And welcome everyone to another Smart Money circle episode.
I'm Adam Sarahan. With me today is Cameron Shell
who's the Co founder and CEO of Dragonfly.
Ticker symbol is DPRO. Cameron, thank you so much for
taking the time and welcome to the Smart Money Circle.
Adam, I'm a big fan and really pleased and honored that you
have me on the show, so thank you very much.
Likewise, and for the audience, this is going to be a very
special interview. I'm very excited.
Cam has been a a pioneer in the drone industry and has done many
other things as a wealth of knowledge.
So let's dive right in. Cam, I always like to begin.
Can you please tell us your story and how you got to where
you are today? Well, sure.
Again, thanks again, Adam. So so I've been a tech
entrepreneur since my early teens.
You know, I was a.com kid, if you will, like that's kind of
like, you know, my early 20s, right, when the the early to mid
20s, right, whenthe.com was just going hard.
And I I had a a little company and our idea was that we were
going to take servers or PCs really at that time and put them
in a central location. And we're going to use this
thing that was kind of up and coming called the Internet to to
access software that was on our servers.
And and so people could use different software from their
home or from wherever they were at and, and not have to
necessarily buy it. They can subscribe for it.
And we and it it it was a stupid idea and nobody there was no use
for it. I mean, you got to remember this
is when like, oh, the internet's, you know, Oh, it's
kind of like the Yellow Pages, but it's online, you know, kind
of thing. So we, we found a, a market in,
in the fact that audit firms would use our, our, our, our
data farm. We called it at the time and,
and they would, so we'd load up Great Plains, which was a little
fun fact. Great Plains was the first SAS
company out there. It wasn't, it wasn't Salesforce
and it wasn't a bunch of the others.
It was Great Plains. So they they, so they, they did
a, a deal with this kind of, I think more out of sympathy than
anything else on this stupid idea.
We loaded their software on our servers and then a couple of
small regional audit firms would take out their transportable
computers, which will like sewing machines at the time, and
they'd go to the rather than having to take them out to the
office that you'd use computers that were at their clients
offices, access the great plain software in this small kind of
mid market area that they were in at the time.
And they would and they would do their their accounting work on
it and and it caught on and, and so the next thing he asked for
is if we need some productivity software, we need to use our
Lotus 123 again, dating myself there and and some of us are
actually using, you know, this Microsoft product suite as well
and Excel is pretty, you know, it was kind of up and coming at
the time. So we approached Microsoft and
said, well, could you know, explain what we're doing?
It took us about a year, but they finally said, OK, we'll,
we'll do a, a subscription licensing deal with you.
So Microsoft was actually the second software as a service
company out there, believe it or not.
And that was the first time they've ever had a subscription
licensing model. So we did that in a great, you
know, we had, we had two, then we had four and then we had six
and then we had, you know, kind of eight, you know, regional
ish, you know, kind of semi national accounting firms on
board and, and working and growing.
And then and then Microsoft bought Hotmail and I just
happened to be in the right spot at the right time.
And they were like, what are we going to do with this thing now?
Like what are server farms, data utility, da da da and I happen
to be in the right room at the right city at the right time.
And somebody started asking me those questions and so I
explained what we were doing. And then so somebody said, hey,
well, can you help us do that? And of course, I'm a sales guy,
like it or not. And, and, and so I said yes, I
really didn't have any clue what I was saying yes to, but I,
yeah, we can do that. And, and so we became an
integral part of, of, of that whole world of, of Hotmail
getting out there. So, you know, we built the
company up. We, we were doing $80 million in
revenue and, and didn't, we didn't know that that was a big
deal or wasn't a big deal. And we got to, we got approached
by a, a big New York bank and they said, you know, there's
this thing calledthe.com going on and you're a startup and
you're doing 80 million in revenue and everybody else is
trying to figure out if they, how to replace the Yellow Pages.
So we went public and, you know, I was 25, I think, and, you
know, company went to a 3 1/2 billion dollar market cap, which
in 2000 is probably like 8 billion today.
But, and, and again, I still didn't realize the impact of it
And, and I didn't know what I was doing.
I, I didn't, of course I thought I did.
And so, you know, I did that for about another year and, and we
had all the right investors and all that type of stuff.
And, but I, so I got fired about a year later, which was the
right that I should have been fired kind of thing.
And, and so I left there and then I went and became one of
the early, I think the first, but one of the early outside
investors in a company called Netteller.
And, and, and I got involved with the product team there and
Nettellar went on to become the largest mover of money in the
online gambling space. And so we took it public over
in, in London. And that was a big success.
And Long story short, I thought I knew everything about
everything and, and I didn't know anything about anything
but, but I had gained a lot of great experience.
I was, I was in New York on 9/11 at the base of the towers.
And you know, my like, you know, it's kind of already, you know,
somewhat out of control in my life, but that kind of pushed me
over the edge. And over the, the course of
about a five year span, I just completely blew everything up in
my life and was, was homeless and bankrupt and in every way
imaginable. And, and that, that was a long
time ago. It was, you know, 20 plus years
ago, obviously now, but and so I've got it, but I got things
cleaned up in the last 20 years. I've been, you know, building
companies, 20 plus been building companies and, and the, you
know, in particular Dragonfly in the drone space.
So that that's the probably a longer version of the back story
than you were probably looking for.
But I, I, you know, I, I believe that what we're doing at
Dragonfly in the 20 year plus years of work that we put in
here is, is now going to, you know, hopefully, you know, turn
into, you know, another one of those fantastic stories that
that does, does a lot of good for society.
Wow, I absolutely love your story and the fact that you you
had all that success early on, then you self sabotage, but you
came back from it and you built it back up again.
So definitely hats off to you there.
Kim, let's talk about your business.
Please tell us what Dragonfly does some of your competitive
advantages. Anything else you want to share
about the? Company sounds great.
So Dragonfly is it's at least to my knowledge it's it's the
oldest standing dual use drone manufacturer in the world.
And so, you know, we've been around for 27 years now.
There's not much that we haven't done in the drone space.
We've seen, you know, probably half a dozen drone cycles where
it was all going to take off and be great and amazing.
And, you know, our, our, we got our start in the public safety
space. So we were building drones
really as hobbies, as hobbyists. And, and we're approached by a,
a federal police force that wanted to use it actually for
accident reconstruction. And, and that's, and, you know,
one day they got a call from a search and rescue team that
said, Hey, we, we can't put our helicopters up.
We've got somebody that's wandered away from a car
accident in, you know -40° weather.
They've been missing for many hours.
Any chance you could take that drone that you got for accident
reconstruction? Because it had thermal cameras
on it and, and go look for this person.
And they did. And, and they found the person
and, and they, and it saved their life.
And so that dragonfly was called the Dragonflyer 4 at the time.
So the Dragonflyer 4 is the first drone that was ever
credited with saving a human life.
And that dragonfire, that drone now sits on permanent display in
the Smithsonian. And so, so, and that really
became the beginning of our public safety work and the work
that we've done with law enforcement and, and military
and humanitarian around the world.
And so that's really a kind of the deeper part of our our
ethos. And then, you know, we, we
definitely grew that business and, and have just, you know,
managed it a month at a time and a quarter of a time through the
last 27 years, where in that time frame, we have seen every
single drone manufacturer that was started in North America,
you know, except for say the last five to seven years.
We're we're in it, we're in another drone cycle right now,
which is different this time. But every single drone
manufacturer has gone out of business, whether it was
Airware, Air Lily, GoPro, Air Wise, 3Dr, and they all had
hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars behind them.
And so I think what's strategically at the root of
what strategically differentiates us is that we're
very boots on the ground. We were very bootstrapped, we're
very customer focused. We've only had two people that
have left the company. 1 I think it was well, one was retirement
and and 1 was maternity leave. So those same engineers that we
had, you know, 25 plus years ago are the same engineers that and
we've got many more, but that we work with today.
So for a company that's still relatively small, our ability to
to service and execute on concepts of operation and
capacity wise meet the large orders that are now coming
through this drone cycle are I think are are maybe second to
none, but can certainly match anybody that's raised hundreds
of millions of dollars out there.
Wow what a great story. So you were early in the drone
space as a Co founder. I want to go back there for a
second because I get what you do and I love what you do and the
fact that you're around for decades.
It's almost like Elton Johnson. I'm still standing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know.
That's exactly. Oh man.
That's what comes to mind as you're speaking.
So I love that. Congratulations by the way, it's
absolutely fantastic feat. So let's talk about the when you
Co founded the company, what was the vision?
What was the problem solution like?
Speak to that a little bit please.
Yeah, so ahead of your times. Yeah.
So, well, well the, the company was actually in existence and,
and the, and the founder, founder, his first name was
Dragon DRAGAN. And that's why our, our name
Dragonfly is spelt with an A instead of an O And he had, he
had had the business really as a hobbyist for about 5 years.
Separately, I was designing some software to use for body cameras
in the in the police space and you know, they would turn on and
off automatically transmit stream and, and some things like
that. And I got introduced to to
Dragonfly because they were doing this public safety work.
And as I got to know Dragon and the and the whole company, it
became really apparent to me that this is this was going to
be the future. Now, of course, at that time I
thought that oh, and it just within a few years, this is
going to be amazing. And here we are 20 some years
later. I like, Oh my, if I had any
idea, you know, but so I, I was right.
I was just 20 years late in my thinking, But so, so I put a
little investment group together and, and, and combined our two
companies together. And so that's why I have the the
privilege and I say it with ultimate, you know, due due
respect, that I get to call myself a a a Co founder of, of
the business. And so that's how I got involved
in the business then. And the, the vision at that time
was, was really to drive the drone industry to where what we
see happening in the drone industry today.
So all the different like, like drones will be as pervasive as
iPhones, drones will be as pervasive as the Internet.
And the impact of drones will actually be as, as as big as AI.
And the reason and, and all of those things do call many into
the drone industry. And the reason I say that is
that nothing collects data better than a drone.
Nothing because what you've got is you've got something that's
got an aerial perspective in a 3D space with a massive battery
pack on it that you could put multiple sensors.
So every time you're flying a drone, you could be doing ground
penetrating radar, you can be doing LIDAR, you can do air
quality, you can do like absolutely anything.
And you combine all those data sets in with now what's
happening with the AI and you can actually compute on board
now with we have NVIDIA chip integration and you get real
time AI interpretation of literally hundreds of data sets
all at once. The insights are absolutely
incredible and the implications both commercially and military
wise are, are beyond like just mind blowing when you, when you
start to see these results. So, so, but, but that was
actually, oh, that's what's going to happen.
But again, 20 plus years ago, that's not what was happening,
but that's where we started knowing that, that we are a
drone company, but ultimately we're a data company.
And, and that's where that, and, and so our vision eventually is
to give away our drones. Like the only way that we're
going to compete with with Chinese inexpensive, very high
quality manufacturing in North America isn't by tariffs, it
isn't by protectionism, it isn't by those are all great things
right now. I'm not taking away from them.
We have a market right now that's exploding because of
that. So I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for
that. But ultimately what's we, we
have to compete on a, on a, on a better playing field than that.
And we are better than that. And so we're, we're going to
have to give away these drones at some point.
But how we do that is by having better data.
A drone does two things that either deliver something that
might be a package, it might be an ordinance or it or it
collects data or it does both at the same time.
And the people that can do that best and collect that data to
provide better benefit back to their customers, whether they're
government, military, commercial, law enforcement,
whatever, that's the company that's ultimately going to be a,
you know, a trillion dollar company candidly in my mind.
You know, it makes perfect sense.
So thank you for that overview and the explanation and letting
us know your story and the company's story.
So now I'm going to shift the conversation a little bit to
timeless advice. So the first question would be
risk management. How do you handle risk and what
are some mistakes you see people make with respect to risk
management? Yeah, I, I have found that the,
the, the best way to manage risk, at least in our
circumstance and certainly over the number of years is, is to
worry a little bit less about the future.
You got to be cognizant of it. You got to have strategy and you
have to be totally aware. But you know, we don't react to
the future, we react to what's happening right now.
So we are very one step at a time.
What's in front of us right now. If we can execute the next step,
we're likely, you know, 50% ahead of everybody else either
in the market or the problem that we're trying to deal with
at that moment. And then if we just execute the
next step, you know, we're another 50% ahead again.
And what it does is it keeps us surviving, but it also gets us
better Intel and better information, which then creates
a more clear picture for what we're worrying about out here.
I find a lot of risk analysis and a lot of strategy turns out
to be a lot of worry. And if you're planning for what
you're worrying about, you're going to end up in that exact
situation. Now, I'm not talking about being
ignorant or putting head in the sand or anything like that, but
I am talking about where the proportionate amount of focus
absolutely needs to be. And you know, if you're in a
firefight or if you're in a serious situation, emergency
rescue. And this is this is, you know,
our customers have taught me this.
If you're in those situations, you have to deal with that
situation. Not like how do we prevent this
in the future from ever Yeah, you'll get there.
But right now you got to deal with that situation and save
that life or your life or accomplish the mission.
And so we treat our risk management in kind of in that
same light. We just make sure that we
execute on the exact next thing. I love that.
That's really, really, really powerful because worrying they,
they say, is like praying for what you don't want.
So if you spend your whole time worrying about that stuff and
then, like you said, not planning and not executing,
you're going to just sit there and focus on that and then just
go there. And that.
That makes perfect sense. Yeah.
OK, so let's talk about timeless lessons.
What are some timeless lessons you've learned along the way
that you like to share with the audience?
You can go business life anywhere you want to go.
Yeah, sounds great. Well, I, I, I think probably the
biggest business lesson that I've had, which is actually a
life lesson as well, is to realize that it's not all about
me and that everything that we do needs to be in service to
whoever we're servicing. So whether that's our customer,
whether that's our shareholder, what, what, whether it's the,
the corporation, what, whatever it is, if, if our motivation and
this is very hard discipline, it's A to, to adopt.
And it takes a lot of practice. And is, is if, if our decision
and discipline is around what's best for us and it's not what's
best for the people that were in service to, it's going to be the
wrong decision. Whether no, it, it's very
tempting. There's no, it's best for us
right now. We have to make this decision.
It's whatever. And, and that's where the
discipline part comes in where you've got to play it for the
long term. So there are many times, you
know, all those companies earlier that I mentioned that
had gone out of business that had hundreds of millions of
dollars. Every one of those companies I
mentioned tried to buy Dragonfly at one time and, and, and a
couple of them a couple times and, and there were a number of
times in there where I was adamant and excited that we were
gonna sell to them. I mean, Airware, I mean, John
Chambers, the, you know, the chairman of Cisco was the
chairman of Airware. I mean, I would have loved to
what an honor to get to have been able to work with him or
for him. But, you know, some wiser people
reminded me of that, that we are not here.
Like they ultimately, in our opinion, had a strategy that
probably wasn't going to work. We never know for sure.
And and you know, we happened to be right.
It didn't work for them, but but, and, and that wouldn't have
been good for the customers that we dealt with.
We have, we have mission critical customers that depend
on our product, that depend on us being there every single day.
And, and that became more important to us than, you know,
selling out to the big person next door.
And again, if that would have been the right decision and,
and, and I can't, I would have made the wrong decision at that
time. But you know, there's some great
people around us that that reminded us of our mission.
And in fact, and it wasn't board members, it was employees.
It was it was people on the ground that cared about the
customers that we were dealing with that ultimately they were
like, yeah, we're not going to probably hang around anyway if
you sell to these folks or whatever, because that's just
not our ethos. And so, you know, making sure
that we stay in service, which is not a popular or easy thing
to do and it's hard to quantify and it and you have to question,
you know, constantly question yourself, like every day, you
know, is this action that I'm taking right now being of
service? Yeah, that's a really, really
just brilliant way of structuring your whole life,
like you said, not just business but also personal.
Let's talk about the other side of that coin, which is timeless
mistakes. What are some time mistakes
either you've made, you've seen other people make, and then how
do you learn from them so you don't repeat them?
Yeah, I, well, again, I think everybody probably has some,
some timeless mistakes or lessons, you know, and you know,
through, through the journey that I've been privileged to, to
go through, I, I've, I've made a lot.
So but, but you, you know, out of all of that, I think that
the, the timeless lesson I've got is that everything is
connected. Every one of us is connected and
everything that, that I do and everything that we do as a
company has an impact that ripples across our customer
base, our, the families of our employees, absolutely
everything. So while we have to make
decisions that are based on the immediate, you know, imperative
that has to get accomplished, we have to be so mindful that every
one of those decisions has a ripple effect.
And, and, and whether it might feel like it's the right
decision at the time and get a short term gain, it will bite us
in this in the ass if it's not the right decision.
So. That we've always been the
small, not, you know, we're often more times than not the
small guys in the street that don't have as much capability,
that don't have as much capital, that don't have as much.
And we're seeing it again. You know, there's lots of big
voices out there. There's lots of big capital out
there. There's lots of, oh, you should
be doing this, you should be doing that.
You don't, you know, and we, you know, we're, we're gonna, we're
gonna stay our course. We're gonna listen to that
people out there that that have that same ethos and and I do
believe that at the end of the day that that will result for
our shareholders in US, you know, certainly being in a multi
billion dollar organization. Yeah, no, I absolutely love
that. OK, let's talk about leadership.
So what makes a great leader, and what are some lessons you've
learned along the way about leadership that you'd like to
share with the audience? Get out of the way, get out of
the way. Every everybody has leadership
capability. And so I think for a long time,
most of my life, I have personally thought, you know, I
need to be the leader. I need to be front and center.
I need to, you know, if I'm not doing it all, then, you know,
I'm, I'm not worth being here. Like I'm going to get replaced
or I'm going to get whatever. And, and when I finally got old
enough to, to, to garner from the lessons that, that, you
know, I had the privilege to get pounded into my head over and
over over the decades, is that the more I let go with, with
great people around us, the more I let go and I let them lead,
the better the solutions are. The like, it just works like
that. And at the end of the day, you
know, my decision is, is do I want this to work or, or do I
want to try to look good? Like, I hate to say it, that's,
that's just my pure vanity coming out And, and but that's
and, and I want it to work. I just want it to work.
So if, you know, I keep that in mind as a leader, like what's
going to make this work? That the, the, the next right
decision seems to just present itself.
And I can't argue with that decision.
The second I start justifying something, I know I'm
bullshitting myself. So just get out of the way.
Is is, you know, do my part but get out of the way.
Yeah, I think it's absolutely brilliant.
So let's talk about these life lessons In order to becoming
successful people, successful people have to learn how to
overcome adversity and handle adversity.
I noticed something you just mentioned right there, which I
just had a conversation with my father about earlier, going
through difficult things. I said I'm grateful for those
lessons of those that adversity because that made me who I am
today. I learned from them so on and so
forth. And you just mentioned that as
well as literally today I had that conversation this morning.
So how do you handle adversity and what are some obstacles you
had to overcome along the way that you like to share with the
audience? Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm going to
say this and I want to make sure it doesn't come off trite
because it isn't. And it's, it's taken, you know,
57 years for me to, to get to the spot where I actually truly
feel and, and believe this. But, you know, I'm, I'm a bit of
a fitness guy. I like, I love the fitness and
everything else. And so the, the analogy is, you
know, I, I absolutely cannot get stronger, be more capable, live
longer, be a better dad, you know, because I have young kids
and as an old guy, unless I, I have good physical fitness and
good physical fitness is hard and it's painful.
And if I don't go through that pain, I'm not going to be good
at what I do. So very, and I really like there
is not a probably not. Well, this is, I'm sure this
isn't true, but I would like to think that there's probably not
a moment of frustration that I now feel that I don't recognize
it. As you know, this is part of my
opportunity that this is part of This is why I'm going to be
better tomorrow. It's because I'm not treating
this piece of frustration that I'm dealing with or whatever it
is as like this is my workout and this and and I got to be
grateful for this in the moment, not after the fact when it
worked out or it wasn't going to be as bad as I thought it was
going to be. And you know, like, you know,
worry is so much worse than reality.
But like in that moment where I'm getting yelled at because
somebody thinks I'm an idiot because I did something wrong or
I, you know, whatever they like. OK, No, like this, this is me
doing another push up or this is me, you know, being, being able
to be a better husband or be able to be a better father
because I or Better Business person in this situation,
because I've, I've got to treat this opinion that I'm getting or
whatever with respect and deal with it like own my own side of
the street and just like be grateful for that, for that
adversity. I mean, that's the only, there
have been only a few but a few moments in my life where I,
where I'm like, I don't have any problems at this moment.
I, I got to tell you if, if those would have lasted more
than 10 minutes, I'm sure I'd be depressed.
So I, yeah, be grateful for that for for the shit that we got
through. Seriously, OK, I love that, and
being conscious enough and aware enough to do it in real time I
think is a superpower. So hats off to you again, That's
fantastic. All right, Cam, final question
for you. What is the best piece of advice
you'd like to give the audience or your 30 year old self?
Well, I don't think I'm qualified to give anybody
advice, but I but if I were to look back at me when I was 30,
now maybe shut the fuck up and listen.
Like who, who do you think you are?
Like you're, you're, you're like, everybody is scared.
Everybody is like trying to make it work.
Like the world doesn't revolve around anything.
It revolves around everything. So, you know, like, enjoy that,
like accept that as the fact and, and you know, and, and the
reality is there, there are people in the world that a big
part of the world do revolve around.
I mean, they're massive personalities.
And, and I always thought that that's what I want it to be.
And I have so much more peace not being that person, right,
like being a part of rather than being it.
So I I would probably say that that to him, you know, learn to
enjoy being a part of it's it's the greatest privilege is
belonging it. Really is I can't absolutely
fantastic. Ten stars out of five.
Thank you so much for taking the time and speaking with me today
and hopefully we'll have you on again soon.
Congrats on all your success. Yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you.