Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Damman.
Hi Jason, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up building and flying radio-controlled airplanes in rural Northwest Ohio. I got a private pilot license at age 18, and at the age of 22, was hired as a commercial airline pilot in 2001. I moved to Cleveland, Ohio (where the airline had a base), and for the next 20 years, was flying all over the North American continent. During my time off work, I was a DJ in Cleveland clubs in the 2000s and also got into digital photography.
In 2016 I bought a drone and started experimenting with aerial photography and video and set up a website to showcase it. And that’s how V1DroneMedia, my drone services business, was born. It was a legitimate side-gig for several years: I started getting drone jobs, which gradually increased in volume every year as various industries were adopting drone technology. Around 2018-2019 I began to seriously consider leaving the airlines to pursue drones full time, as the pilot lifestyle was wearing on me. My wife was also burning-out in her corporate marketing career, having a hard time balancing her demanding job and family life with 2 young children and elderly immigrant parents (and my constant traveling wasn’t helping matters either.
As it turns out, the universe made that decision for me in 2020. I was grounded from my airline job at the start of the pandemic and never went back (the airline went out of business in October 2020). My wife and I took the V1DroneMedia drone services business full-time in 2020, with me as a chief drone pilot and her as a marketing and business development lead.
Currently, we provide aerial photography, videography, general video production, aerial mapping, inspections, and drone data collection for Marketing, Advertising, TV/Film production, commercial real estate development, construction, and engineering industries
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest challenge with the drone business, in particular, is that this technology is new, and the regulations are constantly being updated by FAA. That requires educating law enforcement and public and private opinion on safety and privacy and the legitimacy of our drone operations. Luckily, my airline background and expertise in national airspace FAA regulations help me. I also train first responders to fly drones in the Cleveland area. Also bringing new technology to ‘old-school’ industries can be an uphill battle, with a lot of skepticism attached to this innovative tool (drone), even though, in many cases, it increases the efficiency of operations by cutting costs, improving workplace safety, and completing jobs faster than the established workflows do.
Outside of drone-specific struggles, as many entrepreneurs, we face everyday chaos of wearing many hats in the business and never being able to ‘turn off’ work (as you can when you work for someone else).
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about V1DroneMedia, LLC?
As a drone services business, we specialize in aerial videography and photography and its use for marketing purposes. However, what sets us apart from other drone service providers, is that we are a one-stop shop for video marketing services: we have the marketing expertise to consult clients on what type of content to produce based on their business goals due to my wife’s brand management and marketing for demand generation expertise, FAA regulations knowledge and exceptional drone flight skills due to my aviation background, and we provide full video production services in addition to aerials (i.e., ground videography/photography, and 360 video/photo ). We also edit the footage into finished digital assets for marketing use to our clients (for social media, website, customer presentations, etc.) What’s more, we help to make video production services affordable for businesses that couldn’t previously use them because even a small video shoot with a traditional video production agency can cost tens of thousands of dollars and can run into hundreds, if not millions, due to layers of full-time employees and very expensive equipment. Advances in camera and drone technology and small video production agencies like ours are making access to professional video more affordable. We bring our services to small and medium-sized businesses or industries that previously didn’t use video marketing as social media wasn’t used in their marketing efforts like it is now (for example, for construction companies, commercial real estate, and commercial outdoor services like landscaping, roofing, paving, etc.).
However, what we are most proud of, is that we get routinely contracted to fly our drones for large TV and Film productions that come to Cleveland. These shoots include aerial cinematography for the NFL 2022 Draft programming on NFL Network and ESPN networks, shooting footage for Netflix, HBO, UFC, Fox Sports, National Geographic, and other large productions.
What’s next?
We have been growing every year since we’ve been in business and will continue on that trajectory because of the growing demand for drone services from various industries. We are also starting to acquire more clients that use drones outside of marketing: for drone data collection and site visualization services for progress monitoring, aerial inspection, situational awareness, mapping, 3D modeling, and digitization of work environments. The drone industry is constantly changing, and we plan on experimenting with offering new services as the new use cases get introduced. We also teach drone training classes in the Cleveland area for first responders and the general public (and have some free resources for aspiring drone pilots available on our website and YouTube channel), in which we help anyone get the necessary knowledge to get their commercial drone license, enabling them to participate in the commercial drone industry. As we grow, we will need more pilots, so we hope one day to create jobs for some of those individuals that go through our training!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.v1dronemedia.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/v1dronemedia
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/v1dronemedia
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRep08Pz-l4JcSDQLrfBiQw
- Other: https://linktr.ee/V1DroneMedia
Image Credits
V1DroneMedia, LLC
