Tenacious D(aniel) - How to give a high-tech product wings!

Last week, one of my buddies from the edge of innovation, Daniel Kraettli , sent me a message that made my day: His drone company had just signed a big deal for the delivery of a large badge of non-military drones. This truly exciting news brought back memories to rather humble beginnings starting some 15 years ago. And it reminded me once more, just how hard it really is to get to this point.

I first met Daniel when I was working at Leica Geosystems part of Hexagon . We were investigating the use of drones for various geomatics applications, and Daniel ran a one-man show out of a small garage close to our office. His drone concept was based on a Flettner dual rotor system, which promised to have a unique payload capability combined with brilliant flight dynamics. It was pretty obvious, even from the prototype, that this system had huge potential to carry our newly developed Leica RCD30, a camera designed for environmental mapping. Soon, I found myself with other volunteers from Leica on weekends in "Silicon Sevelen", working with Daniel and his growing team on the future of airborne mapping. During those days, we all experienced a true pioneering spirit: implement, test, review, then starting all over again. For every small success, there was at least a minor setback. And of course we fought an ongoing battle for funding, strategic direction and priorities. Oddly, to me, it was heaven. Eventually, the efforts paid off, and we had our first certified drone with an integrated Leica RCD30 camera for surveying and environmental mapping.

Unfortunately, my hopes of finding the first customer close to home were short-lived. Instead, the first mapping system was sold to the beautiful islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Given the logistics, the team left nothing to chance. Along with the equipment, we sent our most experienced staff, including a professional helicopter and UAV pilot. Soon, following a strict safety protocol, testing got under way at a military base. On Day 3, after two successful test days, the system dropped from 2000ft into the closed-off forest. On the hardware and in the flight data there were no obvious signs for the failure, so the team started a thorough investigation. Eventually, they found a tiny piece of dirt that was blocking one fuel pipe close to the engine and that must have gotten into the fuel tanks on the airbase. One week later, Daniel and his team had the fuel pipes equipped with filters to avoid this issue in the future. This was now some eight years ago.

Why am I telling you this?

For once, I always wanted to explain my grey hair! But on a more serious note, it shows how long it can take to bring such complex high-tech systems from idea to product and ultimately to profitability. And this is something decision makers simply should be aware of. There are a few other things that I think are important:

Failure: With most technical projects, failure is inevitably part of the road to success. The question is: "How do you deal with it?" From my own experience, I know that every project team I have ever worked with has asked themselves constantly: ”What else do we need to think of?” Not one project team has been negligent or not taken every measure to avoid failure, including the use of external consultants or experts. For Daniel, the Swiss Aviation Authority was a sparring partner early on, so were experts on rotor wings and aerodynamics. Yet, despite our best efforts, things went wrong in Trinidad. Remarkably, though, beyond the understandable reaction of a few upset sales managers, there was not one bad word from upper management! Maybe this was part of Leica Geosystem’s culture, which for decades has been shaping an entire industry with groundbreaking innovations (and certainly some failures). Or maybe we were just lucky to have managers, who themselves had been in similar positions and remembered how difficult it is to bring a new product to life. Either way, any such setback hits the team really hard, and when it happens, it is really comforting to have managers that know not to kick the dog when it is down.

Funding: It is clear: product innovation requires adequate funding, and the more complex a product is, the more funding it usually requires. However, I do not believe that funding solves everything. You only need to look to Silicon Valley, where at least until recently, funding was not a problem. Tesla, Uber, OpenAI all had solid funding and still took a relatively long time to have a scaleable product or to reach profitability. Closer to home, we can only imagine where Biontech would be without Covid. With high-tech products, money certainly helps, but can not solve all the challenges: things such as testing, certification, approval processes or preparing the markets simply do take time. Here, subject matter expertise is key. This is good news for all those in smaller companies, those that have to work with budget constraints or those that are unsure if they even should embark on an innovation project: If you have a winning idea, you can still succeed if you assemble a small formidable team with the right competencies and if your budget prioritises consistency and long-term vision over size and short-term success. This leads me to the last point:

Quitting: Along such a journey, the thought of giving up comes up from time to time. Within the team, frustrations often arise after a series of setbacks, differences of opinion or a non-supportive environment. From management, it is usually more a lack of perceived business progress, a change of priorities or a temporary FOLB. If that happens, I have found it useful to go back to the “Why?”. Assess with all stakeholders, if the business case and the unique value proposition for the product remain intact. If this is not the case, of course one has to stop. However, if they both remain valid, the best advice is to get everyone around the table and try to fix what is stopping the team from winning. Whatever it is, it always can be solved.

Because of this attitude, I have occasionally been called “too optimistic”. Yes, I am a professional optimist. But my optimism is not a cover up for not having a clue of what is really going on. Quite to the contrary: my optimism stems from an unwavering belief that, even when facing adverse conditions, problems can and will be solved. To me, this is the spirit of entrepreneurship. And together with all the other things that have to come right, it is this attitude that often makes the difference.

As Daniel and his team have demonstrated: If one applies all of the above rigorously, chances are really high, that even with a relatively small budget, a capable team can achieve truly great things! Onwards!