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.