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Hey, that's my million dollar idea!

I spied this story on the Stuff website this morning.

"Hey, that's my million dollar idea" (although very poorly implemented) I thought to myself.

Indeed, I've been quietly working on just such a device (allocating tidbits of spare time) for a couple of years now while wearing my UAV Aerospace hat.

It's a great concept and, thanks to the (now) ready availability of hi-capacity lightweight batteries, accelerometers, MEMs gyros etc, it's entirely practical.

Of course *my* hovering camera platform has a couple of major features that the one shown in the Stuff article is lacking and my target price is about half the $50K they're talking about there.

However, this once again shows the price we pay (as a nation) for the lack of a decent venture capital infrastructure and sci-tech friendly tax system.

Quite frankly, what I'd love to do is start a company that employed skilled Kiwis to develop a number of my (and others') "million dollar" ideas.

Let's just look at that flying platform for a moment and examine the market for it...

Firstly, it's the perfect tool for news agencies.

I got all excited about the prospects for this product when I saw the warehouse fire in Waikato being shown on TV.

The state broadcaster was obviously spending a *lot* of money to hire a helicopter to hover "near" the burning warehouse and get some stunning live footage. If you've ever hired a helicopter capable of taking more than two people aloft, you'll see what I mean by "a *lot* of money" - these things are not cheap.

Imagine if the same TV crew could have simply pulled a flying camera platform from out of their car and had it climb into the air over the fire to get equally stunning footage at no risk to human life and at a tiny fraction the cost.

Such a device becomes even more useful at the scene of an accident or in the case of a civil emergency (when all the helicopters are probably being used for other things anyway).

Whichever network had the flying camera platform would be the one that got the best footage and probably got the best viewer ratings as a result. This means that if TVNZ bought one, TV3 would have to follow suit, as would Prime/SkyTV and maybe even Maori TV.

Not a big market?

Well let's not forget about exports. Just look at the number of national, regional and local TV broadcasters there are in the USA alone -- then there's the rest of the world.

It's not just broadcasters who'd find such a device a "must-have". Think about law enforcement...

Whenever there's an armed siege situation, police could deploy one (or more) of these devices to silently hover above the scene so as to get a perspective that could not otherwise be obtained.

In fact, the potential applications for a $25K flying platform are many and varied.

I figure that in order to get my design to the market I'd need another 6-12 months during which another programmer would be needed to cut some user-interface code (because *this* flying platform doesn't require you to "fly" it in the way that lower-tech $50K one in the Stuff story does) and about $100K (over and above the programmer's salary).

The end result would be something ready for commercialisation with a manufacturing cost of around $7K-$8k and a retail of around $25K.

Give the size of the market and the lack of competition that has the unique selling feature that differentiates mine from "the rest" it sounds like a winner doesn't it?

So why haven't I finished this project?

Well it's all down to priorities and funding.

As regular readers will know, I lost a significant chunk of last year looking after the old sheila (thanks ACC for ignoring us) and I've had to prioritise my activities based on the available funding (very minimal) and the quickest/easiest products to get to market.

This places the Flying Platform down the list because I didn't have $100K, a full-time programmer on staff and the additional financial resources required to properly market the thing in a way that would enable me to gain maximum leverage from its unique features before others in the market simply copied them.

Oh for a decent hi-tech angel/VC fund in NZ.

I wonder how many would be selling soon if there'd been a suitable supply of funds and resource to get this thing finished and marketed?

I figure there's a global market of at least $25m for these things -- and then you've got ongoing maintenance, replacements, upgrades, repairs etc, all of which mean a strong ongoing revenue stream for the foreseeable future.

Sometimes you just have to smile and say "que sera sera" I guess -- even though, deep down inside you're saying "bugger, bugger, bugger".

Rolls out plans for a jetpack powered by jam jars, some baking soda, a splash of water plus a 12V battery and thinks "this'll attract the investors" (kidding!).

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