We started carrying out an in-depth market analysis in order to discover the ideal starting market.
First of all we identified different industries: Agriculture and Forestry, Construction, Manufacturing, Energy, Logistics, Mining, Public Safety and others. For each of these industries we tried to find out, through internet research, papers, articles, competitor analysis, if drones are already in use in these industries, the estimation of the market size, expected growth of the market and if experts see potential for cargo drones.
For the most promising industries, we contacted leading companies in Europe and industry experts, organizing personal meetings and Skype calls.
This way we gained the following insights:
• Experts see the potential of cargo drones in all of these industries
• They are searching for somebody that offers a service with the drone
• There is no request for buying cargo drones yet
• There are not enough drone operators that would buy drones to operate them
Furthermore we were able to identify our initial target market and to come up with a new Business Model. We contacted potential customers in different industries and got different letters of interest of them.
On the technological side we were doing test flights and were able to prioritize adaptations of the drone based on the requirements of the market side. We came up with:
• Technological roadmap, based on our future goals
• IPR projection plan
We carried out an economic feasibility study, which resulted in a detailed profit and loss and cash-flow statement.
On the same time we also thought about the biggest risks and came up with strategies to mitigate them.
