#18 - Cat Orman, Co-Founder of Flyby Robotics

Podcast: Relentless
Source: whisper-base
Language: en
Duration: 1419s
URL: https://anchor.fm/s/e402cdc8/podcast/play/97230099/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-0-18%2F393300088-44100-2-2c49accdca5c4.mp3
Fetched: 2026-03-03 01:54:27

So I just turned my phone off, like, withdrew all of this, like, Bitcoin money that I now had. Told my parents I was going to the library, drove to a different town in Texas. I drove to Lexington, Texas. I don't know if you would possibly know where that is. Is it like a hundred miles away or something? Yeah, it's like, I don't know, it's like far. Um, and then just jumped out of a plane. This is my conversation with Kat Orman, one of the co-founders of Flyby Robotics, a drone startup based here in LA. I hope you enjoy. Let's start off with, uh, why has a DJI, like, dominated the drone market for the best 20 years? Ooh, okay. Yeah, so we wrote about this for no opinion earlier this year, but it kind of boils down to, I think, one, like, the easy answer is America, it doesn't have a Shenzhen, right? Like, that's kind of, that's the more relevant answer for everyone else that's building things that are not drones. The other answer is, like, the, kind of, like, the CCP has, the CCP has definitely worked to give China a deliberate advantage in drone manufacturing because I think they view these drones not just as, like, an industrial, like, manufacturing-based advantage, but also as a strategic asset for intelligence collection, in a way that, you know, that's not the same way that the American government has looked at, like, Skydo or 3D Robotics or any of these other ones. Why do you think the regulatory environment in the United States has kind of evolved the way it has? Oh, in terms of FAA stuff, or, yeah. So I think, I think the FAA, like, I think the FAA is definitely not as resistant to the idea of this stuff, like, like, operations over people, operations over moving vehicles, BVLAS, which is the biggest one, remote ID. They're definitely not as resistant to the idea of, you know, opening up the National Aerospace System as people think they are. I think it's just that, yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of like the whole doge thing, like, it's just the nature of bureaucracy. And I think there's no promotion for being the guy that says, yes, to something that ended up being really good economically. There's no upside to being that person, but there's a huge downside to being the person that said yes to something where there was a crash or it wasn't safe. Do you think that, like, Elon and Doge, once the new administration comes in, is going to kind of switch things up and make it easier for new drone startups? I mean, yeah, I think they've been pretty, they've been pretty pro at the NDA, countering CCP drones act to my knowledge. So, yeah, that's probably the biggest thing. I don't know if like, BVLAS regs are a priority for them. How did you and Jason meet? Oh, Jason. So Jason started, Jason started this thing that was like a sort of like a startup incubator at on Yale's campus. It was like matching under grads who were interested in startups with grad students who had startup ideas that they wanted to commercialize. And actually, when I met him, I got into that and then met him at it. And I thought he was like 27, which was for me that would have been like, super old person age at the time. Which really just goes to show that I thought he was very smart. Did you guys try to work on anything before Flyby? Yes, yeah. So we, we iterated on a couple of ideas in like the health tech space. I had sort of a hole. I had like a hole like neuroscience bio phase that was like way long ago before this. And then we originally started off on Flyby. We were retrofitting DJI drones. You mean like read Chinese spyware? We were retrofitting Chinese spyware to fly chicken sandwiches to our friends and other dorms. Why did you guys like go away from the consumer delivery model? Yeah. We, so like in the process of trying to build something ambitious on DJI. So first I'll speak to like why we perceive that there's such need for American made hardware, which is just purely like not from an ideological perspective, which is purely from like a practicality perspective. There's just the same way that you have the TikTok ban, you have the Huawei ban. You also have this thing in the drone space, which is the DJI ban, which is where this massive incumbent that takes like 90% market share in some of these sectors is getting booted out of the market because there's a concern about cyber security. And so there's this kind of unique opportunity where you really can't get an American made drone. A lot of these different use cases across the industrials, across consumer, also across military are all looking for American made hardware. And then the second reason why we thought it was so important to build flybays, we were hacking stuff on top of these DJI drones. We're trying to like build this autonomous use case on top of drones. We're realizing that nobody's making a drone that's a platform. So no one's making a drone where you can really have a modular payload where you can have ports that you would think that you would be able to have where you can configure it in different ways, just from a hardware perspective. And from a software perspective, they don't give you an SDK, they don't give you if they do it's very, very limited. There's not an open architecture and they don't give you any of the onboard compute that you would think that you would have. So it's super, super limiting. When we were developers, we felt super, super limited by what was out there already. And so in early 2023, we just put out like a spec sheet on a developer forum. We were like, this is kind of who we are. This is what we're thinking of building, something that has like this flight time, this payload, this form factor, can do these things. And we were just immediately unundited with people saying, you know, we need this. What was the response to that? Was it just 20 people saying, I wanna give you money? Yeah, and it was actually, I mean, it was so interesting because it was just, it wasn't just people that were doing like things with drones that have already been done before, but it was people who were building their own thing. So whether, you know, people like Palantir who built this GPS identification capability on top of the F11, people who were building their own things in the security space, people who were building their own things in mining and like mineral prospecting and hyperspectrals. So it was a lot of things that we just never heard about before. What is like the best and worst thing about having a co-founder? Ooh, good question. I have a ton of respect for Jason. I have not felt, I've not spent a lot of time thinking about bad, bad, any bad, anything about having a co-founder. Like I think that's, and it's a big reason why I've been able to do, like stick to something that has, you know, a hardware timeline is because, like, I like working for this person. I have like respect for this person. And I think it's another reason why Jason has recruited like really, really outstanding talent. I think he's very much an engineer's engineer and has built like a really, really strong team because he's not like a, you know, I think there are some founder archetypes that are not like move fast and break things, but I think there's, you know, if you ever watched like fundraising with hostility and rudeness from Silicon Valley, like there were like Bachman, where I don't know if you like know what I'm talking about. I think there's, like, I think maybe those people like don't have the, they have a lot of turn. And so Jason is not that guy. If he were in the room, why would, like why does he want to work with you instead of anyone else? Yeah, I think I was just like willing to, well, I guess, okay, maybe the best answer to that is I'm definitely like the yapper in chief. Like he doesn't want to do this, right? But I'm, this is the part that I would be more inclined to do. Like you kind of enjoyed championing the mission and he wants to be like, I was deep in the drum. Yes. Okay. What a role has like X played on your growth and like the company. Yeah, we've gotten a few, we've gotten a few customers from Twitter, the part and pound your burnership, like actually came from Twitter, which is great. So we, so the, the, the, the shom, the CTO pound here, saw one of our earlier tweets about just a demo and you know, kind of the mission, which was building an American made drone as a platform for machine learning. And they just DMed us and said like, hey, we've been, you know, we've, we've had a summer thesis for a long time. We've been looking for something in this vein for a long time. Can we like have one of your drones to play with and build something on? And the end result of that was this GBS 9.5 capability that we released a little bit earlier. How do you get that initial interest from them and then like, end up actually creating a partnership? There was, I mean, there was not too much conversation around it. I think they just, like, they were actively looking for it. I think they, like, really, really believe in the space, like they spend time every day talking to, you know, people who are operating these drones and every branch of the US military, other militaries, other just government, government agencies, like, I think they, they think a lot about, you know, tactical ISR, which is what the use case will be in, you know, situational awareness and all of that. And so I think they definitely did not take very much convincing that it was something that was worth building. And once they saw that, like, the tech was real, it flies well, like, everything is sort of architected the way that, you know, it's not, it's not paperware. It's like, yeah, it's right there. Yeah, it was like off to the races very quickly. I'd be curious to know why you decided to be a founder in the first place. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I think I was very, I was very interested in the idea of, like, going off on an adventure, I think, which I definitely got that. Like, that was the big thing that I was looking for in college and really just in general as a person and I definitely got it. What was the, like, arc of you growing up to deciding that that was kind of the trajectory? Did you have anyone that you, like, look up to or, you know, role models? Okay, I'll tell, I'll tell this, like, one story. So I had, when I was at high school, I was, I was writing SQL at this fund that was, like, in Austin. It was, like, a prop tech thing. And I had this boss who, this was probably, yeah, this was definitely the first person I knew that, I think he went on to start a company very soon after this. And he, like, I hope he sees this. He's so great. Was, he was, like, left handed and he would always write notes with pencil. And so he's constantly, he was, like, very, like, sort of, quirky, et cetera. Like, constantly, my hand and arm was, like, black. And he was also keto. And so we would all eat lunch together every single day. And he would just be, like, just, like, a full thing of cottage cheese, like, just a tub of cottage cheese. And he was so skinny. And so I was, like, this must really be working for you, even though you are eating just, like, just, like, just mainlining cottage cheese in this ridiculous way. And so, and he had taught me, like, a bunch of stuff, but one of the things that he was doing when he wasn't at this fund was, he was writing, like, a shitcoin training bot. All right. And this was, like, what? This was, like, junior year of high school. So I can't remember what, but, you know, this, this was my first exposure to Bitcoin. And I was, like, I was like, oh, Bitcoin. And I ended up, like, just putting my little internship salary, like, all into Bitcoin from that. What year was this? This was, like, my 20th, so this was 2016. Yeah, this was, this would have been 2016. And I, and then, like, fast-forward a year, it's, like, 2017, 2018, my senior year of high school was a good time for Bitcoin. And I was in this, this was, like, I mean, very, I think the through line here is very much, like, I wanted to be going on an adventure. But I was, this was my senior year of high school. I was walking out of an English final, and I was like, I was like so sick of being in high school. I was like, I was so ready for this to be over. And I was just very, you know, very, very annoying teenager of me. I was like, I'm not gonna let, like, I'm not gonna let this English final define, like, what my day is. And so I just turned my phone off, like, withdrew all of this, like, Bitcoin money that I now had. Told my parents I was going to the library, drove to a different town in Texas. I drove to Lexington, Texas. I don't know if you would possibly know where that is. Is it, like, like, a hundred miles away or something? Yeah, it's, like, I don't know, it's, like, far. Um, and then just jumped out of a plane. And I did, I did, like, this whole, I did, like, tandem skydiving, and then I did this whole, like, solo skydiving thing. Um, and end up getting, like, my AFF cert. You went and just, like, randomly decided to go skydiving and then you got a certification to do backflips out of a plane? Oh, it's just, like, you're, it's like your AFF cert, which is just how you're clear to do solo like without a coach. I can't, I'm totally blanking on what AFF actually stands for, but it's the certification to go, like, without a coach. And they do this, they do this thing where, like, first they go with you, but then they're not attached to you and then they're, like, you're doing this trip and that trip and they teach you how to, like, land it and, like, find where the runway is, which is, at times, challenging. Um, and, uh, yeah, I was just very much, like, that was, like, that was, like, 18-year-old cat. I was just very much in the mindset of, like, I want to be on an adventure. Did you do any other, kind of, sporadic random adventures like that before starting this company? The summer of our college, I was in, um, I was living on Les Fos. Um, I was living in this, like, little village and it was called Scholistic Aménias, um, in Greece and it was, uh, I was doing this. I had, like, a, I had, like, this, not, like, a first responder, but I had this, like, minor, um, it was, like, a wilderness first responder certification from, like, doing backpacking trips and, uh, I was working with this organization that is basically life guarding refugee crossings into the EU, um, from Turkey. And so there's this, like, there's this huge problem where, uh, usually when people are trying to make that crossing, um, they're working with, like, coyote types who are, um, I mean, it's just extraordinarily unsafe and they're, they're coming in, like, boats that are, like, duct taped together, like, uh, they usually can't swim a lot of times. They have, like, yeah, a lot of times they have life jackets that, like, they think they're wearing life jackets, but they're not really, they're actually made of material that takes on water. Like, they're just, they're just not real life jackets at all. And so a ton of people drown. It's like, very, very, very sad. A ton of people die trying to do the crossing every year. So this, this organization that I was with, um, uh, like, lifeguards, the crossing and, like, rescues people. Did you decide, like, was this the first company that you tried to start, or did you use any, or, like, Bitcoin money to start any other things before this? I feel like that's, yeah, it's almost, like, insulting, do you even, like, mention that in this thing? What is, like, actually, like, you'd be shamed. I know, I know, really, yeah, um, no, like, this was, I, yeah, this was our, our sort of first go around. I mean, other than the delivery thing. Where do you think, where do you think, like, this company will be in 10 years, um, building a lot of drones? Yeah, I mean, the actual answer to that is, like, there's kind of two plays here. Like, one, there's this, um, like, I think, I think right now, there's this massive opportunity to, you know, take market share away from DJI, um, that's, you know, the only, the person that's going to win about doing that is, is somebody that, you know, jumps in right now that is positioned to, like, really, really focus on hardware and be obsessed with hardware. I think that's, you know, that's one of the better answers to, like, why DJI is where it is, is that, um, like, that they were just truly, truly, except, obsessed with the hardware design in a way that, um, in a way, the way that very few people are, I think it's like, you know, Steve Jobs level, um, over there. And so I think, like, where we are right now is very much focused on the hardware, like, focused on getting drones out the door, focusing on, like, building this sort of hardware as a mode, like, uh, opportunity, um, and then the second thing is, like, we're building, you know, we're kind of building drones as a platform for machine learning. And so there's this software play that's on top of that, the translator. And I think the, um, like, seeing what, you know, partners, like, Palantirans and more other developer partners build on top of the platform will define, like, the, like, the really massive things that the drone will be able to do in five years down the road. Are you worried at all about, like, other startups or are you just like, I kind of think I've talked to the bunch of different drone companies and they're all just going in different directions to be honest. Um, yeah, that's like, that's a very, um, it doesn't feel like they're competitors to be quite honest. That's such a good point. And I think there's, I, yeah, I'm actually, I didn't realize that you had interviewed multiple drone companies, but that didn't mean to. No, they're just good founders. Yeah, you're so, you're so right about that. We're the best founders. Um, yeah, I think a lot of, I think a lot of you see think like a drone is a drone is a drone. And I a lot of people on Twitter, I think like a drone is a drone is a drone. I know, I know that you said that there was like five different categories of drone. And there's like the ones that cost like a few hundred bucks or whatever, you can just fly them in to blow something up. And then there's also like 100 plus thousand dollar drones. Oh, yeah, so there's, I mean, there's loosely just group one. This is like, you know, official typologies, like group one being, you know, like a tiny little FPV to group five being, you know, massive general atomics, Reaper, I mean, millions of dollars, like, it's like a plane. Are you guys going to try to do delivery at all? Um, I mean, we will never be a delivery operator. I think that's something that you have to focus on very specifically. I also, I'm not sure that, um, I'm not sure that the quadcopter form factor for is like a right thing. Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, I also would not be. Um, well, there's tradeoff with range, right? And then I think like like Google Wing and Zipline, they have, you know, they have, they have fixed wing. And, uh, and then you're able to achieve a range with that that's very different. It's also very light. So if it, you know, crashes in someone's yard, it's not, it's not a big, big of a deal in a way that like, if someone, you know, I think somebody just did this with the whole New Jersey thing. But if, you know, if somebody like shot this out of the sky, this is like flying over people and moving vehicles and some like angry, uh, angry, uh, joy of numbers. Yeah, I was shooting it out of the sky. That's, I mean, there's parachutes that can mitigate that. But that's still, um, yeah, I think the, the ideal form factor for delivery is probably something much closer to, uh, what Google Wing or what Zipline is doing, then like a primary or a, um, or like a drawn up. Okay. Um, I'd be curious to know what the like most difficult thing that you've had happened in the past year is. And there's a, a little bit of an element when you're dealing with hardware versus software where you're kind of at the mercy of suppliers. Um, and I think when you're building a software company, it's like just, you know, everybody with their laptops and, uh, you can kind of, you can just like bang it out. It's like ultimately just, it's like a, it's just like a test of your own like will and scale and motivation. And when you're dealing with like suppliers and supply chains and things that are operating on these much longer timelines, like you can, you know, something less like failure things you can't. Yeah. Like something cannot be right. And then you cannot know that until like weeks, like weeks later, when it shows up, and it's not right. So that's like just building, like building a resilient supply chain with, you know, where everything works as it's supposed to. And, and you're, you know, you're having the right things in house and then the right things that are not in house, that's probably the, the most difficult thing. How do you think about like building a super successful team? Yeah, we're actually writing something for Turpentine about that right now. So you'll, you'll read like our long form thoughts on building a successful team. Um, uh, shortly, but yeah, one of the answers is I think like it's also a big hardware software difference. Like you can't necessarily look at someone's GitHub. Um, you know, because it's, there's like this, this actual like fine motor skills component to like just physically working with your hands that's way harder to assess in an interview. It's like way harder to assess from a website, way harder to assess from these traditional top top of funnel modes. Like you really have to have people come in, which makes that process more difficult. And I also think, you know, a lot of people have spoken to like the death of like manufacturing talent bases in the last, especially in the US, like it's all over China, but yeah, yeah. So a lot of the people, the people that are the best like assembly tax, um, you know, they're not like they're not necessarily like as part, like they're not necessarily like the part of the same culture that like the best software engineers are. What is a difficult day look like? Oh, yeah, um, I mean, a lot of customers calls. Yeah, so just a lot of and like today, uh, today I'm going to I'm getting on a red eye. I'm going to Chicago. I'm like onboarding this customer in Chicago, uh, to the drone. Do they expect you to do that kind of stuff? Um, it's more, it's very worth it for us to do that early days because, um, because we want to get feedback. And I think there's when you see someone actually put their hands on the controller, like see the way that everything is put together, like see the way the hardware looks and feels, um, like actually interact with the interface of the controller in a flight environment that's in, you know, the weather that they're going to be flying it in, you get feedback and a sense of how things are and a sense of what you need to change that you could not get over over Xamara. Yeah, just by sending a spec sheet. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that would be like super interesting to know? Uh, oh, I have like a fun story about a ride along. Do you want to hear like my best, um, you know, my best customer onboarding experience? Yeah, no, so I was, I was on this like island and we were supplying this, um, public safety agency that's, that's on this, this island, and it's like, you know, it's like a allied, you know, it's a nice island. Yeah, it's a friendly island. It's not a ton of it. But I was, I was on this island, we're supplying this public safety agency that deals with a lot of, um, human trafficking and arms trafficking and drug trafficking, um, and like the vessel and addiction, that sort of thing, um, on this island. And, uh, you know, I, I go down there, I'm like, by myself, I get it through like customs or whatever. And, uh, you know, it's, I mean, it's very much island. So I'm kind of like, I'm kind of like, well, like, I know that this is the IR99, but how do you know that it's the IR99? Like, because it's, there's all these particularities. So anyways, I show up, I teach this, this customer, like this drone program, how to fly the drone for like a few hours goes great. Um, I'm staying in this Airbnb. And then he calls me and he's like, do you, uh, we're going to go on a ride along to like raid this gang leader's house at three in the morning. Um, do you want to like come? He's like, yes, I want to come. Absolutely want to come. Um, and so I, uh, like this guy like takes me up at three in the morning, gives me a bulletproof vest to wear puts me in the back of this, um, this armored van that was used to like fight the IRA during the troubles in Ireland. Um, and, and like fully takes me to this HQ and they have this like map up of this compound where this gang leader is and they're like, we're going to go around from like this angle and like, this is what we're going to do. And they were like, they were like, air support unit and they're doing their role calling or whatever and they're like, air support unit. So and so air support unit cat or man, and I was like, here, I'm so funny. Um, and so I was literally like holding, I was literally holding this radio up to like the customer's mouth as he was, um, like like flying the drone and, uh, you know, telling people like, oh, they're going this way, they're like that way. Like this person has a gun, this person doesn't have a gun. Um, and it didn't get home until like didn't get home until like 8 a.m. And then had, uh, just a bunch of like investor calls the next day that I was just for ride for. I imagine that did you tell the investors about that? Yeah. Yeah. That was a good. Where they come to appreciate it. That's right. Okay. Final question. What's the hardest thing you've ever come? Hmm. Um, funny. You should ask there is kind of this on going debate within my housemates right now as to like, whether in order to be like a great founder, like this sort of ambitious, hardworking person, you have to have this like perpetual chip on your shoulder, like, is it possible to do those things and also sort of be happy and self actualized? Um, I'm actually writing something for pletium right now on like why you like why you should not frame things that way and like why it is possible to be both like ambitious and actually happy. So you will have to stay tuned for that.