The Vertical Space
The Vertical Space is a podcast at the intersection of technology and flight, featuring deep dives with innovators, early adopters, and industry leaders.
We talk about the radical impact that technology is creating as it disrupts flight, enabling new ways to access the vertical space to improve our lives - from small drones to large aircraft. Our guests are operators and innovators across the value chain: airframers, technologists, data and service providers, as well as end users.
The Vertical Space
#2 Jesse Kallman: use cases and building a business in AAM
Our guest today is Jesse Kallman, an accomplished aviation executive with broad experience in the unmanned aviation industry. We invited Jesse to speak on the podcast because he’s been a part of the commercial drone industry from its very beginning and he also founded and led a geospatial business within a large aerospace OEM, so for the entrepreneurs in our audience, his perspective and advice is very valuable. Among other things, you’ll hear Jesse talk about the early days at Airware, a pioneering drone software company, including some key takeaways for founders and investors from the company’s eventual collapse. Jesse also talks about the importance of understanding the customer problem and quantifying the value proposition, even for things that are difficult to quantify, like customer service or customer satisfaction. We touched on many other topics, including commercial drone use cases, state of the industry, how to think about crafting a compelling product offering, and also about building autonomous aircraft.