This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Love this question we got today. How can I monetize my drone to piloting skills? That's right. If you're inside a social school, we look at all kinds of different ways to make money. All sorts of ideas, more than 2,800 total episodes.
A new episode every day. In fact, since we started January 1, 2017. So today we got a question from Jake in San Diego. He wants to know basically how to get paid for drone piloting. He recently got his drone pilot license, which is a thing.
Like you actually need a drone certification of some kind to fly. I'm not sure how it works if it's above certain altitudes or certain types of crafts. But you know, it's a whole industry that comes with licensing and so on. Although it seems a lot easier than flying a plane, at least in terms of the certification. So he got that.
He's passionate about flying drones. Wants to know how he can monetize these skills. And so let's see what we can do to help. And if you're out there trying to figure out what your next side of soul or small business or money-making venture is, perhaps this gives you some inspiration. Maybe it's not for drone piloting.
Could be for something else. The whole point is all these different ideas, there's a way to go from this knowledge or this expertise or experience you have into an offer, some kind of service or product that you put forward. So let's talk about it in the case of drone piloting, detailed question and my answer in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hey Chris, I'm Jake from San Diego. I recently got my drone pilot license and I love flying drones as a hobby.
I've heard that there are ways to make money with drone piloting, but I'm not sure where to start. What are some effective strategies to monetize my drone skills? Are there specific industries or types of clients I should focus on? I really want to succeed at this and I'm willing to put in the work. Thanks a lot.
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Well, Jake, it's a good time to be alive, right? You get to learn how to fly a drone and that's pretty cool by itself and maybe you can even get paid for it. So let's talk about some ideas and strategies to monetize these drone skills and how you might want to focus. So a couple of things, aerial photography and videography. We actually had a story at one point of somebody who was doing really well with aerial photography for real estate in particular, but there's also a whole market of aerial photography and videography for events.
So weddings, concerts, festivals, corporate. Aerial footage adds this unique perspective that a lot of clients are willing to pay for these days. So between real estate and events, lots of opportunities there, advertising as well, like aerial shots for commercials. So that's a third area. So lots of opportunities there for the photography and videography.
Then also inspections and surveys. This might be a little bit more niche, but drones are increasingly used for inspections and surveys. Think about construction, agriculture, infrastructure. All of these industries are using drones. Now they may not be using freelance drone operators.
Some construction companies might actually have somebody that does that. And then agriculture, that's a whole other thing, like how do you get into that? Nevertheless, I thought I would mention it. Drone mapping and 3D modeling. It's another one here.
You could offer some geographic information system services to clients who need detailed mapping and analysis. This could be done together with real estate or construction, as mentioned in the last idea, or as something separate. And there's probably more. Like these are just a couple of ideas. Drone pilot training.
I meant to mention that as well. We had another story, a different one, of somebody who's making six figures teaching drone pilots, because a lot of people get a drone and then they crash their drone. So this guy is like, hey, avoid that. Buy my drone class and you're not gonna crash your drone. Or if you do, it's not gonna be that bad.
So there's just a lot of options these days. Focus on getting your skills down, then building up a portfolio, simple website, nothing too fancy, and just pick one of these industries or niches where you're going to focus. Whether it is aerial photography for events or real estate or something else, and then go from there. Jake, wishing you well. Listeners, always wishing you well as well.
If you have a question or comment, you know where to go, sidehustleschool.com. And of course you can subscribe or follow the podcast wherever you like to listen. Always completely free, new episode every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
