In this episode of Executive with a Cause, host Tammy Ven Dange chats with Debbie Saunders, founder and CEO of Wildlife Drones.
Pesky parrots inspired Dr Debbie Saunders to establish this innovative approach to animal tracking, which has evolved from a research project to a social enterprise. In this episode, we chat about her financing journey, deciding between an NFP or business model approach, data opportunities and expanding into the US market.
Having participated in funding rounds, Debbie describes how financial independence was a key incentive when considering whether to establish the organisation as a Not for Profit or business model. We also discuss growth opportunities for Wildlife Drones, particularly in the potential for subscription-based offerings and their increasing headcount coinciding with their foray into the US market. Finally, we hear about the organisation’s access to data and how this can provide a dual purpose in improving their product and providing conservation insights.
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IT in Plain English
This week’s segment answers the question, ‘What is an API or an Application Programming Interface?” If you find that your legacy systems are having difficulties sharing data, understanding this technical term may help you with investment decisions.
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Topics from this episode:
- 0.00 | Introduction
- 01.00 | The origins of Wildlife Drones
- 07.41 | Finding a team
- 10.47 | Raising funds
- 16.31 | Making a business case
- 19.31 | Customer base
- 22.25 | Product and service offerings
- 25.05 | Financial sustainability
- 32.31 | Using data
- 34.50 | Expanding to the US
- 36.00 | Employee base
- 37.10 | Future plans
- 39.15 | Connecting with the organisation
- 40.11 | IT in Plain English
Quotes from Debbie in this episode:
“We’ve developed a unique sensor that can be attached to an off-the-shelf drone that tracks animal movements. The reason we came up with this idea was that I’m a wildlife biologist by trade. For my research on endangered birds, we really needed to find out where these birds were going and what they were doing, and they’re really dynamic in their movements, but we had no way of tracking them.”
“It originally started out as a research project where I was the ecologist. I was looking at the bird and its environment, and I sought out people who knew drones. I really wanted to develop the radio tracking side of it. I didn’t want to reinvent a drone, although this was a very long time ago, and there weren’t many around. I just sought out people, and we applied for funding, and it took several years actually before we could get someone to believe in the idea of radio tracking from a drone. And then we finally got the funding. We proved it was possible and were the first people in the world to do so.”
“The people I worked with were field roboticists. They were really only interested in the robotics side of things. I was interested in the radio tracking, and, like, I didn’t think we needed robots out there just yet. I don’t think people were ready for that. This was back in 2011. I really wanted to focus on the radio tracking part and make it an accessible tool before we got robotic.”
“It’s probably one of the most unique in the world in that we actually track the animals from a distance. So we listen; it’s a listening drone. So it’s listening for signals. The signals are going ‘beep, beep’, it’s the same signal that we’ve been listening to, but the payload does the listening for them instead. It actually needs to get a direction. It would do triangulating to locate the animal. It will listen for a signal in all directions and then put an arrow on a map in real-time showing it’s that way. And then we don’t fly the drone following the arrow. We fly perpendicular to that arrow.”
“We also needed a marketing person—someone who could actually let people know what we were doing. I had a student who was doing Science Communication, and she volunteered for us for a while, which was like, none of us were getting paid for a couple of years. And, and she was fabulous. But we were able to help her with her degree as well. She was able to advance her career by doing stuff with us. But then we got to a point where we really hit a ceiling in terms of the technology core knowledge in the team.”
“I asked around amongst my friends, and I was very fortunate to have a software engineer as a friend who said, ‘oh, look, would you like me to audit the code?’ I’m like, ‘yes, that’s exactly what I need.’ Because at the moment, we can’t tease anything apart, so we can’t fix it if something goes wrong. He audited the code for me, and he was like, ‘the bad news is that it’s as bad as you think.’”
“So, you just had to really put your faith in the knowledge of the different people that you’re relying on at different times. But we got to a point where we knew what we wanted to do.”
“And so it was going quite well. And then, right when I thought I was going to close the round, I dropped to the bottom of their priority list. And I was like, no no no! I had everything; I had contractors lined up to do the UI, had software engineers lined up to join the team. I was going to employ my marketing intern, so she could be employed by me as well. I also needed a salary to pay the rent.”
“I then reached out to my mentors, who I also met at these Canberra innovation events. I just said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go. She said, ‘Look, just go talk to your other investors that you were talking to and tell them what you just told me, okay?’ Then I did, and it was amazing.”
“The data has always been there as like a long-term goal. That is one of the key things. As we offer more and more capability in the cloud and the data services, then there’s add-ons to subscriptions that people can have to add extra value to their project.”
Links & Resources
- Connect with Debbie on Linkedin
- Visit Wildlife Drones’ website and read their case studies
- Follow Wildlife Drones on Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube
Other Episodes Mentioned in this Show
- Watch our interview with Jim Lynch of Zealandia
Credits
Thanks to our Producer, Nick Whatman, and the entire team at Lonsdale St. Studio. Thanks also to our Digital Content Creator, Laura Kleinrahm.
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today she helps NFPs with strategic IT and data decisions with her business, Roundbox Consulting.