The Future Is Now: Dan O’Toole of DRONEDEK On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be deliberate: Like a lot of people, in my younger days, I might have gone down a few roads before giving my ideas the full thought and exploration they needed to succeed. I still like to act fast, but it’s like that old “twice measured, once cut” cliché: it’s good to do some solid thinking before leaping into just about anything, but especially a business idea.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan O’Toole, DRONEDEK CEO/FOUNDER.

Dan O’Toole is a serial entrepreneur and business leader who is among the first in the United States to secure patents for a smart mailbox designed to securely accept packages delivered by drone.

DRONEDEK holds a First-Position Patent Portfolio for the next-generation mailbox of autonomous and drone delivery. Two issued US Utility Patents, two additional utility patents are under examination now and two PCT’s. In all 111 patent claims already awarded or filed for.

Dan is a Ball State University graduate and lives in Carmel, Ind. with his family. He is also CEO/Managing Broker at Striker Realty Group.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve always been someone who is ready to take a risk because I’ve seen too many times when someone has a great idea, and they think about it. They ponder. They might talk to other people about it. Then, they get distracted and before they know it, someone else has taken that same idea to market. I really believe that any great idea you have is being conceived by at least 10 other people at the same time it occurs to you. So, I like to act on ideas I think have merit.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’d have to say beating Amazon and the United States Postal Service by days in filing my patent for the DRONEDEK smart mailbox. I’ve been beaten before, so I intentionally worked fast and hard to get my idea to the patent office. It was awesome to see that I’d made it — and I’d gotten their faster than these massive organizations that have dozens of people who must be paid to do what I had done virtually on my own.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Sure. We see DRONEDEK as the next utility — like power or water or telecommunications. That’s because the DRONDEK mailbox is more than just a receptacle. It’s a charger for drones and possibly other devices. It’s an emergency alarm. It’s an app-driven receptacle for mail or packages — even fast food and prescription drugs — that for the first time will keep those parcels safe from thieves. The traditional mailbox hasn’t been improved since it was introduced in 1858. DRONEDEK takes the mailbox to a whole new level and as people and businesses continue to

rely on e-commerce, a better way to receive and store those purchases is going to be an essential part of our lives. Our smart mailboxes are going to be as commonplace as smart phones, and it won’t take long for that to happen once we’re in the field — starting Q2 2022. It will help people because thousands of parcels are stolen every year from people’s porches or yards. There’s just no safe way right now for parcels to be left for folks who aren’t home or at work to take delivery. We stop that. Also, drone delivery will be faster and less environmentally harmful. It’s going to revolutionize parcel delivery.

How do you think this might change the world?

I’ve already kind of answered that above but let me give you a scenario. Think about food delivery. Right now, you can order food and it’ll arrive by a Door Dash or Uber driver and you will have to go to the door to get it. With DRONEDEK, you can order food — hot or cold — and have it delivered and we’ll keep it hot or cold for you. Same with prescription medicine or anything with a temperature control need. It will be there — and ready — when you are. Or think about business. You have an important, time-sensitive document that you need to get signed or delivered. Too often, those kinds of documents are left on a desk or in a bin somewhere and they’re retrieved — if they’re still there — when a staffer has time to get to it. With DRONEDEK, you not only have secure delivery, our app will alert you that you have a package, so you don’t have to wonder if it’s here yet.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Wow. You went dark. Let me think about that a bit. We don’t control what’s delivered anymore than USPS or FedEx does now, so I guess there could be some application for, oh, let’s say a hit man or a kidnapper to give proof of some crime to someone, but we prefer to think of the good things that’ll be delivered. Seriously, though, we don’t see a downside to improving parcel delivery. We’re building some serious security into the app and the devices as a preventative measure, but time will tell. Like anything else, we’ll adapt and improve as time goes on and cyber criminals try to impede things.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

Sure. I was driving home one day when I noticed a drone in the distance. It was a long drive, and I got to thinking about what that drone was doing and if it was delivering something important. Then I thought, “where will that thing be left?” And would be just left on a porch or a doorstep. Then I thought of how there had to be a better, more secure way to receive whatever the drones would bring. And that led to DRONEDEK. As soon as I got home, I started sketching it out because, as I said before, I knew I wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines. Turns out, I beat USPS and Amazon by mere days when I filed for my patent on the device.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

Well, capital is always great for an entrepreneur. We hope to place a production order for as much as $50 million next year, and we’ll need a way to pay for that as we roll out the product. We have a number of communities excited about being a pilot project for us, but we’ll want more of those. We also need the FAA to relax some regulation so we can actually get drone delivery going in this country.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We’re scrappy! We’ll do a lot. We’ve done a number of things including some demonstration project where we delivered burritos and hot wings. We’ve fired up our social media platforms and we’re trying to getting more attention, though we’ve been fortunate to have been cited by a number of traditional media outlets. We were in New York recently talking with investors and we tried to get on FOX Business by standing outside in the cold when the weather report was given. We got on the show, but they asked us not to talk about DRONEDEK so we didn’t. But we hope to be on the couch one day talking about it. Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank shot a video endorsement for us, and we used that to propel a lot of activity on WeFunder. If you have an idea, let us know. We’ll probably do it.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

This is a long and growing list. My wife, Stacy O’Toole, has always supported me through our 33-year marriage on virtually every risk I’ve taken. That support has been the difference in many of the paths that I’ve taken. My parents have always supported me, both emotionally and when I needed it, they have borrowed money to help me fund situational needs. My children have rallied around all of my craziness, including the great and the wild and absurd. The DRONEDEK Team has been all hands on deck and have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we evolve on our journey of a lifetime. Our investor community is really our family. The support, energy and love that we engage with everyday has been a constant form of validation and momentum for this new paradigm that we are creating!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We like to think that we’re a good corporate citizen, so we support a number of local initiatives, including public safety, youth organizations and the like. We also work hard to ensure a company culture that encourages our team to bring their authentic selves to work and to our projects — we all come from different life experiences, have our own approaches to politics, but we respect each other’s views. It may sound a little Pollyannaish, but we see our team, including our investors, as family, and I think that makes a difference — especially in these days of the Great Resignation and burn-out.

We’re really proud of our initiative that we call “From Within.” With nearly 5000 investors, we always want to give back. We know where they live, what they do and if they would like to be considered in any opportunities that DRONEDEK may have. If yes, then we always want to give back to those that have given so generously to us.

We also work hard to ensure a company culture that encourages our team to bring their authentic selves to work and to our projects — we all come from different life experiences, have our own approaches to politics, but we respect each other’s views. It may sound a little Pollyannaish, but we see our team, including our investors, as family, and I think that makes a difference — especially in these days of the Great Resignation and burn-out.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Be deliberate: Like a lot of people, in my younger days, I might have gone down a few roads before giving my ideas the full thought and exploration they needed to succeed. I still like to act fast, but it’s like that old “twice measured, once cut” cliché: it’s good to do some solid thinking before leaping into just about anything, but especially a business idea.

2. Think ahead and look at the big picture

3. Make sure you have enough capital

4. Don’t’ give up. It will be hard, but persistence pays

5. Believe in yourself and not what others say

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If I was in true control of the world, I’d find a way to get people back to the middle when it comes to this political partisanship that’s stopping good people from working well together. I don’t want to come off as political at all. I think it’s important to be aware of and involved to an extent in politics, but we need to remember how we all are supposed to come together for the good of the country once the elections are over. I honestly have no idea how to get that kind of thing started, but I do wish we could. We can achieve so much positive movement when we work together. I want to get back to that.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Persistence pays” is pretty much my motto for life. I also don’t take “no” for an answer, which is kind of the same thing as being persistent. I adopted that kind of philosophy after I had some ideas prior to DRONEDEK, and I didn’t act quickly enough on them. Sony and General Motors both beat me on ideas, which kind of goes to show you that I do occasionally have good ideas.

The idea Sony also had was for a customizable remote control that enables you to easily watch several programs almost at once. The idea came to me because I like to bet on football, which means I watch a few games at the same time, so flipping between channels quickly is helpful for that. Sony patented it a month ahead of me. The GM one was a medical device, and they beat me by 2–3 months. That idea was for colostomy bags, which many people have to have because of issues with their health. They collect waste and have to emptied regularly. One kind of colostomy bag is opaque so you can’t see thru it but it’s hard to install. Transparent ones are easier to install but less aesthetically pleasing. My idea was to add a window over the area where it connects to the body but be opaque everywhere else. I had worldwide companies interested in it, but I got beaten to the patent office and lost that opportunity.

Now I’m back with DRONEDEK, and I’m feeling really good about working so hard and so fast. The business world really is a race. It wasn’t my time then. But now it is.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

DRONEDEK is the funnel to the last mile. Today in Fort Wayne, Indiana, alone, UPS will deliver to 8,000 more locations then they did just one year ago. The stress on last mile logistics can only be solved through autonomy. The largest companies in the world ($1T market caps) realize this and are moving fast to change delivery so and It’s just a matter of time before drone delivery will be a major part of the supply chain and used by all the major carriers. Market size is expected to reach $18.65 Billion by 2028, according to latest analysis by Emergen Research.

Despite all this focus, few people are thinking about where those drone/autonomous device-delivered packages will end up. DRONEDEK is focused on that and has five revenue streams that represent what may be the largest market opportunity in the world today.

DRONEDEK’s smart mailbox solves the last inch of the last mile of package delivery with its smart mailbox, which offers an app-controlled, climate-controlled and secure receptacle. DRONEDEK smart mailboxes will be used by consumers as well as businesses, with the first roll-out coming in Q2 2022.

We have raised nearly $7 million in cash and tax incentives already and are primed to raise more to support out plans for a $50 million production order in 2022. Momentum is building and we’re set to break out next year.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@DRONEDEK_Corp

https://www.facebook.com/Dronedek/

@DRONEDEK

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.