Measure, the Drone as a Service® company cofounded by well-known Wall Street investor Robert Wolf, has announced a nationwide drone franchise operation, Measure Nationwide™.
Measure has been at the forefront of creative drone business models since their inception. The company received FAA authorization last September to operate a fleet of 300 different types of drones for their Drone as a Service® offering – Measure provides drones and pilots to a variety of different industries, including agriculture, emergency services, and energy. “Measure is the model for how drone services will develop and grow in the future,” says co-founder Brandon Declet Torres. Given current regulatory requirements and the high cost of commercial drones, the model makes sense for many industries requiring drone services for individual projects.
Measure Nationwide™, hopes “to convert existing commercial drone operators around the country into Measure franchisees.” The franchise hopes to bring qualified drone operators – all holding pilot’s licenses per FAA regulations- into the Measure family, providing commercial customers with insured flights, as well as with standardized data products for different industries. In return, the company promises protected territories and a full range of support services: regulatory support through Measure’s powerful lobby in Washington, training, software, and account leads.
“Customers with nationwide data requirements need standard services,” said CEO Brandon Torres Declet in a press release. “The franchise drone service model is our solution to reaching the operational scale our customers demand. Measure Nationwide™ will bring together best-in-class professionals and experts to move the drone industry toward better regulation, pricing power, and quality control.”
Measure has already lined up partners for the drone franchise venture. QuickSpark, RoboticSkies, Skyward, and Transport Risk Management have all announced participation. Measure has also chosen PrecisionHawk’s DataMapper software platform as their platform of choice to manage and analyze data for their customers.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
TWITTER:@spaldingbarker
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This is a great idea. Why is it not advertised more? I found it by accident. I was planning on buy a drone and training an employee to operate equipment. This opens up new avenues.
Any idea how much a drone operator makes for Measure or a similar company? Also what if the quality of life, work rules, amount of time traveling etc? Can’t find much elseware regarding pay.
Hey Dave,
There is a couple reasons you are not finding the info, principally it’ because the industry is pretty new. Secondly it’s because each “niche” is also pretty new in terms of what clients are asking or and what service providers are offering. More importantly each niche let’s say aerial imaging vs. building information modelling/surveying varies wildly in the technical know-how it takes not only to pull off the flight mission but to process the information and provide a deliverable. Practically this means the deliverable and amount of work it takes to complete them are very different, hence different charge rates so you really won’t find any “standards” yet.
Having said that the closest to standards you will find are in the aerial imaging world and what you can infer from pricing shown on websites like ours http://www.reconaerialmedia.com or via other “find a drone pilot” sites to see the value of the posted projects.
I can tell you from personal experience that I bid on 15K of jobs in 2 months and confirmed about 5K+. The proviso here is that I did not do any advertising at all, this was just work that came my way by virtue of having a website. IF you specialize and advertise I really think there is a lot of potential. Of course I would say that since my entire business model is based on it BUT I wouldn’t have started this massive endeavour and staked a lot of money/time on it otherwise.
Hope that helps a little and best of luck.
Recon Aerial Media
Hey Guys,
Slight correction and not to take anything away from Measure they are a great company BUT Recon Aerial Media started Drone Franchise development last November and currently we are ranked #1 or#2 for “drone franchise” on Google….so technically we we’re first. 🙂 Check it out here: http://reconaerialmedia.com/drone-franchise-opportunity/
We have working relationships with Skyward.io, Datamapper, Precision Hawk, Drone Deploy, Global-Aero, Pix4D, Sensifly Quest, Aerobotika, and many others.
Thanks so much and if you want to chat or highlight us on your forum we’d love to hear from you!
Anyone else interested in what a partnership looks like please check us out and get in touch if you have any questions!!
Brian Stoneman
Founder, Recon Aerial Media
This franchise model seems like a great idea—especially for this market—and I especially appreciate Miriam’s clear explanation. The press release was a bit…opaque.