankfully I did end up finding that buck. And, you know, confidence builder. The more you find, the more confident you get, the more of the ability that you'll put your drone in situations that other people might not be able to because they just don't know how handles and stuff like that. So
Honestly, I usually tell people, you're not going to get good at flying a thermal drone like what you see us in the videos do until you probably have 50 hours or more under your belt. Then things will start kind of easing into getting things figured out.
Mark Masterton (15:34)
So, you got those first initial calls for the for the deer recovery and you thought, okay, maybe there's a little bit of a business here. That's your first couple. But then when did you start thinking, you know, I I could probably put down these other businesses and focus on on on this. This is gonna be the thing that blows me up. W and was it always your plan to document everything from the start? Because you've done a great job of documenting everything on YouTube when you you credited social media with how you moved into other businesses.
Mike Yoder (16:03)
Thank you. Yeah, it was definitely part of my plan. It was part of my plan to start this as a service, but not only as a service, as a content creation as well. I I like creating content. I had created a couple different YouTube channels prior to this. Only one that I really committed to that was where I flew like ultralight airplanes around. And so I knew that YouTube could
be something. And when I started this business, I I said that I'm going to commit to creating content and then showing the world. Because the truth was, it was still a little controversial if you should use a thermal drone to recover a deer carcass. it's just it's something about the hunting space. They they hate new technology coming into it. But the truth is there's tons of technology in the hunting space. But
I knew that that's going to ruffle some feathers and it sure did because once I started releasing that content, you know, people started hopping on and watching this stuff and it's like, Jeez, I can't believe he's showing this and this is this many people wound deer. And it's like, guys, this has been happening for years, just nobody has ever shown it on YouTube. So yeah, it was totally part of my plan. I don't know what the second part of that question
Mark Masterton (17:28)
I think I mean that helped build an audience, ruffling feathers and and growing your audience and you say it was part of your plan. And then at what point did you realise, okay, these opportunities that are coming in business wise, I could make a full time living off of this?
Mike Yoder (17:41)
Yeah. Okay. So I knew that probably pretty quickly because I made fifty thousand bucks in the first ten weeks of deer season opening. but I was also the only guy in my area that I'm aware of. and it was going crazy. I could charge whatever I wanted, and people were, you know, paying me huge fees to drive a long way to come look for these deer. And I was just making a lot of money doing deer recoveries and
You know, I was like, fifty thousand bucks this short amount of time, you know, if I do it seriously next year and there's not a bunch of other guys, I could probably do seventy five thousand. And and so that's when I was like, Okay, this is a real deal. That was in two thousand and twenty two. I still have my tree company. So trees in Ohio slowed down in the winter. And so I wasn't doing much in the winter anyhow. That's why I kinda picked this up. But
When we came out of that season, I told my business partner, Jason, he was business partners in that tree company, I was like, You should really look at getting yourself a drone and helping me in the next season going forward. And it just wasn't something that was enticing to him at that point. And so I had met another fella by the name of Kevin, which is my business partner as well. Now earlier I
you know, backing up before drone deer recovery was ever a thing. I met him at a local coffee shop and I told him about this idea and he should be my business partner. And he was like, no, I didn't know and I I only seen him one time at church. I don't know. I just thought he'd be a good business partner and never even knew him. But he said, no, I'm not doing it. He just came out of a bad breakup. breakup meaning a business breakup that didn't work.
He was broke and nothing was working. He said, I'll build your website and I might consider, you know, being partners in the YouTube revenue or something. Okay. And so that's how it started out. But once we got through that first season, the fifty thousand dollars, Kevin was like, Okay, this is probably a thing. And so I took some of that many that $50,000 coming into spring, and that's when I bought a drone, the the spray drone. And
That's when I told Jason, you can keep running the tree company. I'll do the drones. And, you know, if you don't want to come do drones at some point, you know, you can have the tree company and I'll keep running with the drones. But he quickly seen a few months down the road, like, holy smokes, like this is gonna be a big thing. And so we ended up, you know, selling that company and he
Came to work with us.
Mark Masterton (20:36)
It y the YouTube, you've you've built this massive audience over a short space of time. how how do you feel did you ever anticipate getting that big an audience and getting that many people reacting to the stuff that you were posting?
Mike Yoder (20:50)
Yeah, so as the channel started taking off, I just remember this number. It was between three and six million views in the first three months. I I that's what I re remember. And I was like, my gosh, like this is actually going to be a thing because I'm technically the first one on the block that's trying to make it mainstream that you use a thermal drone to recover a carcass. And so I knew it's going to
be a thing. I just didn't know how much of a thing it's going to be. Cause I there was nobody else I could try to follow, right? There was no other drone deer recovery YouTube channel that I could that I could try to go beat. so yeah, I I just thought that it's going to be a thing because so many people were talking about it.
Mark Masterton (21:39)
Did you ever anticipate it being this big though? getting into agriculture business?
Mike Yoder (21:44)
When you say this big, I don't know if you're refer referring to only the YouTube channel or this big as a company.
Mark Masterton (21:52)
Yeah, probably as a company as well.
Mike Yoder (21:54)
This big as a company, no, I would have never thought that there's 39 people on payroll right now. but it just kind of has to be that way if you have the growth that you have. Like I mean, the truth is if we wouldn't had a couple of the hiccups that we have had with the the government, I mean, we could be double the size. Yeah.
Mark Masterton (22:22)
do you wanna talk about the FAA and where where we're at right now and how the the back and forth and how how it got to where it is? If you can give us like a a quick run through of where you're at and and yeah what how to move forward through it. Yeah.
Mike Yoder (22:38)
So the FAA as of right now, I I signed the paperwork, they're suspending my remote pilot's license for six months. that is after negotiating with them. The it started two years ago when I am the guy that creates all the YouTube content. And when you talk to attorneys and when you talk to the FAA and you ask him, you know, how how can I carry a deer?
out of the woods and they look at you and they're like, well, we don't know. And it's like, wait, aren't you the people that make these rules or laws or whatever? And they just they didn't know. So there were some attorneys that we were going back and forth with. Is there a special exemption you can get? and then if it is an exemption, is it a ninety one exemption? Is it a one thirty five? Is it a one thirty three? you know, is it just a a
a broad blanket of experimental, nobody knows. Nobody knows. There's now people starting to get heavy lift exemptions to do experimental stuff, but not as an actual business that I'm aware of outside of like, you know, Amazon, Walmart, the little five, you know, five pound boxes. Not something that you can go strap a big T one hundred to and you know lift a 200 pound AC unit.
To the back 40 or something like that. So nothing like that has really existed broadly. And I knew that. I knew that the there's this gray area, right? I was trying to figure out how I can operate it under a 137 agricultural use case. If you're familiar with that, you know, it says that you can run agricultural use, but then after I figured this all out, the FA has a very specific
Definition of what can fit in there. And if it isn't spraying poisons from the air, fertilizing, or propagating something like that, then then you can't fit into that 137. So if you want to pick up a generator or you want to pick up a tire, then they don't know where it fits. They just know it doesn't fit there.
They know it could fit in 135, but they also don't understand how it could be 135 because that is charter. So, but if you're not if you're not carry or if you're carrying your own thing, well then is that charter or is that 91? So there's this big back and forth, well, what is it? What is it not? And it's like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna be that guy. I don't care what you say.
I'm going to make content so I can spark interest to start thinking about how could you use these drones? Right? You might live in the mountains and you have to carry two by fours up the hill or or water or who knows what, right? There's so many things that ha drones can be used for. I was like, the heck with it. I'm just gonna make videos of me doing stuff around here, like lifting a deer, pulling myself in a sled. I'm going to
Cut a tree down with it. And so I did. And it caught up to me because the FA, you know, showed up and they were like, you can't do those things. And then that's when we went all through this whole debacle again. Is like, okay, well, you say you you say I can't. Well then how can I? Well, I don't know. You could try a one thirty three, you could try done with it. I'm over it. Like you don't know what I could do. And so that's that's where we left it.
Is you know they want it to come after my pilot's license, not my remote pilot's license. They want it to come after my part 91 license, which is what I use to fly airplanes around. Because they are saying that that operation was a 91. Okay, well, then this gives me a more clear definition of what we need to get exempt from then. Because before you didn't know if it's a 135, a 133, or a 91.
But now you're coming after my pilot's license. So now then that tells me you think it is a ninety one then. and so they came after my ninety-one. We went back and forth with them. and finally we got a new attorney. And I was like, hey, let's try to strike a deal with the FA, because I really don't want them going after my pilot's license, because the truth is maybe one day I want to get my commercial certificate.
And what they were going after me did not make any sense at all. They were going after me for careless and reckless op. If you know anything about the definition of careless and reckless op, I mean, I was doing the furthest thing from that. I was literally on private land. Everybody that was around the drones was part of the operation. And I was just lifting a log, or I was lifting a deer. I was not going in.
over people's cars or over houses or anything. So they just went after that careless and reckless op because that's the first thing that they know that they can go after. And that's where I was like, well this don't make no sense. One, it don't make no sense for careless and reckless op, but why why take my, you know, six my 91 when or 61 when I wasn't even physically sitting in the airplane and flying it. Wasn't that my remote?
Mark Masterton (28:26)
Drone as the Future is made in partnership with Drone as a Service. Make your survey, mapping, or inspections safer, faster, and more efficient with the help of our team. Elevate what's possible with droneaservice.com.
Mike Yoder (28:41)
And so
Mark Masterton (28:43)
Yeah. So you're you're on pause now for for six months. I'm I'm not sure which which license is on pause for six months, but you've got that pause break and and how do you move forward after that six months or what you're gonna do in the meantime?
Mike Yoder (28:57)
Yeah, so I can't fly drones over fifty five pounds, but I can dri fly drones under fifty five pounds. I am going to operate under one seven point one two A two is what I'm going to operate under as. as long as I have a remote pilot with me, then he's the supervisor. He is the pilot in command, but I can still manipulate the controls. That's how I'm going to get around it.
through drone dubrick every season. But then, you know, when spray season comes, hopefully I'll have my license back by then. And then we can go, you know, spray.
Mark Masterton (29:37)
a big
thing behind your podcast and the the drone on podcast is to help lead educate. Do you think you're you're back and forth with the FAA and, you know, reading through the legislation and figuring out where you fit in or where you don't fit in. Is this all helping drone pilots who drone entrepreneurs who might be getting into the business and don't know anything about this side of things? I know it's been a struggle, but do you think the lessons that you're learning can help others?
Mike Yoder (30:06)
I sure hope. I sure hope. I've had many people call my team and ask, you know, they want to buy a d a drone, a fly cart one hundred specifically to fly irrigation pumps to the center pivot so they don't have to crush all the crop. And the the truth is it's like yeah, you could probably do that, but not according to the FAA. And so I can educate them.
I've been through this openly. I've been through this. And so I can tell people what they can and can't do according to my experiences. will it move the industry forward? I truly believe it will, and that was my whole point in doing it, is there's there's no clear definition of how to do it, but they definitely say you can't do it.
But it's like, gosh, can you imagine if everybody in the United States would not do anything unless there's specific guidelines of how to do it? Like just think of that. That that's just it's just ridiculous.
Mark Masterton (31:18)
Can't really break new ground like that. Yes. and do you is there any sort of possibility down the line any sort of future where you might help the FAA shape new legislation to help people break new ground? Is that is that a possibility I know it's you're in a difficult spot right now, but perhaps that could be helpful in the future. Yeah.
Mike Yoder (31:40)
Yeah, I mean I'd be more than willing to to help, but you know, I I went back and forth with me personally and one of the head guys to kind of run this UAS exemption process. We went back and forth with him for a long time. Like and the truth is the FA has been at my place now, and I know how it works. They basically told us if we don't know how something works, we just park it. It's that simple. Like
They get a paperwork and they don't know how to, you know, cross the T's or dot the I's. They literally set it to the side and wait till somebody else makes that decision. We would send him something, he would wait three months, he would send back to us, we'd have ten days to respond to him, to the request that he has made. We'd have ten days to quickly get everything together, send it back off to him. He would hold it for three months and then he would send it back. It it was just it's a it's been a nightmare, honestly. It's been
Painfully slow.
Mark Masterton (32:40)
Well, hopefully you can get that license back by season start and you can get back to doing what you love. And you've got a great drone deer recovery business. You've got an ag spraying business. W what do you see coming next down the down the pipe? Is there gonna be an is there anything else you're looking to explore? Where do you see this technology going?
Mike Yoder (32:59)
I I just don't even know that we know where this technology is going to end because I just yeah, I I just see it doing so many things in different industries right right now that we might think that drones won't be used for, but they actually will be used for it. we've dabbled around a little bit like in the power wash, like doing soft washes with drones. It's not really
my thing to get into. We are so busy with what we're doing with with new way ag and drone deal recovery that going out and getting into new things right now is just is not a smart business move for us. With like I said earlier, with we're 39 people deep in in the company. And the truth is we need to hire a ton more people because we are very busy. Everybody's busy.
And we could scale the agricultural side tenfold, if if everything gets itself shook out with this whole drone thing.
Mark Masterton (34:09)
so speaking about being a pioneer and trying out new new tech with the drones, you also pushed it into a really cool space involving jet skis. Do you wanna tell us a little bit how how that came to be and what that entailed?
Mike Yoder (34:23)
The whole point of me doing those things was actually a research project that I was working with a a big wave surfer. There was a big wave surfer that's also a lifeguard. He's a professional lifeguard. That is his job is to protect the big wave surfers when they go out and catch these waves. And he said the biggest challenge that they're having is even though they have ski-doos, when you are trying to, you know, ride a hundred foot wave or whatever huge these waves are.
When that guy goes down, he said, we need to drive away sometimes and then come back and then try to go into where that guy went down. He said, What would be nice with the drones is you just you just go up and then let the wave pass and then come right back down. So we were testing some of those things on dragging me, you know, on the sled and then also on the skiing.
to see could we drag a big wave server out of there if if if we needed to. And we figured out that we could. And that was the whole point of that. but then of course it was to create content and get people talking about it.
Mark Masterton (35:32)
It did look pretty kick-ass, I have to say.
Mike Yoder (35:37)
It was it was so crazy to think that like it just felt so futuristic. Like I was for real like like skiing behind a a drone.
Mark Masterton (35:50)
It looked like an episode of Jackass, to be honest. This is Jackass and I'm Mike Yoda and this is the jet ski drone. Yeah. Yeah. But it it looked awesome and I'm sure it generated the audience that you wanted for it. I think in your podcast you talk a lot about entrepreneurs and their stories in the drone space. It's really inspiring to see how young people are getting into the the drone space and how they grow so quickly. And are there any stories that particularly stick out?
with the with these entrepreneurs and do you feel like you've you've inspired some in a way?
Mike Yoder (36:24)
yeah. I've definitely inspired a quite a few people. it's it's fun to sit down and have a talk with them. Like the other day I was I was I went out on a recovery with a local pilot. I I called the the pilot and has said, Hey, I'm gonna do this deer recovery. If you want, you can come out and, you know, help me find this deer. And then we just had a conversation and he's telling me how his life has changed. Like he's a full time
Drone pilot. So he did deer recovery and now he's a spray drone pilot as well. And he has all of his own equipment. And he was talking about like sometimes how he's always worrying about the maybe do I get the next job or do I get more equipment? Do I hire people? Do I do these things? And it's like just exactly like the first time you ever bought a thermal drone. You didn't think it'd work. Now you're out here, you're making money.
And you do 130 some calls a year, like it's always going to be a thing. Keep improving your business. And so hearing those stories and then asking me for more advice later, it's like it's like that with any business. Be it a really small, you know, power washing business or somebody that's building huge infrastructure. There's always unknowns, there's always some uncertainty, but you just gotta keep pushing through and keep, you know, keep doing it.
But one thing I will tell anybody that ever thinks about getting into business is if you are always going to worry about what if, then you probably never will. And the truth is, you just gotta send it. Like you just won't. The truth is you won't. It's it's a lot easier to sit back like on my couch, go to my nine to five job, come home, you know, pick some onions and cook some bread or whatever. It's like, no, dude, that if you want to be your own.
business, you're gonna have some uncertainty and you gotta put your head down and you're gonna be working a lot. It's not gonna be a nine to five, I can guarantee you that. But with that comes some nice vacation if you want to or take off or yeah. So anyhow, a little spiel there.
Mark Masterton (38:39)
No, no, it's inspiring. And you're a busy guy. you've also got a family that you're looking after as well. And and sometimes you like to incorporate them into your videos, which is cute and nice. is that intentional? Is that is that just part and parcel of running all these businesses and have all these things going? yeah.
Mike Yoder (38:56)
Yeah, so it's intentional. I always try to ask anybody that is further ahead than me that has children, that yeah, I always want to gain wisdom and knowledge from people. And I spoke to an older gentleman a while back that he was telling me about all the businesses that he had and he was doing like coal mining and in different parts of the country. And I I looked at him and was like, What about your children?
He's like, I took him with. I set him in the coal trucks with me. And we drove around and and his son is standing right next to him. And and I was like, is that good? And they loved it. And so for me, it's like, I work a lot. you know, the family life balance that people ask me, I don't know if there's a balance. I just know that I've I involve my family in any way I can. I try to do deer recoveries when
They're awake and if they're not, then you know, I'll quickly go get done. But the truth is I want to take them with as much as I can whenever I go somewhere. So I just I have to involve them because I'm busy. I'm always going. And if you don't, you're not gonna see much.
Mark Masterton (40:12)
Great, great, great way to look at it, for sure.
Obviously Thermaltech has been a huge thing for you with drones. It helped you build the drone recovery business. what innovation would you most like to see out of drones in the next few years? Where do you think there's room for growth in in in the drone space? What would you like to see?
Mike Yoder (40:35)
in the specific industries that I'm in, I would like to see
Mark Masterton (40:39)
Or
just general too. We can answer that l after.
Mike Yoder (40:41)
Yeah, so so I can probably mostly just talk on the industries that I am in because that's where I'd like to see, you know, things improve. But I I I would like to see in the spray drone business or in the spray drone industry, I'd like to see better batteries built somehow. You know, these batteries are only lasting ten minutes, and I get it. There's a lot of power going out of those batteries, and you don't want it to weigh four hundred pounds to pick up and
to swap, but man, wouldn't it be cool if we can figure out solid state or something that would just be like three times more power with the same weight? That that would really I think that would take the whole industry to another level because battery management is a huge thing with these spray drones right now.
As far as the thermal space, like what do I see? You know, DJI came to me when the 30T was starting to become end of life, and they seen how many truckloads of drones we were selling, and they were like, What would you like to see in the next drone? And I was like, guys, like this thing is dynamite, like it flies in rain, it flies fast, it has a great thermal, a good zoom.
I really don't know what I'd like other than if you could make it smaller. I would really like that. And I'm thinking, good luck trying to make that thing smaller. And then they did it with the 4T and the 4T D. And it's like, whoa, okay. I have I just have to keep talking or or giving opinions on what are some of those things that I'd like to see change. So engineers can go crunch their heads and, you know, buckle down and figure how to.
figure out how to do some of these things. And so, yeah, that's you know, on the thermal drone itself, right now I can't think of anything, but if we'd sit here and we'd really brainstorm, I'm ther I'm sure we could come up with some things that could be improved on the, you know, on the thermal side of things.
Mark Masterton (42:55)
Yeah. But smaller batteries and maybe smaller thermal drones going forward as well, potentially. But more like pie in the sky stuff. W what would you like drones to do in the future? I mean, we've got power washing, we got them doing search and rescue. There's so many different things. Is there anything like twenty years time you you would like drones to do for you and and your family on your on your farm?
Mike Yoder (43:18)
Yeah, so when I say a drone, but then it probably wouldn't be a drone if you sit in it, but it would operate and look just like a drone. I I I would think that in the future, if you have to go to the Cleveland airport, you can just get on your phone and request an Uber and one will land in your driveway. Get into that thing, take a twenty minute ride up the up the road that would normally take you an hour and a half, to get on an airplane. That would be super futuristic for me to see.
The other thing I want to see is I wanna see drone deliveries from local stores around here, not necessarily Amazon, but you know, if I call the local hardware store down the road because I I'm trying to fix this piping out back and it'd be just be cool. Hey, you know, I I need a couple of these elbows for this pipe. Can you send a drone over and it drop it off? That would be cool.
Mark Masterton (44:09)
Yeah, like a sort of a a door dash network, but for Yeah. Not just for food, for like hardware and things like that. Yeah, yeah. That'd be amazing. I I've seen a few dads in America actually toying with the Walmart drone delivery system, like crank ordering bananas to each other's yard. It was epic.
Mike Yoder (44:27)
Wild what they're what they're doing. I think again, you know, yes, you gotta take some safety in consideration, but there's no doubt that that process has been slowed down because of regulations.
Mark Masterton (44:41)
and just lastly, helping, leading, educating. I wonder if I could pick your brain a little bit. on on YouTube, because you've you're running all these channels so successfully. You've got a podcast that's that's doing well. do you have any tips and and magic insight for for peop people who are trying to grow a drone YouTube such as ourselves? What what have you learned over the years?
Mike Yoder (45:05)
Well, I mean, it depends what type of content you're trying to make. If you're just going to make educational content, then I feel like that has a pretty hard road ahead of itself on YouTube to grow. But if you're willing to add in some entertainment into your education, then it can grow. Because the truth is there's so much stuff
on YouTube right now or any social platform, TikTok, Instagram, you name it, is like some of the stuff just has to be strictly entertainment or the wow factor or drama. That's that's what's going to get people to to click in. I can just give you an example like new way ag I want that channel to grow specifically on organic
subscribers. I don't want to drive them to my drone deer recovery channel because the drone deer recovery audience doesn't really care so much about maybe spraying a cornfield like the next guy does if YouTube recommends it to that audience. Yeah. So but that being said, I'm letting the channel grow in its own, but then I'm also throwing in every now and then some maybe some
controversial stuff or some very inner entertaining stuff into the channel. So the very first one, I was like, okay, let's make it look like we're sitting inside of this drone, flying around, use some green screen, and you know, the thing went super crazy. Like it went wild in China. Did it did it find all the people that would buy a a spray drone? No. But it found a broader audience of an audience that might buy a spray drone.
Or that he can say to his friend, hey, I know that you've thought about spray drones. Did you see this YouTube channel? You should really check him out. And so that's why I say if you're going to do it as an educational side, you have to also incorporate entertainment in there at some point because education will only take you so far. you know, I posted that video about potentially being my last flight.
I knew that that's going to go to an audience that's not just the new AG audience. And now the the the feedback I'm getting from that video is great. There's so many people that thought about using a spray drone or a a big drone to spray cross, but they never actually thought it was an actual thing. And so, you know, I piqued new people's interest. It's like, whoa, like this this can be a thing. And so yeah, if you always are out trying to create a drama.
Or entertainment off-the-wall stuff, it's not going to do that good for you. You have to be authentic. You have to definitely bring something to the game that other people aren't. If you're just going to do the same thing that everybody else is, it's probably not gonna work. Bring your own little spice to it. But that's what I tell people. And then lastly, if if you're gonna do it, you have to commit. You have to a hundred percent commit to
your YouTube channel or social platform, whatever which one ever you it is that you choose, you have to stay committed because it is super easy to quit. And if you quit the first thirty days in it or sixty days in it, it's probably not gonna work for you.
Mark Masterton (48:37)
Wow. Inspiring stuff. Inspiring stuff. Well, we're big fans of your of your content, Mike. so going forward we're looking forward to the drama, the cliffhangers, and also
Mike Yoder (48:47)
Well there's not much drama about it other than I'm just gonna sit down and and share the story like I shared it with you is like, you know, if people people have to know, well, why did he lose his license? Well, this is why. Yeah, you know, I I lost it because I was willing to push the boundaries. The truth is other people are doing the same thing, but they're not putting it on YouTube. But how are we going to move the whole industry forward if if we're always going to stay hidden? So
Mark Masterton (49:14)
Yeah. keep being authentic, keep making vlogs, keep making educational stuff and we'll be hanging around checking it out. And hopefully one day it might push that legislation forward as well.
Mike Yoder (49:24)
It's gotta. if we can't get exemptions to go through for heavy lift, then part one eight has to pave the road for it. it has to.
Mark Masterton (49:35)
Well, it's been lovely having you on the podcast, Mike. We learned so much. thanks for telling us your story right from the beginning, all the way through and how you built your businesses with drones. wishing you all the best going forward in the businesses and and with YouTube. We'll be sub we're subscribed, so we'll be following along the whole way. And best of luck with your podcast as well. Hope that continues to grow. maybe we'll check in maybe we'll check in sometime in the near future and see where you're at with the FAA. Who knows?
But anyway, it's been great having you on. Thank you so much for the time and Yeah. Yeah. Keep keep helping, educating and leading.
Mike Yoder (50:12)
We will. Have a good one.
Mark Masterton (50:14)
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This has been the Drone as the Future Podcast. Today's episode has been produced by Ryan Witten, junior produced by Juan Gutierrez, filmed by John Rawlinson, and features original intro music by Josh Santos. Thank you very much for tuning in, and if you'd like to follow along our journey, fly over to that subscribe button wherever you're listening so you can be updated to hear what flies ahead.