Progress Report — One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
Some events happened in the past two months that threw me for a loop and led to an intense internal battle. However, the path is now more clear than ever. I need to keep moving forward.
Knowledge is Crucial
When investors are interested in your startup, they will try to break you. It is always intimidating, but I have come to love it now. For one, it challenges your industry knowledge. Second, it can be an amazing learning experience if you listen closely.
Why would they try to break you? They are thinking about giving you their money. They want to make damn sure that you know what you are doing.
About six weeks ago, I went to an investor and startup business summit in New York City. This event was ritzy. Tickets cost $2,500. To present your startup, you had to pay double and then some. It was an amazing event, and since I had won my admission, I didn’t have to pay a cent.
During the event, one of the investors pulled me aside to discuss my startup. After briefly mentioning to him that we were prototyping our drones and working on the software to control them, he immediately pushed back.
“What?! You are building your own drones? Why in the hell are you doing that? I can find translucent drones with a big LED on them for under a 100 bucks.”
Taken aback, I waited for him to finish.
“In fact, I know someone who recently did a drone light show and spent less than $7,000. It sounds like you really need to do your research. You shouldn’t be building anything. This is a cash-flow positive business. Call me when you get it together.”
He then motioned to another startup founder to come talk with him as I walked away with my tail between my legs, completely deflated.
Forced Into Research
Right after the event, I knew what I needed to do. The fact that I couldn’t counter any of his statements made me realize I had not done enough research. Immediately, I went back to my AirBnB in Brooklyn, changed into something more casual, and headed to the nearest coffee shop.
My next three hours were spent scouring the internet for all possible solutions to build a drone light show using off-the-shelf hardware and software. Were there really drones one could use for drone light shows that were under $100? Well, I didn’t find any. In fact, I couldn’t find any programmable drones that could be used for drone light shows. There were programmable drones from DJI or Parrot, but their built-in technology for communication was only capable of doing one-to-one communication with a computer. They wouldn’t work with a network of drones.
It seemed that there weren’t any hardware solutions we could use, but what about software? I knew of one solution that my team had found a few weeks earlier called UgCS Drone Dance Controller. We wanted to build a competing product when we initially found it, so we hadn’t considered using it for our own purposes. I did some research and it seemed to be extremely cheap and somehow able to hook up to off-the-shelf drones from DJI or Parrot. Whoa! This is what the investor must have been talking about.
I immediately started discussing with my team. I was telling them that we needed to research this and start doing it pronto. They pushed back, thinking that we should continue to build our own solution because it was going to be better. I was still unsure.
Turbulent Waters Ahead
I spent the next week struggling to find an answer. I consulted with two of my advisers and they had both told me to pursue the off-the-shelf solution and start booking shows. I looked into everything. I did an analysis of the costs involved, talked to the UgCS support team, and started reaching out to event organizers to let them know we could produce a drone light show for them.
Then, I heard from the UgCS support team that the Drone Dance Controller wasn’t compatible with the DJI or Parrot drones. In fact, we would have to build the drones ourselves from scratch using their instructions. Next, I set up an appointment with a local drone engineer to get an estimate for how much each drone was going to cost.
The total cost for all of the materials to build one drone came to $600. The labor cost for building one drone was going to be $360. Shit, I thought. This wasn’t going to be cheap.
The next few days were spent wildly unsure of what to do next. I was feeling uncomfortable about changing our business plan so drastically. We were now able to provide drone light shows for events without building any of the software ourselves. This seemed like a great opportunity, however the costs were still too high for me to be happy with. We were going to need more funding.
I talked to my team and told them I didn’t think we should try to build a product and provide drone light shows as a service at the same time. I thought that if we tried to do both under the same company, we would fail. My co-founders were both engineers and I was focused on business development. I decided we should split the company into two companies. One company would focus on building a product for drone light show creation. The other would focus on providing drone light shows as a service using the off-the-shelf solution we found. They would be in charge of the drone light show product company and I would be in charge of the drone light show services company. At the time, I wasn’t willing to negotiate.
In retrospect, I was forcing this on them because I was not totally happy with the way we were working together. I had felt like we were not making enough progress and that they were not as dedicated to the startup as I was. One co-founder simply did not have enough time and the other was caught up in other projects. If I am being totally honest, I decided to push this on them as a challenge to see if they were really dedicated to build the product or not. If they were not on board, this would be an easy way for us to stop working together, I thought.
My challenge worked as intended, but it did not end as amicably as I had anticipated. Neither of them wanted to split the company, and they were both upset. They felt as though I was pushing them out. In a way, I was pushing them out, but I should have been straight with them. In the end, they both decided to leave the project.
No One To Blame
I had made a big mistake, but I had not yet realized it. Since I had no team to focus on the product development, I planned to pursue the services company with a good friend of mine who wanted to help with sales.
We were going to raise a little more money, build the drones, buy the license for the UgCS Drone Dance Controller, and start selling our drone light show as a service. I pulled out my drone prototype, paid $200 for a three month license to the UgCS software, and got to work setting it up.
Then, panic struck. While setting everything up, I noticed the tutorial didn’t quite resemble the software I was looking at on my computer. Part of it seemed to be missing. I did a quick read through all of the emails I exchanged with the support team and found something shocking. The pricing for the Drone Dance Controller was an add-on component to the core UgCS software that I paid for. The license for the Drone Dance Controller was going to cost $12,000 for the first year and $8,000 for training. The training was required. Oh, and to make matters worse, the training would be held in Latvia.
This hit me like a brick. Instantly, I started to feel like this was never going to happen and that I should figure out something else to do. I had lost my core team, was underfunded and was losing confidence, fast.
I spent the next week thinking of a way out. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t feel good about any of it. I didn’t want to immediately spend $40,000 to start producing drone light shows as a service, but I didn’t have a team in place to develop the product anymore. Still, I didn’t want to quit. The idea of quitting felt worst of all, but I just did not know what to do.
Taking A Moment For Myself
The following week I had made plans to go to Maine with my girlfriend. Little did I know, that trip saved my sanity. Focusing on enjoying myself, getting out of my head and getting into nature brought me exactly where I needed to be. While reading a great book on business, I had an epiphany.
The whole reason I was unsure of myself and could not decide on a path was due to the fear of failure. No matter what path I chose, I feared that I might fail and regret my decision. This fear caused me to come up with all sorts of “solutions” that ended up sabotaging my team. After this epiphany, it was as if someone had shown me the light and everything became clear. Within moments, I knew what I needed to do.
I instantly knew that I needed to build the drone light show product. It was going to happen, no matter what. I knew it was going to be successful, I just had to find a way. With a boost of confidence, the path started to present itself. I needed funding. I had to stop being a wuss and just do it. I was afraid before, but now the fear was gone and was replaced by a will to succeed.
Rebuilding From The Ground Up
I finally had a plan.
- First step — talk to investors and find out their biggest concerns.
- Second step — rewrite the executive summary and pitch deck to answer their questions.
- Third step — assemble a dream team to build the product.
- Fourth step — raise money.
- Fifth step — move into a cheap house with my team and build the product.
Have you ever noticed how things will mysteriously start to help you as soon as you make a definite decision?
“…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.” — William Hutchinson Murray
Over the next week, that is exactly what happened. All of a sudden, things started falling into place. Advisers were more than willing to take meetings with me. I quickly heard back from several people who were considering investing. Best of all, one of my best friends moved back into town and needed a project to work on. He’s a very talented software engineer and video editor.
Everything immediately started to move forward. The weight had lifted off of my shoulders. I felt free. I was going to make this happen, and there was nothing that could stop me.
So What Is Happening Now?
I have several meetings lined up for next week with potential investors. I still have to convince my friend to do this with me full-time, but I can tell he is considering it. He wants to work on it part time with me for the time being.
In terms of business development, I am forging a partnership with a local drone manufacturer. They will take care of the drone development so we don’t have to. The drone development was a major thorn in my side during the past several months. Neither my previous co-founders nor I knew what we were doing while building the drones. By trying to do it ourselves, we ended up wasting three months that could have been spent building valuable software. Instead, those months were spent waiting for parts to ship, trying to piece things together, realizing we needed more parts, waiting some more, then repeating this process over and over again. It was utterly frustrating.
Despite feeling uncomfortable and challenged throughout the whole debacle with the previous team and not knowing what the best plan was, it was an incredible learning experience. As we were working to build the drones and after talking to the UgCS support team, I realized how expensive and challenging this whole process was. No wonder drone light shows were so costly. No wonder so few companies were going through all this BS to provide drone light shows as a service. There was no easy solution.
After that entire experience, I realized exactly what we needed to build as a product and why it was so important that we build it.
Now, it’s up to me to make sure it gets built.
