It's Monday.
Storm season is ramping up, roof claims hit $30 billion last year, and the most interesting business opportunity hiding in plain sight doesn't require a single line of code.
Let's get into it.
In Todays Edition, TL;DR
The $360K/yr business hiding above everybody's head
A 20 year old dropout making $150K with birthday cake software
Alex Hormozi's filter for cutting through the noise
A Claude guide I might be building. tell me if you want it
The Monday Idea
💡 Drone Roof Inspections: The Most Profitable Business Nobody’s Talking About
The Problem: Did you know Roof claims hit $30 billion in 2024. Someone has to inspect all of them. That someone is supposed to be an insurance adjuster. But 50% of the insurance workforce is retiring in the next 15 years or so, and nobody under 35 is rushing to replace them. Nobody wants to be an adjuster and TBH its not an insult, It's an opportunity.
🛠 Solution: A drone roof inspection business. Get a $1,500 DJI drone, 15 minutes per roof, 50 to 60 photos, a compiled report, and an invoice. After a major storm event, I think you could clear $15,000 to $30,000 in a matter of days just knocking out inspections back to back.
No employees. No storefront. No inventory. You show up, fly, document, and get paid. This is a simple business model. It’s physical, boring, BUT profitable.
The Business Model: Three customer types
Insurance companies: They need documentation for claims, fast and cheaper than sending an adjuster.
Roofing contractors: They use drone assessments to quote jobs and document existing damage
Commercial real estate and property management: Ongoing inspection contracts for multi property portfolios.
Heres some napkin note math
5 inspections/day × $300 avg × 20 days = $30,000/month $30,000 × 12 = $360,000/year. Solo. No employees.
Hey I need your Opinion!
I've been getting a lot of questions lately about how I 10x my Claude to be more effective.
Not the basics, but more like setting up md files to give Claude context, connecting it to your tools, building agents, and unlocking the use cases most people don't know exist.
I'm thinking about putting together either a live webinar or a master reference doc covering all of it.
If that's something you'd find useful, hit me with a response on the poll below.
Would you be interested in a how to 10x Claude use guide?
How To Build This (In A Weekend)
Step 1: Get licensed and legal
So you need a FAA Part 107 certification to legally fly the drone for business operations. I’ve taken the test before. Honestly not hard. its a $175 test and covers airspace rules, weather, drone operations, and basic aeronautics. Once certified, register your drone with the FAA ($5)
You’ll also need commercial drone insurance which runs around $500 to $1,500 per year depending on coverage.
Step 2: Get the equipment
Drone: DJI Mavic 3 Pro or DJI Air 3. Both shoot high resolution photos and video, handle wind well, and are reliable enough for commercial work. Cost is $1,200 to $2,200.
Extra batteries: You need at least 3. One is never enough mid job. Add $200 to $400.
Laptop: You probably already own one. You'll use it for editing reports and sending invoices.
Report software: DroneDesk, Roofr, or EagleView generate professional inspection reports from your photos. Most run $50 to $150 per month.
All in: $2,000 to $3,500 to be fully operational. That's it.
Step 3: Get your first clients
This where most people prob give up. Id start local.
Call every roofing contractor in your city and offer a free demo inspection on one of their current jobs and give them a free report.
For insurance companies, find independent adjusting firms in your state, not the StateFarm or Aviva, calm down. Independent adjusters subcontract work all the time
Id check out Facebook ads as well. Spend $20-$30 bucks a day on one campaing with one ad set and maybe 2-3 ads. Business owners are on Facebook. trust me.
Step 4: Grow it
TBH the content angle for this business is unfair. idk what it is but people watch Drone footage. Post every job on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. No face required.
Just the footage. Before and after roof conditions, storm damage documentation, aerial property shots. These videos rack up views with zero creative effort because the content is genuinely interesting to watch.
That organic content also builds local SEO over time. Google is indexing YouTube videos aggressively. The more footage you post with location tags and relevant titles, the more you rank without paying for it.
Napkin Note Ideas
💡 Birthday Software. $150,000 a Year. Built by a 20-Year-Old Law School Dropout.
I saw this guy who dropped out of law school at 20 and vibe coded a tool that plugs into HR software, pulls employee birthdays, and automatically orders a cake. That's the whole product.
250 customers. $150,000 a year.
The Problem: HR managers at mid sized companies are buried in admin work. Nobody wants to be the person who forgot Gracie’s birthday. It's a small pain, but it's real, and someone has to deal with it every single week.
The Idea: Automate it. You could easily vibe code this, sell and connect this to HR departments and forget it. Cake shows up. HR manager looks like a hero and could easily write off that $50 expense every month. Now here's the important part.
Theres about 33 million small and mid sized businesses in the US and millions more globally. The existing tool has around 250 customers... thats not even .0001% of the TAM. Use this same idea, you're not competing with this existing business. You're just getting a piece of the cake.
No pun intended.
Weekly Gems Worth Reading
Alex Hormozi shared his signal to noise filter for cutting through startup advice online. If your information diet is a mess, this one's worth saving.
Did you know Kevin O’Leary thinks the highest paying job right now is…
American Businessman, Andrew Yang talked about how to “make it” and separate yourself in this AI era:
That’s all guys
That's a wrap for this one. A drone business and a market growing at 5x the rest of the economy. Not bad for a Monday.
And don't forget to hit the poll above. If enough of you want the Claude guide, I'll build it. Could be a webinar, could be a master doc. Either way it'll be worth your time.
We'll talk Friday.