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Dronebase.com

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Fly real estate jobs on spec, and hopefully $25 comes in the future. If you fly some good jobs that work out well you become eligible for the client requests. These assignments pay in advance and supposedly decent money.

I flew a few of the spec missions today. One shows promise. The others, ehhh. I don't know.

There's a vacant lot that might work out. A bunch of warehouses and stuff. The photos they want are minimal and you upload them for the company do stitch them and try to sell them.

There are houses too, but this is spec work. The homeowners don't know you're coming, and the realtor has never heard of Drone Base, so be careful not to get shot if you're in Texas like me. There is also pretty much anything that says the word "lease" in its ad. I think so because all the apartment complexes are listed as gigs, but you know they're not. Strip malls too. So it's worth the time to plan the outings with Google Satellite views first.

One place I went to was a duplex, so I called the agent to talk about aerial photos and whether they would even be effective on a duplex. We decided together not to do it. She is interested in sending me out to take care of some acreage properties for her, but she hasn't landed the gig yet. I'll stand by to hear back from her. She made me want to drive around and cold call agents. That might actually work, ****. Maybe roll up on some open houses ready to go and strike a deal right then and there.

I'm just starting out but my income needs are above $25/job so I am keeping my day job for now. I think I could live comfortably on $75 net per job though. In these lean times I can't pass up anything, though. So here I go.
 
Have you posted any to them yet? Ba aware the pano function will not work for what they want.
 
Have you posted any to them yet? Ba aware the pano function will not work for what they want.
I posted two jobs just now and haven't heard anything yet. I took the pano pictures manually and according to their directions. The pano function on the H is pretty bad anyway. it needs much more overlap to work.
 
Let me know how it works.
I found the stock lens got rejected due to the distortion.
The pano function works fine I use it for my own panos and stitch them myself without issue.
 
I posted two jobs just now and haven't heard anything yet. I took the pano pictures manually and according to their directions. The pano function on the H is pretty bad anyway. it needs much more overlap to work.

Pano on H works perfectly. Much depends on the software used for stitching.
 
I won't get out of bed for $25.00. That doesn't even cover the cost of driving to the work site.
Same here. The absolute minimum money I'd charge for the very simplest of jobs would be £85.00 (about $100.00) and for that the Job would have to be very basic, close to home, and no editing of any video and no post work on still pictures. One flight battery...absolutely no frills and the client provides all permissions for take-off sites.
 
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I'm charging a bunch of basic menu option prices that work out to $150/hr. But if there's no business then I'm not charging anything, right? I'm trying to gain a toehold here. I'm about to target a farming community with billboards but I'm not quite there yet.
 
Have you tried ICE to stitch them.?
Yes, ICE is my first choice on most stitching projects. Maybe it's different in Texas when there are no hills around and the curve of the horizon is not due to lens distortion.
 
Strange cause I didn't have issues with its and the pano.
One other thing you can do if you have photoshop is to remove the distortion . Setup a template and just select all images and it will adjust them so you have a flat horizon.
 
Yes, but that would not help with Dronebase. They require more overlap, methinks.
 
I'm charging a bunch of basic menu option prices that work out to $150/hr. But if there's no business then I'm not charging anything, right? I'm trying to gain a toehold here. I'm about to target a farming community with billboards but I'm not quite there yet.

Texy,

The issue with starting low to go high is once you establish a price point it's **** near impossible to rise any significant amount from your original base rates. Potential clients always, always try to negotiate down, not up.

The other problem is you will initially be operating at a loss, which consumes working capital, prevents budgeting for maintenance costs, and establishes a "floor" that everyone else will have to charge. The market gets trashed for everyone that way.

The only markets that work selling a "loss leader" are those that are market essentials that deal in high volume goods and services. Even those are set up where the "give away" is only a single item, done but once in a given time period, and have other higher priced product sold in high volumes that carry and offset the one time low ball. Unless you are employing 25 operators that are continually shooting at much higher fee schedules you cannot possibly generate the volume necessary to offset a loss leader. There's not enough hours in the day for one person to do that much work.

Most new businesses fail, with the primary reasons being under capitalization, failure to project true costs, billing for less than they spend, and lack of a business plan. You cannot make money by losing money, and charging less is far easier than charging more once rates are established. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising there is and if one person got a lowball rate I guarantee you the people they mention your service to got that number. By advertising a low rate you are making a public statement of your company's, and your, value.

Sit down and pencil out how much actual time goes into a shoot, from the moment you start loading up your vehicle to go to the site to the moment the product is complete and ready to present to the customer. Divide the cost of your aerial equipment by 100 and add the result to tour structure as equipment wear and tear per flight hour. Take the cost of your computer and post processing programs, divide them by 365, and add that amount to the cost of each shoot. Have a house and use electricity? Some of these expenses are part of your fee schedule. Insurance? Use a base cost of $12.00/flight hour and add it to your rate. Your vehicle costs money to drive and has to be replaced over time. That has to be factored into your hourly rate. Use 100,000 miles as a vehicle life cycle, divide new vehicle cost by 100,000, and that's what should be factored into a fee for transportation costs, along with fuel, tires, and insurance. Business licenses, pilot certificates, and advertising need to be factored in. Telephone and internet are overhead costs that need budgeted. Self employment taxes are a real big item that cannot be avoided if you are actively advertising or promoting your work. Not paying them is very expensive. Your customers are the people that pay these costs, not you, if you want to make any money and stay in business.

All the above is my way of saying you aren't going to build a business by being cheap, but you will dismantle one or more that way. Photography is a business where quality sells, and high quality requires greater knowledge, effort and skill. How you convince clients they need your product is what will open the doors. The product you provide is what will keep them open or close them. Clients will pay what they have to to get what they want but they have to want it first. Focus more on creating their need, not what they will pay for it. A great example here might be a wedding dress. Most of the time they are not necessary but once they are they become very important and the bride will break the bank to get the one she wants, and she will keep it forever.

The majority of the people that are trying to start an aerial business don't consider most of the above and soon fail. The first crash is usually all it takes to shut their doors because they don't have the funds to replace the equipment. Don't be one of them.
 
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I'm charging a bunch of basic menu option prices that work out to $150/hr. But if there's no business then I'm not charging anything, right? I'm trying to gain a toehold here. I'm about to target a farming community with billboards but I'm not quite there yet.
I agree about that. No work = no money. But at the same time you should not sell yourself short. Your clients will appreciate your low prices but won't appreciate it when you put your prices up to a realistic amount down the line...they will just go to the next new guy on the block trying to get a foot hold.

My pricing structure is based on the complexity of the job, not by the hour. Factors in the price would be the difficulty of obtaining a permission for a take of place if it is not on the client's land, whether I need to erect a cordon to keep the public at least 30m away from my take-off place, how many flight batteries I expect to use, whether the client wants me to edit the footage, etc. The amount of video or stills I take during the flight/s is less of a factor since whether I take one picture or 10 during a flight doesn't alter the amount of work I've done to get take off permissions or erect a cordon. It is my understanding that here, in the U.K., pricing by the job rather than a hourly rate is the norm.

By the way, a fairly typical price I would charge for a non-complicated job where I'm taking off from the client's land that doesn't need to be cordoned, and the client is happy with editing his own footage would be circa £160.00. If the client wants me to edit the footage then its a minimum of £100.00 extra and more depending on the amount of footage that I produce...typically I work from a principle of doubling that initial £160.00 and adjust from there. (Only for a quick up and down flight I would charge my minimum rate).
 
Yes, I have been trying to estimate the costs in such a way as to not lose money. For me to jump in the car and do a 30 minute drive for a 30 minute job is worth $150. I did not realize that this is a lowball. I need a lot of help with figuring that part of the job out. Thank goodness I still have a daily grind to go to for a stable paycheck. I really want this to work, as I've already invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars for it.

Edit: one of my goals is to do 4 jobs at $150 in one day. Once I can do that 2 or 3 days a week then I can quit my day job.

Edit: I put it to the potential clients in terms of menu pricing so as to give them the feeling that it is all worked out in advance as far as details and technical issues go. And as far as they can tell, most of it is thanks to the pre-work I do at home.
 
By the way, a fairly typical price I would charge for a non-complicated job where I'm taking off from the client's land that doesn't need to be cordoned, and the client is happy with editing his own footage would be circa £160.00. If the client wants me to edit the footage then its a minimum of £100.00 extra and more depending on the amount of footage that I produce...typically I work from a principle of doubling that initial £160.00 and adjust from there. (Only for a quick up and down flight I would charge my minimum rate).

You are about 40% higher in price than I am, but otherwise, the philosophy is very close. I plan to run billboard ads in a couple of months and will have to make some changes then, I'm sure.
 
Yes, I have been trying to estimate the costs in such a way as to not lose money. For me to jump in the car and do a 30 minute drive for a 30 minute job is worth $150. I did not realize that this is a lowball. I need a lot of help with figuring that part of the job out. Thank goodness I still have a daily grind to go to for a stable paycheck. I really want this to work, as I've already invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars for it.

Edit: one of my goals is to do 4 jobs at $150 in one day. Once I can do that 2 or 3 days a week then I can quit my day job.

Edit: I put it to the potential clients in terms of menu pricing so as to give them the feeling that it is all worked out in advance as far as details and technical issues go. And as far as they can tell, most of it is thanks to the pre-work I do at home.
I don't give any prices on my commercial web site. All I say, essentially, is that prices are dependent on the work involved and that I will quote a price for a job. Take a look at Pricing information
 
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