Happy Thursday!

I'm building a private community called TKOwners for people who want to turn all these insights into real businesses. We have a slack channel where we drop insane AI tools and possibilities everyday. If you're serious about staying ahead of this AI revolution, check it out at tkowners.com. It's where the hundreds of action-takers hang out.

Okay, let’s get into it:

I interviewed a guy named Mike last week. We hit it off like crazy. He grew up Amish and started a drone business four years ago with basically nothing. Last year he did over $32 million in revenue. The market he's operating in is still 94 - 97% untapped.

The business is agricultural drone spraying. Your eyes might glaze over because you don’t know how to fly a drone.. but these machines are insanely self sufficient these days. They are fully automated so you set a mission on your phone, hit go, and the drone takes off, drops to the correct altitude, sprays the field, and comes back when the battery is low or the tank is empty. You swap the battery, refill the tank, and it goes again. Mike described it as being air traffic control. You're watching screens and managing logistics. You can spray an entire field without ever touching the control sticks.

If you like being outside, making crazy amounts of money fast, and have half of an ability to sell (or work with someone good with sales) this biz is perfect for you. And if you want more info, get the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. It’s a banger.

What is Agricultural Spraying?

Farmers spray their crops (with pesticides, fertilizers, etc.) every season. Corn, soybeans, cotton, onions, pasture land…. About 40% of the US is farmland. And until now, farmers have always used ground rigs, crop dusters, planes, and helicopters. Those are expensive, slow, and limited by terrain and weather.

You can now show up with a spray drone. The DJI T-100 drone carries 26 gallons and flies automated missions over their fields. The drone maintains exact altitude, turns at the tree line, and comes back every four to six minutes to swap a battery. The farmer supplies his own chemicals. You mix, spray, and invoice.

Numbers:

You can charge $8 to $20 per acre depending on the crop and terrain. In fields a crop duster can't reach, Mike charges $20 to $25 because there's no other option. Farmers pay it without hesitation.

Operating costs run $3 to $3.74 per acre. At $10 per acre you're sitting at roughly 70% gross margins. Mike made $132,000 in 24 days on a single spray run. Another job netted him $65,000 in eight days. His first ten weeks doing this he cleared $50,000.

The product sells itself on demonstration. The traditional method, planes and crop dusters are faulty. They have to pull up at the tree line and spray from 100 feet in the air, missing the corners of every field. Drones can get right to the edge, turn around, and comes back. And they have much cheaper operating costs- so you can price match and still make out high higher margins.

Getting Started

Two licenses stand between you and your first paying job:

The equipment is financeable. Mike's first customer paid him $6,500. Your first job covers your down payment and more. The business funds itself from day one.

One thing worth knowing: heavy-lift agricultural drones require an FAA exemption that takes three to four months to process. Mike's company built a program where new buyers can operate under their existing certification within ten days of purchase while their own paperwork clears. So you're not sitting on equipment you can't fly.

This isn’t sponsored, but Mike’s company nuWayAg sells drones, trains flyers, helps new sprayers with compliance, everything. It’s a good place to start.

A farmer calls at 9am while you're already out in a field. You miss it. By noon he's booked someone else. That's a recurring customer worth tens of thousands of dollars a season, gone because nobody picked up.

HighLevel's AI Employee fixes this. The moment an inquiry comes in, a missed call, a web form, a text, it responds, qualifies the lead, and books the appointment on your calendar automatically. You're out spraying acres and the business is still selling itself back at the office.

Follow-ups run completely on their own too. Farmer got a quote and went quiet? HighLevel nudges him three days later. Most of those conversions never happen without a system catching them. And my readers get a huge deal- go to gohighlevel.com/tkopod for a 30-day free trial.

Getting Your 1st Customer

Mike started by driving his rig to a local co-op, where farmers buy their seed and chemicals. His drones were sitting on the trailer, nothing staged or sales-y. He said tons of farmers walked over and couldn't stop asking questions.

You don't want to explain drone spraying over the phone. You show up with the equipment, ask to do a demo, and spray water over a corner of their field. Walk them down to crop level and show them the droplets landing on the plant. Once a farmer sees it working, the conversation is basically over. You're not selling them on a new expense. You are replacing something they already pay for every year, and your tool is more precise, works in tighter terrain, and operates in wet conditions when nothing else can get into the field.

Mike said close rate goes through the roof the moment they see the drone turn around at the tree line and come right back.. because the typical crop duster/ plane misses that. The ground rig can't even get there. You can.

Recurring Revenue

Corn gets sprayed at least once a year, sometimes twice. Pasture land runs a multi-year maintenance cycle, knock out the invasive plants first, then return every couple of years to keep control. Cotton gets sprayed once a week until harvest. Onion fields, once a week for six to eight straight weeks.

Every customer you land comes back automatically. You're not out hunting new business every month. You build a route and you run it. Mike said the only accounts he's ever lost were ones where he personally sold a spray rig to an entrepreneur nearby who then started competing for the same fields. The natural churn on this business is essentially zero.

Start This Week: 1st, pull up Google Keyword Planner and search "custom pesticide applicator" and "crop spraying service" in your area. If search demand is real and competition is thin, you've found your market. And you don’t have to stay in your area. Sprayers can print money by starting up north and taking the couple of spraying months to travel south with the need.

Once you see the opening, get your Part 107 study materials. Call a local co-op and ask if they'd be open to a free demonstration when you're up and running. You don't need equipment yet to start building relationships and warming up the market. Show videos. Talk to people. Make connections. Get emails.

I’m not exagerating. Mike was literally driving a horse and buggy not that long ago. And he made $50,000 his first ten weeks doing something almost nobody had heard of. The market is 94% untapped and it's not slowing down. Go find an open area, then go get your first customer.

You can just do things.

And again- if your interest is as piqued as mine is, you can get way more info on the full episode I did with Mike: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Have a great week!

Chris

P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.