The Next Trillion-Dollar Market? Why This Tech Will Transform Every Sector | Tom Rein
Summary
Drones Adoption: The guest expects drones to proliferate across consumer, commercial, and defense use cases due to cost-effectiveness, safety, and versatility.
Police Drones: Core pitch centers on modular, cost-effective drones for U.S. police to speed response, boost situational awareness, and keep officers safe.
American Drones: Emphasis on a U.S.-made, affordable alternative to DJI amid data-security concerns and the FCC’s import ban on new DJI models.
Consumer Drones Gap: Discussion highlights DJI’s dominance and lack of U.S. alternatives, presenting a future expansion opportunity into consumer drones.
Manufacturing Strategy: Uses U.S. factories and design IP with modular architecture to reduce parts count and cost, plus contingency contract manufacturers for scaling.
AI Integration: AI accelerates coding, product planning, and on-drone capabilities; future potential for agentic autonomy tempered by regulatory and safety guardrails.
Counter-Drone Context: Counter-UAS is gaining funding and attention as militaries and agencies seek cost-effective defenses against low-cost drone swarms.
Companies Mentioned: DJI (private), Skydio (private), Anduril (private), OpenAI (private), and Alphabet/Google (GOOGL) are referenced, but no specific public stock is pitched.
Transcript
Our next guest is a young entrepreneur, founder of TAF Drones, that's TAV Drones. We're going to be talking about the future of drones and aerial technology. Tom is uh currently in university and he's had already a tremendous career building his own um aerial vehicles as well as successfully raising money for his startup. Welcome to the show, Tom. I'm very excited to host you and uh talk about uh drones and the future of your company. Welcome. Thank you very much, David, for having me on the show. It's very nice to be here. I'm very excited to be here with you. >> You have a uh a company that is going to be providing police, I believe, in the US with drones. We're going to talk about that, but first, let me just ask you more broadly. What do you think the skies will look like across America and the world in the next 10 to 15 years? >> Great question, David. I think the skies are definitely going to be filled with drones. Um, and I might be a little bit biased in my answer, uh, but drones are very effective for many different purposes, right? You see drones being used in warfare because they're cost effective. You see drones being used because they keep people safe and they're able to find people in accidents. Um, you see drones being used for photography. These drones are very effective at many different tasks, whether that's because of costs or because they're very convenient. And I think they're definitely going to dominate the skies in the coming years to come. more for consumers or um commercial entities or even the military. Tom, >> I think all of them, frankly. Um you know, you see widespread adoption when it comes to police, right? You see police forces using drones to kind of lower their costs and response times. You see individual content creators, for example, using drones to get videos. Um I think drones are definitely growing as a sector. They're definitely growing as a use case. Um and we'll definitely be seeing a lot of adoption for drones over the next coming years. Um especially for things like police and military where there's a very clear demand and a reason for these drones to be used. How are drones changing the nature of warfare? So in Iran for example, which is the Iran war currently happening right now as we speak, Shahed drones are they cost anywhere between 30 $35,000, some even cheaper, built by commercial parts importantly. And um the missiles that the US use are several times more uh to shoot them down. And so now we're looking at asymmetric warfare where it costs more uh per unit for the Americans to shoot down an Iranian drone. And that's just one example. The Ukrainians have been um contracted uh to supply information on how to fight drones. Uh and we're talking about aerial drones, but in Ukraine right now, they've just fielded their first humanoid battle droid. And so autonomous fighting is now a reality. The new F-47 uh stealth fighter, sixth generation US stealth fighter, is going to have a wingman of drones in the future. So tell us how warfare is going to change and how it's already changed forever. Yeah, here's the thing, David, and you bring up a very good point. It's asymmetric. A drone might cost a couple thousand dollars to produce, but it can take down a target that's worth millions of dollars. And it's very expensive to shoot down. Not because the drones are expensive by themselves, but because to shoot them down would incur a cost that's significantly more expensive than the drones themselves. And this problem only multiplies when you end up causing or end up deploying more drones or a swarm of these drones. And I think that's why these drones have really taken the world by storm. Um, you know, there's a lot of question as to how these drones can be used in defense, how they can be used to essentially advance warfare in such a way. Um, where it is asymmetric and I think that's what's very exciting to see. Um when it comes to the cost effectiveness of drones as a platform um and how they can kind of contribute to keeping certain soldiers safe, >> it is difficult for uh the military to adapt to this changing nature of warfare. This is an article from Forbes. Why US Gatling guns are not stopping Iran's Shahed drones. In any discussion of drone defense, Gatling type guns are often presented as a trump card. These rapid fire weapons originally developed to defend US warships against sea skimmy missiles can easily down bigger and faster threats than a 120 mph shahad drone. On paper, they look devastatingly effective, but news reports speak enthusiastically of their shredding um shredding uranian drones. Uh but they are not a magic wand to make all drones disappear. What do you think should be the military's uh best counter defense against drone and and importantly uh swarms of drones? >> Yeah, good question. Um, and you know, while my company is not mainly focused on, you know, military, so I don't think we'd be, you know, ne necessarily the best people to ask about this. Um, I do think that it's definitely something important for the military to take into consideration how can we take down these drones cost effectively, right? Um, so as kind of an aggregate, the counter UAS system or the counter UAS industry has definitely been receiving a lot of funding. Um and we're seeing those conversations even as part of a police drone manufacturer where we're seeing a lot of venture capitalists asking about counter UAS um and ask about how counter UAS can be uh deployed. Um so I think that's definitely something that people are are taking into very high consideration um especially in the age of these drones being so cost effective and easily deployable. >> So let's talk about your startup. I'm curious to understand before we talk about the technical aspects of the drones you're building and and attempting to sell. What is the fundamental problem in our society that you're trying to fix with your startup? >> Yeah. Um, great question. So, we're mainly focused on police drones. Um, specifically, we're building cost-effective police drones for American police forces. Um, so why drones? Well, we spoke with a lot of these police forces to kind of find their problems, right? We wanted to find the issues that they were facing on a daily basis. And what they told us was, you know, drones are allowing us to lower our costs. They're allowing us to lower response times and they're keeping our officers safe. But the problem is 80% of the drones that we were using came from one Chinese company called DJI um that Congress has removed from the United States due to a potential threat to national security. Um now we've obviously not verified those claims, but when it comes to what these police forces want, it's very clear that they want cost effectiveness. They want something that they can afford um and something that just works. And and that's kind of how they describe these Chinese drones. Um what they tell us is the American drones are often far too expensive. They're often five times the cost and they're more focused on niche features and features that are adjacent to military um than features that kind of appeal to a wide majority of police forces and agencies that don't need necessarily GPS denied flights um and don't need to pay a huge premium for that. So what we're mainly focused on is building these cost-effective drones in America that aren't over complicated um and are able to build these drones for American police forces. Why do the police force uh where forces across America need drones? I mean, what what what is wrong with the equipment they already have now? And why do they need to advance the next stage using drones and autonomous aerial vehicles? >> Yeah, great question, David. I think one of the reasons why they're using drones um is because it's a very cost-effective way to get to a scene faster um and create situational awareness. And that's what we hear a lot, right? the ability to essentially coordinate a whole team, the ability to see and have eyes before um you know you actually approach a scene. I think that's allowed police forces to you know keep people safe, right? They're able to see when where there's criminals. They're able to keep people safe when they're lost in the woods. They're able to find lost people in the woods. Um and I think that situational awareness is what police forces have really benefited from when it comes to drones. >> And so what are you trying to build that's different from a regular consumer drone for the police force? What's like technically speaking, what is different about what you're trying to build? >> Yeah. Um I think when it comes to police drones in general, uh the difference really kind of comes down to the payloads, right? Um you know, police drones will typically come with a zoom camera or will typically come with a thermal camera to enable more precision. Um what we're trying to build is we're trying to build kind of a layer on top of that, right? Um, we're trying to allow our drones to be modular like high-tech Lego sets. Um, in such a way that the drones are able to use multiple different types of payloads, multiple different types of motors even, um, and multiple different types of power supplies and landing gears in such a way where one drone could be used for multiple different types of tasks which will lower the cost of using our drones. That's kind of one of the ways that we're looking to lower our costs um, and provide a cost-effective user experience, not just with manufacturing, but also with the enduser experience. >> Okay. Okay. But then just just from a technical perspective, what is different about a con police drone versus just a regular consumer drone that I can use to fly around and shoot videos with? >> Yeah. Um, you know, typically the camera and the payload, right? When you see a regular consumer drone, you know, typically it would have a good camera, right? It might be able to shoot 4K video at one time zoom. Um, but police typically want to be able to see a crime scene or, you know, somebody lost in the woods from much farther away, right? And that's where you have zoom cameras as a pretty standard thing that drones have. Um, and this kind of, you know, propagates across the drones to have a bigger payload, you'd have to have bigger motors, um, and a more powerful power system on the drones. So, I think there's a lot of these little changes that are made to the drones to kind of accommodate different types of payloads, specifically the cameras, um, and how the drones are able to operate that way. >> What do you say to people who who say, "No, I don't want this. This sounds like a police state in the making. I don't want to be spied on constantly by drones in the air. >> Yeah. Um, really great question and it's definitely a fair concern, right? When you fly these drones, they can collect a lot of data, right? You fly a drone over a city, you've mapped the city. You fly a drone over, you know, a road, you can see everybody on the road. And it definitely can be a data concern if this data is not in the right hands. Um, you know, in the right hands, it keeps a lot of people safe. with guard rails like laws uh that the FAA is creating. Um you know, you try to reduce the number of potential incidents that these drones run into. There's kind of a time and place for everything. Um but in the wrong hands, this data could be a real security risk. And I think that's why there's been an added scrutiny um to make sure that the companies producing these drones have America's best interests in mind um and have, you know, citizens best interests in mind. Not just kind of how the drones are flown, but also where this data is going. But it's definitely a fair concern. Um, and I think it's something to be addressed by regulations and also to be addressed by how these drones are used. Um, you know, there's a time and place for everything. >> Are are you in contact with any police forces right now? >> We are. Yes. Um, you know, we're looking to start up pilot programs right now. So, we're in early discussions with a few police forces um to see kind of how we can start pilot programs. And in terms of use cases, um, what have they asked you in terms of, uh, you know, um, building something that they would need? >> Yeah. Um, so a lot of these police forces really wanted cost effectiveness and that's the first thing that we really started building. You know, before we really started the company, we really saw that these police forces wanted cost effectiveness. But so we built that. Um, but there's definitely a lot more intricacies to it, right? There's a lot of intricacies. for example, everything from button placement, the ergonomics of the controller, um to the ability for the drone to be able to swap a thermal camera with a zoom camera. I think there's a lot of these intricacies that these drones uh or police forces asked us, um you know, a lot of the times it is modularity, right? We built the modular part of our drone because a lot of police forces asked us, you know, can you build a drone that does multiple different types of things instead of only one thing, right? um you know a lot of police forces responding or were creating drone as first responder programs um which is a completely different use case than say flying a drone out um directly uh kind of prompted by something and I think that's kind of where modularity can come in and make the drones more flexible. So that's something we saw >> Tom let's see this drone do you have a Can you show >> I actually have one right here so this is what the drone looks like. >> Okay walk us through what we're looking at here. >> Yeah. Um, so we're looking at a modular platform. The idea of this drone is to be able to be modular like a high-tech LEGO set. Um, so you have multiple different payload attachments here. The ability to attach different payloads, different, you know, batteries and power sources. It's modular, so you can attach multiple different types of batteries. Um, you can attach different types of motors. So, we've essentially built a modular platform um that allows utmost flexibility and is very cost effective to produce. >> You're you're building this yourself or are you outsourcing this? How's how does this work? >> Yeah. So, you know, as a company, we're building this oursel. We're building um we're designing this our oursel and we're outsourcing a lot of the manufacturing. Um so, specifically, we're working with a lot of American factories to keep our production in America. Uh well, we're designing kind of the intellectual property and you know, the design of the drone itself. Um and and building that up in computer AED design. you what did where did you acquire the technology for the IMU for example the stabilizer gyroscopes uh propellers you know there's a lot of moving components in a drone like how did you how did you acquire the tech >> yeah um you know I think a lot of the sensors are standardized and that allows us to essentially move fast with things um you know for example things like IMUs are relatively standard parts or ESC's are relatively standard parts I think the more difficult thing for us and for you know every hardware startup in general is ensuring that the supply chain pain is reliable, right? What if one certain sensor is no longer available? How can you buy an alternate sensor that does the same thing um and integrate it into your design uh as an assembly process without changing the design? And I think that's what we're really focused on. Um but as for these parts, a lot of these parts are actually quite standardized, which is kind of uh great to see when it comes to the the supply chain. >> I'm very impressed by what you're talking about right now. You're what 18 years old, Tom? >> I am. Yes. >> Okay. What is your background? How did you learn to do all this? >> Yeah. Um, well, I actually started my first speaker company at 13 years old. We basically built uh Bluetooth speakers for corporate clients. So, we sold to firms around um, you know, leading firms around the world and we were able to sell these in bulk or batch orders of 75 units at a time. And I think this is where really taught me how to start a company and do manufacturing logistics. Um, it also allowed me to lower my cost in America. has direct uh responses to kind of what I'm doing now because I was able to see and we produce a lot in China so I was able to see a lot of how China was able to lower cost um in production and apply a lot of that on American soil. But I think that's kind of how I got started with entrepreneurship. Um as for building things, I mean I was kind of, you know, a bit reckless as a kid when I was 8 years old. I built a light bulb that almost exploded. Um, and I kind of just built on from that where I kind of just built things with random stuff around the house and tinkered with parts. Um, which eventually led to me starting my company. You >> you you're doing the coding on the drone as well. >> Yeah. Um, so we do do the coding, but what's really great about the coding is, you know, AI has been able to significantly reduce the amount of time, right? Um, you know, what used to take, you know, hundreds of, you know, hours to code might take, you know, 30 seconds with AI and they can diagnose it, um, very fast. And I think that's allowed us to keep our cost down, but it's also allowed us to kind of stay lean in terms of being able to build these drones without a huge team. Um, and being able to build software that, you know, the AI is able to kind of suggest the software. We go through it to make sure there's no security risks and that the software is stable. Um, but our part is more on that than building the software up by itself from the beginning. >> Listening to you talk about how these drones are created. You know, you said these parts are standardized. It makes me wonder why America is so far behind internationally in the consumer drone race. If you look at DJI, for example, a Chinese company, I own a couple DJI drones. I love flying drones recreationally, um, photography and videography, but that company has 70 to 80% of the global consumer drone market share. How did that happen? How did America fall so far behind? >> Yeah, I think one of the big problems with America is that they weren't very cost effective, right? Um, and that led to a few things. First of all, it led to drones um, you know, not being cost-effective as a onetoone comparison. So, America would make police drones that are much more expensive than the police drones that China would make or or DJI would make. Um, but it also led to kind of a withdrawal of American companies from the consumer industry. Um, you see, Skyo, for example, is is no longer making these lowcost drones for everyday people. They're more focused on, you know, police drones or focused on drones for the military. Um I think you see a lot of this where you know America was not cost effective and that kind of led to a pullback um of these of these capabilities and that's what we're trying to solve. Um we're trying to build these cost-effective drones through police forces and expand into other industries as well um as we continue to build more drones. >> When you say cost effective, what are Chinese manufacturers doing in their manufacturing process that's making them cheaper? Yeah, I think China just has a much more globalized um or not necessarily globalized but much more standardized ecosystem, right? Um you know, in China, if I would submit an order for a thousand drones um or thousand speakers specifically, it would come within 4 days, right? I would be able to get those on my doorstep very quickly. It might take a little longer for drones, but the the same principle is in effect, right? China is very quick to manufacture. When it comes to manufacturing, often time is the expense, right? and you have, you know, a lot of integrated tools, um, you know, a lot of automation in which, you know, has just not been matched anywhere else. Now, I think what we've been able to kind of lower our cost in America with is making our parts, uh, more complicated and reducing the number of parts. So, instead of having 10 less complicated parts, we make one more complicated part. um and kind of not going into specific details, we've been able to significantly lower our costs. Um by doing that and building patented technology um kind of around the drone to lower our cost that way. >> Speaking of uh Chinese drones, take a look at this story. So people in the US know that DJI uh is effectively now banned. As of December 23rd, 2025, the US Federal Comm uh communications uh commissions barred the Chinese-based drone maker DJI from importing any new drones. Now, existing models can still be sold. New models, uh, it looks like cannot enter the American market. Why do you think the, uh, the FCC made this move? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think the reason for this move is because, you know, drones can collect a lot of data, right? Um, you know, kind of as I spoke on before, these drones can map an entire city in, you know, a couple of flights. And it's really important that these drones are sending the data to the right place, right? that they're sending the data to people who can keep us safe, right? Police forces, agencies, um, and that this data isn't in the wrong hands. I think it's very important that, you know, as Americans, we're able to build drones that are um, able to kind of protect our interests um, and able to make sure that these drones are not sending data to places um, that might not necessarily have America's interests in mind. Um now I'm not specifically you know speaking of a specific company but I think it's very important um for data to be vetted. It's very important for this data to be used in the right place. Um and by you know ensuring that we have a supply chain of American drone manufacturers um it will definitely increase kind of the integrity of how we treat this data. >> Okay. So what what is your end goal here? What is your vision for your company for TAV drones? Do you want to be like Anduro, basically a supplier, a contractor for the government, or do you want to be a global drones manufacturer that will supply different countries and export to different countries here? >> Yeah, we're looking to mainly focus in police, um, mainly focus in agriculture, mainly focus in drones that aren't really dual use at the moment. Um, I think it's very important for the world to have a drone that is an alternative to, you know, what's currently out there and what's currently dominating the market. Um, and that's what we really want to do. We want to provide an American alternative. We want to provide American drones that are cost effective. Um, we want to fundamentally redefine that, you know, we want to make it so that American drones don't have to be expensive and unaffordable. Um, we want to make it so that American drones are accessible to everybody. Would you ever consider making a DJI alternative for the US market that's cheap >> in terms of kind of >> for consumers? Like I can't buy a new DJI drone now. Well, that sucks. What do I do? I go to Tom's Taff drones. Would you ever consider doing that? >> I think that's something that we might consider doing a little later on. Um I think there's huge demand kind of in many industries right now. when you think of police, firefighting, um agriculture, there's huge demand there, especially in kind of industry, um and that's kind of where we're headed towards first because we see a very quick adoption. Um we see high lifetime value of customers and we want to kind of go for that first. Um but there's definitely, you know, potential that will enter into other adjacent industries, um like commercial or consumer drones because there's definitely huge opportunity there as well, right? Um, as of the moment, there's really no alternative to DJI in the United States. Um, basically no company is producing cost-effective or just any drones for consumer uh, use uh, at this stage. So, we're definitely potentially going to look into that um, as we expand and address uh, different drones or drone um, users on our road map. >> Tom, what's the startup life been like for you so far? Walk us through your journey. Tell us about your experience. >> Very, very busy. Um, you know, I'm taking a lot of calls lately, taking a lot of fundraising calls lately. Um, and you know, I think it's it's definitely a grind, as they like to call it. Um, you know, you definitely have to work very long hours. Um, you definitely have to make some sacrifices, but I think at the end of the day, it's worth it, right? >> Are you are you positioning yourself as an AI company to investors? >> I think we do use a lot of AI. Um, I think when it comes to our actual business model, it's more deep tech. Um but we're definitely you know heavily reliant on AI um for a lot of different aspects of our business. Everything from you know helping us suggest code completions uh to having AI on the drone itself. Uh so I think that would definitely be a significant portion of it. Um you know in that sense we would definitely be an AI company of sorts. >> Okay. And the fundraising process tell us about that. What's your experience been like so far? Any challenges you can share with us? >> Yeah. Um you know I think when it comes to fundraising investors really want to see that you're solving a real problem right? um that you're building something that the market demands and not something that you know you like because it's a cool product. I think that's what we've been able to do and because we've kind of built in this market where there's such a big demand um and such good you know policy tailwinds it's been very easy to kind of convey the story and explain you know we've had this traction um but it matters not just because we've built these cool drones and built these cool patents but because the market really wants it. Um, and I think that's kind of how we've approached fundraising and that's how we've been able to raise VC. >> What do you plan to do with the money? >> Yeah, we plan to uh basically increase our capacity. So, we want to go to market faster. Um, and that's going to require, you know, there's a customer acquisition cost to each customer, right? Um, you know, specifically we're kind of we have a specific target market in mind. Uh, not just police stations, but we have specificity in that, too. Um, and that's definitely going to require some costs, right? For example, if you do a pilot program with a police force, you have to drive to that police force. You have to provide drones. Um, and I think we're going to use a lot of our investor money into kind of expanding as fast as possible. In the back end, we're also making sure that we're building drones that are reliable, right? Um, and I think that means making sure that our drones are able to be reliable as we produce hundreds of these or thousands of these. And that really comes down to supply chain optimizations, um, and kind of optimizations of our internal tech and structure. Um I think that's what we're mainly focused on using our current money for. >> When when do you plan to be in production? >> Yeah. Um very soon. So we're launching pilots right now. Um we're actually starting to open that up. And I think very soon we're hoping that you know when these pilots are are launched and when these pilots come back with feedback uh we'll be able to start producing um drones at a at a larger scale. >> Okay. So let's say you got an order for 10,000 drones from various police forces across the country. They like your product. they say, "Hey, Tom, we want 10,000 drones by next summer." How would you make that happen? >> Yeah, I think you know what we've been able to do when it comes to our manufacturing um kind of ecosystem is two things, right? We have kind of our core manufacturers who provide basically they're able to provide the drone um and they're able to do so very well at a very good cost. Uh but we also have contingency plans, right? Contingency plans don't necessarily need to be negative. It could be, you know, we get too many orders. Um there is definitely huge demand and it's definitely something that we could see happening where we get a much larger order than we forecast. Um and that's where kind of our contract manufacturing goes in. We have relations with a lot of manufacturers on the side that are able to produce one drone at a time or a thousand drones at a time and we can kind of scale this up as we get larger and larger orders um which will allow us to kind of produce these drones. Um >> what is your what is your criteria for scaling? In other words, at what point do you decide to yourself, okay, I'm going to continue outsourcing their manufacturing or just buying up or creating my own manufacturing space, buying a factory. We're just maybe leasing a space to make my own manufacturing plant. >> Yeah, great question. Um, you know, I think it it definitely depends a lot on the unit economics of the products. um you know as we get there those unit economics can change and um you know it really will become kind of a a juggle between what will get us the best unit economics what will get us the best lead times while you know ensuring reliability um you know the quality of the manufacturing and making sure that our IP is protected um so I think right now at this stage we're mainly focused on you know leveraging contract or leveraging partnerships um but there's definitely a potential that as we scale we're going to want more control over the process um and more control over the lead times which may prompt us to kind of build our own factories quicker. >> Any advice for young entrepreneurs also in the startup space pre-revenue looking to get funding? What would you say to somebody around your age? >> Yeah. Um I think it's it's really important to talk to people. I think you need to talk to people to see what they want. Um speak with people, see what their pain points are. Whether that's, you know, drones for police or whether that's, you know, an app for, you know, a certain app for a certain purpose, you need to be solving a real problem. And the best way to solve a problem is by making sure that it exists. So, I think my biggest piece of advice would be to talk to people. Um, see what the problems are in the market, see if there really is a market for what you're thinking, and try to appeal to that market segment by, uh, making something that solves a certain problem. What are some mistakes you've seen other founders make that you're trying to avoid? >> Yeah. Um, you know, spending too long making a perfect product. I think, you know, that's a trap that's very easy to fall into, especially in deep tech. Um, where you make a perfect product. Now, obviously, there are exceptions to this, right? Some companies need to make a perfect product. Um but I think in in a good majority of of situations it's important to make a product that people want um without making a product that's you know refined in every single aspect right you don't need a 100 features you can ship with 10 features right I think the core is that the product is reliable that it works very well um but you don't need to have you know infinite features before you've kind of validated a market and that's kind of what I think of when I think of not making the perfect flashiest product um with the most features. I think what's important um is making what people demand, making the product that that people want um and not adding any unnecessary parts or moving parts to that production process um as you scale and validate your initial demand. >> I want to just segue a little bit before we close out the interview. Uh nothing to do with drones, but you know tech well. Which do you think will be the leader in the AI race? Will it be Anthropic, Open AI, Google, something else? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think that's definitely a question that uh can vary a lot. Um, I know that for sure when it comes to our experience, we've had very good experience with OpenAI. Um, specifically the the chat GBC API. Uh, it's definitely helped us a lot when it comes to kind of planning our company, but also basically allowing us to code. Um, we've built our own wrappers that, you know, everything from helping us with software uh, suggestions to hardware manufacturing. Um, you know, we have a tool that basically allows us to see exactly how much each part might cost. Um, and it's kind of driven by OpenAI's, uh, API. So, I definitely, we've had a very good experience with that. Um, but I do think that AI models are very volatile. Um, sometimes I feel like certain models can be much better than others and it really just ends. So, I think that that's something that uh, we we really have to see as we we keep going. As somebody who's actually used AI to build your company uh from the ground up and you're integrating it into all your systems, do you think that there will be a time when one person with the help of AI could run a billion dollar company? >> Absolutely. Um and I think it's already starting to happen. I mean, you see people who are my age building companies. You think Mercure, for example. I know they're not a oneperson company, but um I think what's important is you see people with a lot less capital. You see people at much earlier stages of life build companies that are disproportionately large compared to what would be possible 25 or maybe you know even 15 years ago without AI. Um that's going to eventually lead to I believe billion-dollar companies with one person. Um where certain people will be able to build a large product very fast that people want um and be able to kind of fulfill a niche to a million or a billion dollar valuation. So I definitely think it's going to be possible and we'll probably see more of that very soon. Nvidia CEO Jensen Hang said that AI could already build its own billion-dollar company. I mean, what's stopping a model from scanning the consumer market, identifying pain points, like you said, basically going through the entire business plan, coming up with an app or software, some sort of product that they can build by itself without needing a physical uh plant, and then just shipping it and and and launching it. >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think it's it's kind of the the doing things layer, um, where, you know, AI is kind of, you know, I know there's things like OpenClaw, which have been able to do more things, not just kind of in chat, but also specifically manipulate outside factors. I think that's kind of the layer that has definitely been kind of underdeveloped compared to the AI itself. Um, you know, generally when you see a lot of these startups, they're able to use AI to basically code their product. Um, and then, for example, help with their pitch deck, but somebody still has to manually input to the AI. Look, I want to build the startup. Give me a pitch deck. Give me this. You still kind of have to guide the AI. I think once the AI is able to guide itself more, um whether that's from consumer tools opening up more or more AI models coming out or more things like Open Claw coming out, I think that's when there's going to be more potential for AI to do more of the work autonomously. Um you know, I I think that we'll definitely be seeing more of that coming very soon. >> Do you think you can integrate Agent Gent AI with drones? Let's say I want a drone and uh I wanted to do something without manually controlling it. We know, we know there are, you know, follow features and automatic, you know, uh uh um hover features, but I want to speak to my controller or my phone and say, "Hey, drone, go take a video of the surrounding area at an altitude of 80 m above sea level and just, you know, take a cool video of me at a campsite and it'll do that." It walk us through how that would be possible. >> Yeah. Um I think that definitely will be possible in the future and we're already seeing a lot of that happen. Um, but I think one of the big concerns about that is kind of the reliability of the drones itself. And I think that's why the FAA has certain safeguards um that mandate, you know, for example, a visual person who is actually seeing the drone, the drone needs to be in visual line of sight. Um, I know there are certain waiverss for that, but I think the regulations kind of do take into consideration that there could be certain risks to having these drones kind of fly by themselves. Um, but as for, you know, the capability of the drones, the drones are becoming more and more capable, right? Our drones for example are able to fly autonomously and many drones are able to you know fly in such a way that enables what is called a drone as first responder. Um the drone responds to a scene before anybody else responds to a scene and is able to kind of get uh certain situations uh or provide situational awareness for that scene. Um so I think we definitely see more autonomous flight coming uh more autonomous AI flight coming as well. But I think one of the things that's really important is making sure that there's no risk um to kind of people who are not necessarily involved in the drone operations. >> Every time I see a new announcement of a robot or some sort of drone being used for the military, you see these comments posting, "Oh, Skynet is here. The Terminator is here." Have you se you've seen those movies? I'm sure Arnold Schwarzenegger the the Terminator. So, how do we build guard rails to prevent AI from going completely off the rails, pun intended, and attacking humans or just not following their protocols? >> Yeah, great question, by the way, and I do like the Terminator movie. It is something that I'm personally concerned about. Um, I do think that AI is definitely grown at a very, very fast pace. um you know it almost seems you know and this is going to be a very controversial take but it almost seems conscious in the way that it's able to understand prompts uh to a very deep level. Now obviously it's it's not um but we do see that AI can have certain motives or be misguided in such ways to prevent or create certain outputs. Um but I think that that could be definitely concerning in terms of you know if there's a malicious actor creating an AI for you know destruction or if the AI just kind of gets to that point by itself. Um I think regulations definitely will help kind of responsible use of AI. Um but it is a concern that definitely lurks and it's important to make sure that you know you understand what the code is doing right that you don't just necessarily put code in or necessarily have an AI control an object like a drone um without understanding. You need to understand exactly what it's doing. You need to put safeguards whether that's kind of software safeguards or air gap safeguards. You have to make sure that the AI is able to have certain permissions but not have all permissions um to make sure that it's able to be safe. >> Tom, what does the next 20 years of your life look like? You're currently at uh University of Texas Austin. I believe you told me you're studying business, which when you told me about this offline, I was kind of shocked. I was like, how does somebody with so much technical knowledge not be in engineering, but apparently you taught yourself the technical aspect? So, you're doing business right now. What's next for you? >> Yeah. Um and I think this is this is frankly a controversial take kind of even when I think about it with my parents but I definitely want to be uh very um you know involved in my startup. I want to be very involved in my startup to a point where um you know I think this could be very big and I think I will have to definitely commit more and more time into it as time goes along. Um you know I think in the future in the next 20 years I'm definitely going to be very focused on startups whether it's this startup or another startup. Um, I think even if I do a big exit, I will go back and start another company because I think um, you know, I always see kind of problems in the market and I always think about ways to solve it and I think it'd be uh, very tiring to not solve it. >> What would need to happen to convince you to drop out and and pursue your startup full-time? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think there's a there's a couple things and right now I'm definitely very focused on the startup. Um, you know, we we definitely want to kind of be in a in a stage where the company is, you know, perhaps raising a little bit larger of a round or generating a little bit more revenue. Um, but I'm definitely starting to look into kind of how I can maximize my time. Um, and definitely am having some of those conversations with um, whether that's investors or people who are currently um, involved in the company. >> Awesome. Tom, where do we follow your journey? Where do we follow you? Yeah, you can uh find me on LinkedIn. Actually, I maintain a pretty active presence there. Um, so it's just Tom Ryan. I do post uh some fundraising announcements. Um, and I'll probably repost this interview as well. >> All right. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. That was uh that was uh very informative. Good luck, Tom. And uh we'll we'll follow your journey. Take care for now. >> Thank you very much, David. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe,
The Next Trillion-Dollar Market? Why This Tech Will Transform Every Sector | Tom Rein
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Transcript
Our next guest is a young entrepreneur, founder of TAF Drones, that's TAV Drones. We're going to be talking about the future of drones and aerial technology. Tom is uh currently in university and he's had already a tremendous career building his own um aerial vehicles as well as successfully raising money for his startup. Welcome to the show, Tom. I'm very excited to host you and uh talk about uh drones and the future of your company. Welcome. Thank you very much, David, for having me on the show. It's very nice to be here. I'm very excited to be here with you. >> You have a uh a company that is going to be providing police, I believe, in the US with drones. We're going to talk about that, but first, let me just ask you more broadly. What do you think the skies will look like across America and the world in the next 10 to 15 years? >> Great question, David. I think the skies are definitely going to be filled with drones. Um, and I might be a little bit biased in my answer, uh, but drones are very effective for many different purposes, right? You see drones being used in warfare because they're cost effective. You see drones being used because they keep people safe and they're able to find people in accidents. Um, you see drones being used for photography. These drones are very effective at many different tasks, whether that's because of costs or because they're very convenient. And I think they're definitely going to dominate the skies in the coming years to come. more for consumers or um commercial entities or even the military. Tom, >> I think all of them, frankly. Um you know, you see widespread adoption when it comes to police, right? You see police forces using drones to kind of lower their costs and response times. You see individual content creators, for example, using drones to get videos. Um I think drones are definitely growing as a sector. They're definitely growing as a use case. Um and we'll definitely be seeing a lot of adoption for drones over the next coming years. Um especially for things like police and military where there's a very clear demand and a reason for these drones to be used. How are drones changing the nature of warfare? So in Iran for example, which is the Iran war currently happening right now as we speak, Shahed drones are they cost anywhere between 30 $35,000, some even cheaper, built by commercial parts importantly. And um the missiles that the US use are several times more uh to shoot them down. And so now we're looking at asymmetric warfare where it costs more uh per unit for the Americans to shoot down an Iranian drone. And that's just one example. The Ukrainians have been um contracted uh to supply information on how to fight drones. Uh and we're talking about aerial drones, but in Ukraine right now, they've just fielded their first humanoid battle droid. And so autonomous fighting is now a reality. The new F-47 uh stealth fighter, sixth generation US stealth fighter, is going to have a wingman of drones in the future. So tell us how warfare is going to change and how it's already changed forever. Yeah, here's the thing, David, and you bring up a very good point. It's asymmetric. A drone might cost a couple thousand dollars to produce, but it can take down a target that's worth millions of dollars. And it's very expensive to shoot down. Not because the drones are expensive by themselves, but because to shoot them down would incur a cost that's significantly more expensive than the drones themselves. And this problem only multiplies when you end up causing or end up deploying more drones or a swarm of these drones. And I think that's why these drones have really taken the world by storm. Um, you know, there's a lot of question as to how these drones can be used in defense, how they can be used to essentially advance warfare in such a way. Um, where it is asymmetric and I think that's what's very exciting to see. Um when it comes to the cost effectiveness of drones as a platform um and how they can kind of contribute to keeping certain soldiers safe, >> it is difficult for uh the military to adapt to this changing nature of warfare. This is an article from Forbes. Why US Gatling guns are not stopping Iran's Shahed drones. In any discussion of drone defense, Gatling type guns are often presented as a trump card. These rapid fire weapons originally developed to defend US warships against sea skimmy missiles can easily down bigger and faster threats than a 120 mph shahad drone. On paper, they look devastatingly effective, but news reports speak enthusiastically of their shredding um shredding uranian drones. Uh but they are not a magic wand to make all drones disappear. What do you think should be the military's uh best counter defense against drone and and importantly uh swarms of drones? >> Yeah, good question. Um, and you know, while my company is not mainly focused on, you know, military, so I don't think we'd be, you know, ne necessarily the best people to ask about this. Um, I do think that it's definitely something important for the military to take into consideration how can we take down these drones cost effectively, right? Um, so as kind of an aggregate, the counter UAS system or the counter UAS industry has definitely been receiving a lot of funding. Um and we're seeing those conversations even as part of a police drone manufacturer where we're seeing a lot of venture capitalists asking about counter UAS um and ask about how counter UAS can be uh deployed. Um so I think that's definitely something that people are are taking into very high consideration um especially in the age of these drones being so cost effective and easily deployable. >> So let's talk about your startup. I'm curious to understand before we talk about the technical aspects of the drones you're building and and attempting to sell. What is the fundamental problem in our society that you're trying to fix with your startup? >> Yeah. Um, great question. So, we're mainly focused on police drones. Um, specifically, we're building cost-effective police drones for American police forces. Um, so why drones? Well, we spoke with a lot of these police forces to kind of find their problems, right? We wanted to find the issues that they were facing on a daily basis. And what they told us was, you know, drones are allowing us to lower our costs. They're allowing us to lower response times and they're keeping our officers safe. But the problem is 80% of the drones that we were using came from one Chinese company called DJI um that Congress has removed from the United States due to a potential threat to national security. Um now we've obviously not verified those claims, but when it comes to what these police forces want, it's very clear that they want cost effectiveness. They want something that they can afford um and something that just works. And and that's kind of how they describe these Chinese drones. Um what they tell us is the American drones are often far too expensive. They're often five times the cost and they're more focused on niche features and features that are adjacent to military um than features that kind of appeal to a wide majority of police forces and agencies that don't need necessarily GPS denied flights um and don't need to pay a huge premium for that. So what we're mainly focused on is building these cost-effective drones in America that aren't over complicated um and are able to build these drones for American police forces. Why do the police force uh where forces across America need drones? I mean, what what what is wrong with the equipment they already have now? And why do they need to advance the next stage using drones and autonomous aerial vehicles? >> Yeah, great question, David. I think one of the reasons why they're using drones um is because it's a very cost-effective way to get to a scene faster um and create situational awareness. And that's what we hear a lot, right? the ability to essentially coordinate a whole team, the ability to see and have eyes before um you know you actually approach a scene. I think that's allowed police forces to you know keep people safe, right? They're able to see when where there's criminals. They're able to keep people safe when they're lost in the woods. They're able to find lost people in the woods. Um and I think that situational awareness is what police forces have really benefited from when it comes to drones. >> And so what are you trying to build that's different from a regular consumer drone for the police force? What's like technically speaking, what is different about what you're trying to build? >> Yeah. Um I think when it comes to police drones in general, uh the difference really kind of comes down to the payloads, right? Um you know, police drones will typically come with a zoom camera or will typically come with a thermal camera to enable more precision. Um what we're trying to build is we're trying to build kind of a layer on top of that, right? Um, we're trying to allow our drones to be modular like high-tech Lego sets. Um, in such a way that the drones are able to use multiple different types of payloads, multiple different types of motors even, um, and multiple different types of power supplies and landing gears in such a way where one drone could be used for multiple different types of tasks which will lower the cost of using our drones. That's kind of one of the ways that we're looking to lower our costs um, and provide a cost-effective user experience, not just with manufacturing, but also with the enduser experience. >> Okay. Okay. But then just just from a technical perspective, what is different about a con police drone versus just a regular consumer drone that I can use to fly around and shoot videos with? >> Yeah. Um, you know, typically the camera and the payload, right? When you see a regular consumer drone, you know, typically it would have a good camera, right? It might be able to shoot 4K video at one time zoom. Um, but police typically want to be able to see a crime scene or, you know, somebody lost in the woods from much farther away, right? And that's where you have zoom cameras as a pretty standard thing that drones have. Um, and this kind of, you know, propagates across the drones to have a bigger payload, you'd have to have bigger motors, um, and a more powerful power system on the drones. So, I think there's a lot of these little changes that are made to the drones to kind of accommodate different types of payloads, specifically the cameras, um, and how the drones are able to operate that way. >> What do you say to people who who say, "No, I don't want this. This sounds like a police state in the making. I don't want to be spied on constantly by drones in the air. >> Yeah. Um, really great question and it's definitely a fair concern, right? When you fly these drones, they can collect a lot of data, right? You fly a drone over a city, you've mapped the city. You fly a drone over, you know, a road, you can see everybody on the road. And it definitely can be a data concern if this data is not in the right hands. Um, you know, in the right hands, it keeps a lot of people safe. with guard rails like laws uh that the FAA is creating. Um you know, you try to reduce the number of potential incidents that these drones run into. There's kind of a time and place for everything. Um but in the wrong hands, this data could be a real security risk. And I think that's why there's been an added scrutiny um to make sure that the companies producing these drones have America's best interests in mind um and have, you know, citizens best interests in mind. Not just kind of how the drones are flown, but also where this data is going. But it's definitely a fair concern. Um, and I think it's something to be addressed by regulations and also to be addressed by how these drones are used. Um, you know, there's a time and place for everything. >> Are are you in contact with any police forces right now? >> We are. Yes. Um, you know, we're looking to start up pilot programs right now. So, we're in early discussions with a few police forces um to see kind of how we can start pilot programs. And in terms of use cases, um, what have they asked you in terms of, uh, you know, um, building something that they would need? >> Yeah. Um, so a lot of these police forces really wanted cost effectiveness and that's the first thing that we really started building. You know, before we really started the company, we really saw that these police forces wanted cost effectiveness. But so we built that. Um, but there's definitely a lot more intricacies to it, right? There's a lot of intricacies. for example, everything from button placement, the ergonomics of the controller, um to the ability for the drone to be able to swap a thermal camera with a zoom camera. I think there's a lot of these intricacies that these drones uh or police forces asked us, um you know, a lot of the times it is modularity, right? We built the modular part of our drone because a lot of police forces asked us, you know, can you build a drone that does multiple different types of things instead of only one thing, right? um you know a lot of police forces responding or were creating drone as first responder programs um which is a completely different use case than say flying a drone out um directly uh kind of prompted by something and I think that's kind of where modularity can come in and make the drones more flexible. So that's something we saw >> Tom let's see this drone do you have a Can you show >> I actually have one right here so this is what the drone looks like. >> Okay walk us through what we're looking at here. >> Yeah. Um, so we're looking at a modular platform. The idea of this drone is to be able to be modular like a high-tech LEGO set. Um, so you have multiple different payload attachments here. The ability to attach different payloads, different, you know, batteries and power sources. It's modular, so you can attach multiple different types of batteries. Um, you can attach different types of motors. So, we've essentially built a modular platform um that allows utmost flexibility and is very cost effective to produce. >> You're you're building this yourself or are you outsourcing this? How's how does this work? >> Yeah. So, you know, as a company, we're building this oursel. We're building um we're designing this our oursel and we're outsourcing a lot of the manufacturing. Um so, specifically, we're working with a lot of American factories to keep our production in America. Uh well, we're designing kind of the intellectual property and you know, the design of the drone itself. Um and and building that up in computer AED design. you what did where did you acquire the technology for the IMU for example the stabilizer gyroscopes uh propellers you know there's a lot of moving components in a drone like how did you how did you acquire the tech >> yeah um you know I think a lot of the sensors are standardized and that allows us to essentially move fast with things um you know for example things like IMUs are relatively standard parts or ESC's are relatively standard parts I think the more difficult thing for us and for you know every hardware startup in general is ensuring that the supply chain pain is reliable, right? What if one certain sensor is no longer available? How can you buy an alternate sensor that does the same thing um and integrate it into your design uh as an assembly process without changing the design? And I think that's what we're really focused on. Um but as for these parts, a lot of these parts are actually quite standardized, which is kind of uh great to see when it comes to the the supply chain. >> I'm very impressed by what you're talking about right now. You're what 18 years old, Tom? >> I am. Yes. >> Okay. What is your background? How did you learn to do all this? >> Yeah. Um, well, I actually started my first speaker company at 13 years old. We basically built uh Bluetooth speakers for corporate clients. So, we sold to firms around um, you know, leading firms around the world and we were able to sell these in bulk or batch orders of 75 units at a time. And I think this is where really taught me how to start a company and do manufacturing logistics. Um, it also allowed me to lower my cost in America. has direct uh responses to kind of what I'm doing now because I was able to see and we produce a lot in China so I was able to see a lot of how China was able to lower cost um in production and apply a lot of that on American soil. But I think that's kind of how I got started with entrepreneurship. Um as for building things, I mean I was kind of, you know, a bit reckless as a kid when I was 8 years old. I built a light bulb that almost exploded. Um, and I kind of just built on from that where I kind of just built things with random stuff around the house and tinkered with parts. Um, which eventually led to me starting my company. You >> you you're doing the coding on the drone as well. >> Yeah. Um, so we do do the coding, but what's really great about the coding is, you know, AI has been able to significantly reduce the amount of time, right? Um, you know, what used to take, you know, hundreds of, you know, hours to code might take, you know, 30 seconds with AI and they can diagnose it, um, very fast. And I think that's allowed us to keep our cost down, but it's also allowed us to kind of stay lean in terms of being able to build these drones without a huge team. Um, and being able to build software that, you know, the AI is able to kind of suggest the software. We go through it to make sure there's no security risks and that the software is stable. Um, but our part is more on that than building the software up by itself from the beginning. >> Listening to you talk about how these drones are created. You know, you said these parts are standardized. It makes me wonder why America is so far behind internationally in the consumer drone race. If you look at DJI, for example, a Chinese company, I own a couple DJI drones. I love flying drones recreationally, um, photography and videography, but that company has 70 to 80% of the global consumer drone market share. How did that happen? How did America fall so far behind? >> Yeah, I think one of the big problems with America is that they weren't very cost effective, right? Um, and that led to a few things. First of all, it led to drones um, you know, not being cost-effective as a onetoone comparison. So, America would make police drones that are much more expensive than the police drones that China would make or or DJI would make. Um, but it also led to kind of a withdrawal of American companies from the consumer industry. Um, you see, Skyo, for example, is is no longer making these lowcost drones for everyday people. They're more focused on, you know, police drones or focused on drones for the military. Um I think you see a lot of this where you know America was not cost effective and that kind of led to a pullback um of these of these capabilities and that's what we're trying to solve. Um we're trying to build these cost-effective drones through police forces and expand into other industries as well um as we continue to build more drones. >> When you say cost effective, what are Chinese manufacturers doing in their manufacturing process that's making them cheaper? Yeah, I think China just has a much more globalized um or not necessarily globalized but much more standardized ecosystem, right? Um you know, in China, if I would submit an order for a thousand drones um or thousand speakers specifically, it would come within 4 days, right? I would be able to get those on my doorstep very quickly. It might take a little longer for drones, but the the same principle is in effect, right? China is very quick to manufacture. When it comes to manufacturing, often time is the expense, right? and you have, you know, a lot of integrated tools, um, you know, a lot of automation in which, you know, has just not been matched anywhere else. Now, I think what we've been able to kind of lower our cost in America with is making our parts, uh, more complicated and reducing the number of parts. So, instead of having 10 less complicated parts, we make one more complicated part. um and kind of not going into specific details, we've been able to significantly lower our costs. Um by doing that and building patented technology um kind of around the drone to lower our cost that way. >> Speaking of uh Chinese drones, take a look at this story. So people in the US know that DJI uh is effectively now banned. As of December 23rd, 2025, the US Federal Comm uh communications uh commissions barred the Chinese-based drone maker DJI from importing any new drones. Now, existing models can still be sold. New models, uh, it looks like cannot enter the American market. Why do you think the, uh, the FCC made this move? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think the reason for this move is because, you know, drones can collect a lot of data, right? Um, you know, kind of as I spoke on before, these drones can map an entire city in, you know, a couple of flights. And it's really important that these drones are sending the data to the right place, right? that they're sending the data to people who can keep us safe, right? Police forces, agencies, um, and that this data isn't in the wrong hands. I think it's very important that, you know, as Americans, we're able to build drones that are um, able to kind of protect our interests um, and able to make sure that these drones are not sending data to places um, that might not necessarily have America's interests in mind. Um now I'm not specifically you know speaking of a specific company but I think it's very important um for data to be vetted. It's very important for this data to be used in the right place. Um and by you know ensuring that we have a supply chain of American drone manufacturers um it will definitely increase kind of the integrity of how we treat this data. >> Okay. So what what is your end goal here? What is your vision for your company for TAV drones? Do you want to be like Anduro, basically a supplier, a contractor for the government, or do you want to be a global drones manufacturer that will supply different countries and export to different countries here? >> Yeah, we're looking to mainly focus in police, um, mainly focus in agriculture, mainly focus in drones that aren't really dual use at the moment. Um, I think it's very important for the world to have a drone that is an alternative to, you know, what's currently out there and what's currently dominating the market. Um, and that's what we really want to do. We want to provide an American alternative. We want to provide American drones that are cost effective. Um, we want to fundamentally redefine that, you know, we want to make it so that American drones don't have to be expensive and unaffordable. Um, we want to make it so that American drones are accessible to everybody. Would you ever consider making a DJI alternative for the US market that's cheap >> in terms of kind of >> for consumers? Like I can't buy a new DJI drone now. Well, that sucks. What do I do? I go to Tom's Taff drones. Would you ever consider doing that? >> I think that's something that we might consider doing a little later on. Um I think there's huge demand kind of in many industries right now. when you think of police, firefighting, um agriculture, there's huge demand there, especially in kind of industry, um and that's kind of where we're headed towards first because we see a very quick adoption. Um we see high lifetime value of customers and we want to kind of go for that first. Um but there's definitely, you know, potential that will enter into other adjacent industries, um like commercial or consumer drones because there's definitely huge opportunity there as well, right? Um, as of the moment, there's really no alternative to DJI in the United States. Um, basically no company is producing cost-effective or just any drones for consumer uh, use uh, at this stage. So, we're definitely potentially going to look into that um, as we expand and address uh, different drones or drone um, users on our road map. >> Tom, what's the startup life been like for you so far? Walk us through your journey. Tell us about your experience. >> Very, very busy. Um, you know, I'm taking a lot of calls lately, taking a lot of fundraising calls lately. Um, and you know, I think it's it's definitely a grind, as they like to call it. Um, you know, you definitely have to work very long hours. Um, you definitely have to make some sacrifices, but I think at the end of the day, it's worth it, right? >> Are you are you positioning yourself as an AI company to investors? >> I think we do use a lot of AI. Um, I think when it comes to our actual business model, it's more deep tech. Um but we're definitely you know heavily reliant on AI um for a lot of different aspects of our business. Everything from you know helping us suggest code completions uh to having AI on the drone itself. Uh so I think that would definitely be a significant portion of it. Um you know in that sense we would definitely be an AI company of sorts. >> Okay. And the fundraising process tell us about that. What's your experience been like so far? Any challenges you can share with us? >> Yeah. Um you know I think when it comes to fundraising investors really want to see that you're solving a real problem right? um that you're building something that the market demands and not something that you know you like because it's a cool product. I think that's what we've been able to do and because we've kind of built in this market where there's such a big demand um and such good you know policy tailwinds it's been very easy to kind of convey the story and explain you know we've had this traction um but it matters not just because we've built these cool drones and built these cool patents but because the market really wants it. Um, and I think that's kind of how we've approached fundraising and that's how we've been able to raise VC. >> What do you plan to do with the money? >> Yeah, we plan to uh basically increase our capacity. So, we want to go to market faster. Um, and that's going to require, you know, there's a customer acquisition cost to each customer, right? Um, you know, specifically we're kind of we have a specific target market in mind. Uh, not just police stations, but we have specificity in that, too. Um, and that's definitely going to require some costs, right? For example, if you do a pilot program with a police force, you have to drive to that police force. You have to provide drones. Um, and I think we're going to use a lot of our investor money into kind of expanding as fast as possible. In the back end, we're also making sure that we're building drones that are reliable, right? Um, and I think that means making sure that our drones are able to be reliable as we produce hundreds of these or thousands of these. And that really comes down to supply chain optimizations, um, and kind of optimizations of our internal tech and structure. Um I think that's what we're mainly focused on using our current money for. >> When when do you plan to be in production? >> Yeah. Um very soon. So we're launching pilots right now. Um we're actually starting to open that up. And I think very soon we're hoping that you know when these pilots are are launched and when these pilots come back with feedback uh we'll be able to start producing um drones at a at a larger scale. >> Okay. So let's say you got an order for 10,000 drones from various police forces across the country. They like your product. they say, "Hey, Tom, we want 10,000 drones by next summer." How would you make that happen? >> Yeah, I think you know what we've been able to do when it comes to our manufacturing um kind of ecosystem is two things, right? We have kind of our core manufacturers who provide basically they're able to provide the drone um and they're able to do so very well at a very good cost. Uh but we also have contingency plans, right? Contingency plans don't necessarily need to be negative. It could be, you know, we get too many orders. Um there is definitely huge demand and it's definitely something that we could see happening where we get a much larger order than we forecast. Um and that's where kind of our contract manufacturing goes in. We have relations with a lot of manufacturers on the side that are able to produce one drone at a time or a thousand drones at a time and we can kind of scale this up as we get larger and larger orders um which will allow us to kind of produce these drones. Um >> what is your what is your criteria for scaling? In other words, at what point do you decide to yourself, okay, I'm going to continue outsourcing their manufacturing or just buying up or creating my own manufacturing space, buying a factory. We're just maybe leasing a space to make my own manufacturing plant. >> Yeah, great question. Um, you know, I think it it definitely depends a lot on the unit economics of the products. um you know as we get there those unit economics can change and um you know it really will become kind of a a juggle between what will get us the best unit economics what will get us the best lead times while you know ensuring reliability um you know the quality of the manufacturing and making sure that our IP is protected um so I think right now at this stage we're mainly focused on you know leveraging contract or leveraging partnerships um but there's definitely a potential that as we scale we're going to want more control over the process um and more control over the lead times which may prompt us to kind of build our own factories quicker. >> Any advice for young entrepreneurs also in the startup space pre-revenue looking to get funding? What would you say to somebody around your age? >> Yeah. Um I think it's it's really important to talk to people. I think you need to talk to people to see what they want. Um speak with people, see what their pain points are. Whether that's, you know, drones for police or whether that's, you know, an app for, you know, a certain app for a certain purpose, you need to be solving a real problem. And the best way to solve a problem is by making sure that it exists. So, I think my biggest piece of advice would be to talk to people. Um, see what the problems are in the market, see if there really is a market for what you're thinking, and try to appeal to that market segment by, uh, making something that solves a certain problem. What are some mistakes you've seen other founders make that you're trying to avoid? >> Yeah. Um, you know, spending too long making a perfect product. I think, you know, that's a trap that's very easy to fall into, especially in deep tech. Um, where you make a perfect product. Now, obviously, there are exceptions to this, right? Some companies need to make a perfect product. Um but I think in in a good majority of of situations it's important to make a product that people want um without making a product that's you know refined in every single aspect right you don't need a 100 features you can ship with 10 features right I think the core is that the product is reliable that it works very well um but you don't need to have you know infinite features before you've kind of validated a market and that's kind of what I think of when I think of not making the perfect flashiest product um with the most features. I think what's important um is making what people demand, making the product that that people want um and not adding any unnecessary parts or moving parts to that production process um as you scale and validate your initial demand. >> I want to just segue a little bit before we close out the interview. Uh nothing to do with drones, but you know tech well. Which do you think will be the leader in the AI race? Will it be Anthropic, Open AI, Google, something else? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think that's definitely a question that uh can vary a lot. Um, I know that for sure when it comes to our experience, we've had very good experience with OpenAI. Um, specifically the the chat GBC API. Uh, it's definitely helped us a lot when it comes to kind of planning our company, but also basically allowing us to code. Um, we've built our own wrappers that, you know, everything from helping us with software uh, suggestions to hardware manufacturing. Um, you know, we have a tool that basically allows us to see exactly how much each part might cost. Um, and it's kind of driven by OpenAI's, uh, API. So, I definitely, we've had a very good experience with that. Um, but I do think that AI models are very volatile. Um, sometimes I feel like certain models can be much better than others and it really just ends. So, I think that that's something that uh, we we really have to see as we we keep going. As somebody who's actually used AI to build your company uh from the ground up and you're integrating it into all your systems, do you think that there will be a time when one person with the help of AI could run a billion dollar company? >> Absolutely. Um and I think it's already starting to happen. I mean, you see people who are my age building companies. You think Mercure, for example. I know they're not a oneperson company, but um I think what's important is you see people with a lot less capital. You see people at much earlier stages of life build companies that are disproportionately large compared to what would be possible 25 or maybe you know even 15 years ago without AI. Um that's going to eventually lead to I believe billion-dollar companies with one person. Um where certain people will be able to build a large product very fast that people want um and be able to kind of fulfill a niche to a million or a billion dollar valuation. So I definitely think it's going to be possible and we'll probably see more of that very soon. Nvidia CEO Jensen Hang said that AI could already build its own billion-dollar company. I mean, what's stopping a model from scanning the consumer market, identifying pain points, like you said, basically going through the entire business plan, coming up with an app or software, some sort of product that they can build by itself without needing a physical uh plant, and then just shipping it and and and launching it. >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think it's it's kind of the the doing things layer, um, where, you know, AI is kind of, you know, I know there's things like OpenClaw, which have been able to do more things, not just kind of in chat, but also specifically manipulate outside factors. I think that's kind of the layer that has definitely been kind of underdeveloped compared to the AI itself. Um, you know, generally when you see a lot of these startups, they're able to use AI to basically code their product. Um, and then, for example, help with their pitch deck, but somebody still has to manually input to the AI. Look, I want to build the startup. Give me a pitch deck. Give me this. You still kind of have to guide the AI. I think once the AI is able to guide itself more, um whether that's from consumer tools opening up more or more AI models coming out or more things like Open Claw coming out, I think that's when there's going to be more potential for AI to do more of the work autonomously. Um you know, I I think that we'll definitely be seeing more of that coming very soon. >> Do you think you can integrate Agent Gent AI with drones? Let's say I want a drone and uh I wanted to do something without manually controlling it. We know, we know there are, you know, follow features and automatic, you know, uh uh um hover features, but I want to speak to my controller or my phone and say, "Hey, drone, go take a video of the surrounding area at an altitude of 80 m above sea level and just, you know, take a cool video of me at a campsite and it'll do that." It walk us through how that would be possible. >> Yeah. Um I think that definitely will be possible in the future and we're already seeing a lot of that happen. Um, but I think one of the big concerns about that is kind of the reliability of the drones itself. And I think that's why the FAA has certain safeguards um that mandate, you know, for example, a visual person who is actually seeing the drone, the drone needs to be in visual line of sight. Um, I know there are certain waiverss for that, but I think the regulations kind of do take into consideration that there could be certain risks to having these drones kind of fly by themselves. Um, but as for, you know, the capability of the drones, the drones are becoming more and more capable, right? Our drones for example are able to fly autonomously and many drones are able to you know fly in such a way that enables what is called a drone as first responder. Um the drone responds to a scene before anybody else responds to a scene and is able to kind of get uh certain situations uh or provide situational awareness for that scene. Um so I think we definitely see more autonomous flight coming uh more autonomous AI flight coming as well. But I think one of the things that's really important is making sure that there's no risk um to kind of people who are not necessarily involved in the drone operations. >> Every time I see a new announcement of a robot or some sort of drone being used for the military, you see these comments posting, "Oh, Skynet is here. The Terminator is here." Have you se you've seen those movies? I'm sure Arnold Schwarzenegger the the Terminator. So, how do we build guard rails to prevent AI from going completely off the rails, pun intended, and attacking humans or just not following their protocols? >> Yeah, great question, by the way, and I do like the Terminator movie. It is something that I'm personally concerned about. Um, I do think that AI is definitely grown at a very, very fast pace. um you know it almost seems you know and this is going to be a very controversial take but it almost seems conscious in the way that it's able to understand prompts uh to a very deep level. Now obviously it's it's not um but we do see that AI can have certain motives or be misguided in such ways to prevent or create certain outputs. Um but I think that that could be definitely concerning in terms of you know if there's a malicious actor creating an AI for you know destruction or if the AI just kind of gets to that point by itself. Um I think regulations definitely will help kind of responsible use of AI. Um but it is a concern that definitely lurks and it's important to make sure that you know you understand what the code is doing right that you don't just necessarily put code in or necessarily have an AI control an object like a drone um without understanding. You need to understand exactly what it's doing. You need to put safeguards whether that's kind of software safeguards or air gap safeguards. You have to make sure that the AI is able to have certain permissions but not have all permissions um to make sure that it's able to be safe. >> Tom, what does the next 20 years of your life look like? You're currently at uh University of Texas Austin. I believe you told me you're studying business, which when you told me about this offline, I was kind of shocked. I was like, how does somebody with so much technical knowledge not be in engineering, but apparently you taught yourself the technical aspect? So, you're doing business right now. What's next for you? >> Yeah. Um and I think this is this is frankly a controversial take kind of even when I think about it with my parents but I definitely want to be uh very um you know involved in my startup. I want to be very involved in my startup to a point where um you know I think this could be very big and I think I will have to definitely commit more and more time into it as time goes along. Um you know I think in the future in the next 20 years I'm definitely going to be very focused on startups whether it's this startup or another startup. Um, I think even if I do a big exit, I will go back and start another company because I think um, you know, I always see kind of problems in the market and I always think about ways to solve it and I think it'd be uh, very tiring to not solve it. >> What would need to happen to convince you to drop out and and pursue your startup full-time? >> Yeah. Um, you know, I think there's a there's a couple things and right now I'm definitely very focused on the startup. Um, you know, we we definitely want to kind of be in a in a stage where the company is, you know, perhaps raising a little bit larger of a round or generating a little bit more revenue. Um, but I'm definitely starting to look into kind of how I can maximize my time. Um, and definitely am having some of those conversations with um, whether that's investors or people who are currently um, involved in the company. >> Awesome. Tom, where do we follow your journey? Where do we follow you? Yeah, you can uh find me on LinkedIn. Actually, I maintain a pretty active presence there. Um, so it's just Tom Ryan. I do post uh some fundraising announcements. Um, and I'll probably repost this interview as well. >> All right. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. That was uh that was uh very informative. Good luck, Tom. And uh we'll we'll follow your journey. Take care for now. >> Thank you very much, David. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe,