We know that this has been a burning topic for you so we’ll dig right into it.
Let’s first do a quick history geek out. We’re talking about the last 50-ish years of the Roman Republic: 88 BC to 31 BC. A near constant state of civil war. And civil war, as the Romans found out, is just not nearly as much fun as conquering the Gauls, Germans, Greeks, Spaniards, etc.
- Too Much Work. For starters, when you are fighting other Romans, it’s a lot more work. The Roman Legions were simply kick-ass military machines. And pitting one kick-ass military machine against the same kick-ass military machine meant that you couldn’t rely on the fact that the other side sucked. You had to work to do the killing.
- No Spoils of War. The Romans had this unwritten rule that there were no spoils of war in a civil war. And that really took the fun out of war because one of the most fun things for the Romans was to conquer a foe and take all of their gold – and they’d use that gold to pay the Legions. (Come to think of it, that’s pretty much true for anyone throughout history. What made the Romans unique was that they were so darn good at it.)
- Limited Supply of Soldiers. Because the civil wars lasted for 50+ years, they were running out of young men and that meant a limited supply of soldiers.
So they had this perfect storm of fun-killing: because it was too much work and there weren’t any spoils to be had from fighting, then the few young men available weren’t that interested. And that radically drove up the price of hiring young men to become soldiers.
And if your soldiers are expensive, then it is expensive for your soldiers to kill the other soldiers – or, in other words, you have a high-per-person “Cost of Death.” And when the Cost of Death is high, it just seriously dampens any enthusiasm for killing people. Sad faces all around.
That’s why by 31 BC, in the aftermath of the Battle of Actium, no one wanted to fight anymore. The Romans were functionally bankrupt. There was no more money to fund any more fighting. So the civil wars that had been raging for over 50 years finally ended and it ushered in the beginning of the Roman Empire. But don’t you worry. The Romans were fairly quick to get back to conquering other nations – and having fun again.
This is probably where you are wondering what all of this has to do with you, a drone operator. We’ve been wondering the same thing actually and, well, here’s what we came up with.
We’ve talked a lot about the Cost Per (Flight) Minute (CPM) metric here and here, but to sum it up quickly:
Fixed Price per Job. Most drone operators charge (and are paid) a fixed price for their work for each job.
Profitability. So in order to drive profitability, a drone operator must understand and then control the total cost, i.e., both its variable and fixed costs. This is the CPM.
Total Cost = CPM. This is everything. The cost of your batteries. The allocated time spent swapping batteries in and out. The cost of flying back and forth to the job site. The cost of your drone. Everything. You then divide that by the flight time of your drone. That’s the CPM. You can then compare your CPM for each of your drones and your jobs.
And, this is perhaps stating the obvious, but: just like the Romans (who were sad when the Cost of Death was expensive), if your CPM is high, then you will not be profitable. And you will be sad just like the Romans when they couldn’t kill non-Romans.
We also don’t think it is a huge stretch to also suggest that if your CPM is expensive, then it will cause a civil war and the fall of the United States Republic.
It’s therefore imperative that you lower your CPM. It just happens to be that you can do that by pre-ordering a Modovolo Lift quad configuration.
