We’re Building the Commuter Experience of the Future
“The industry has focused on safely getting new types of electric aircraft in the air, but winners in this market will differentiate themselves based on customer experience.”
McKinsey & Company
Greetings Doroni family,
The above quote and the corresponding blog post from McKinsey & Company—laying out what the Advanced Air Mobility customer journey could potentially look like in striking detail—triggered memories about the founding our company, the vision we’re trying to achieve, and what we believe AAM and Urban Air Mobility will come to look like in the next few years and in the decades to come.
The Inspiration Behind Doroni Aerospace
The moment of inspiration behind the founding of the company occurred some 6 years ago, when finding myself stuck in gridlocked traffic, I found my eyes drawn through the windshield to something flying in the airspace just above the highway. It was a drone, hovering there over lanes of traffic and moving with freedom to-and-fro that starkly contrasted with the bumper-to-bumper traffic below. I suddenly began imagining myself going vertical, just like the drone, and cruising over traffic to get to my destination with a new, unheard of sense of freedom.
That was the moment Doroni was born.?
I had always been a creative kid who built RC planes and helicopters, raised on visionary movies like Blade Runner and cartoons like The Jetsons where flying cars were just an accepted part of the milieu, so I suppose it’s no surprise I found myself now at the head of a company trying to make them a reality.? I was driven to an education focused on electronics and computers, which opened the door to my service in the Israeli Air Force, honors from the NYU Stern School of Business, and design and manufacturing during the formative years of 3D printing technology.
Advanced Air Mobility + Customer Experience
The above McKinsey & Company blog post explains that—although now much of the public attention is focused on the development of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts (eVTOLs), certification processes, and getting commercial operations up and running—ultimately as the industry matures, the focus will shift to operations and strategies for acquiring and retaining customers.?
At the end of the day, it’s the companies that prioritize customer experience that will be in the best position to capture value and grow, based on the 35-50% value attributed from AAM segments that involve direct customer interactions—namely mobility platforms and infrastructure.?
“Putting the customer at the center of advanced air mobility” frames the customer’s air taxi journey from start to finish in this way: researching the trip on a mobility platform, traveling to a vertiport, connecting modes of transport, moving through the vertiport, and resolving any issues that crop up in real-time.
The article goes list 5 considerations for AAM operators to consider, which could potentially make a sizeable impact, namely:
The Doroni Customer Experience
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I founded the company and assembled this team back in 2016 largely because I asked myself a very simple question: what’s stopping me from doing this now. And at the end of the day, in addition to our mission of democratizing flight and making it more accessible to the masses, we are building the Doroni H1 eVTOL because we want one. What will come to be known as the “Doroni Customer Experience” is being created today by each and every member of the Doroni team—we are the company’s first customers.
It seems to be generally agreed upon by most of the largest air taxi developers working to get commercial operations up and running that their customer experience will probably look as McKinsey & Company lays it out, or something very similar to it.?
Where Doroni differs, however, is that we believe this commuter experience will be much more personal.?
The Commuter Experience of the Future
We believe that in addition to air taxis that ferry passengers from congested urban population centers to transportation hubs and airports, or even between neighboring cities, the general public will eventually have more access and more say in their own personal mobility.?
We believe that the transformative technology that eVTOLs offer should not, and ultimately will not solely be in the hands of the largest air taxi operators in the country and in the world. We envision a world in which anyone can purchase their own personal eVTOL to commute and fly, much the same way they would a Light Sport Aircraft. We see a world where people are spending minutes in the air to reach their destination rather than hours behind the wheel of a car.?
Clearly, this vision has a multitude of considerations to account for, including regulations, takeoff and landing vertiport infrastructure, as well as flight traffic over populated areas. But, it’s certainly possible, the technology is here, and there is a growing need.?
Doroni Aerospace’s Role
We are building the next iteration of the commuter experience with our development of the H1 eVTOL platform. As CEO/Co-Founder, it’s my mission to bring safe and consumer-first air transportation to the industry and the world. Our team has the experience, technical ingenuity, and drive to help get the industry off the ground, and we’re targeting a Light Sport Aircraft certification with the FAA ahead of our product launch in the second half of 2024.?
Once complete, the H1’s easy-to-use control system, intuitive flight design, and quick deployment will completely revolutionize the way we commute. What’s more, it will change the way we respond to emergencies and natural disasters, the way we ship goods, and the way we support our military and law enforcement.?
We also just completed our first crowdfunding raise on StartEngine.com, reaching our $1.07M max offering early, and recently achieved a new company valuation of $159M, up from the previous $14M.?
This is just the beginning, Doroni family—there’s no ceiling to how far we can climb!
Keep soaring,?
Doron