4 ms·

With that said, I'm still very skeptical that there's enough revenue in the "long tail" of small customers to make a viable satellite imaging company. Please pr

by jofer 4y ago

With that said, I'm still very skeptical that there's enough revenue in the "long tail" of small customers to make a viable satellite imaging company. Please prove me wrong there!

brookst 4y ago
Hello jofer! I couldn’t help noticing your red 2017 Subaru Crosstrek was out in your driveway all winter, and probably needs a spring detail. We’re running a special this week! We’ve also identified signs of water damage on your roof, which was last replaced 22 years ago according to public records. Our local affiliate will provide a repair estimate free of cost, and we’ll throw in a discount on the car detail.
- anlsh 4y ago
  I think I'm going to vomit :(
  - layer8 4y ago
    Don’t do that outside though! You’ll get ads for gastrointestinal medication.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    Local contractors driving by your home can do the same thing.
- jofer 4y ago
  Good luck recognizing that level of detail! This isn't that type of imagery. You can tell just barely tell a truck from a car and can definitely tell the color of the vehicle, but that's about it. You're describing 1cm imagery from drones, not satellite imagery. Regardless, insurance companies are big customers for similar reasons. Recognizing swimming pools in imagery is tougher than you'd think, but a classic thing (and real) that gets brought up is your insurance company raising your rates because you put in a pool and didn't tell them. Insurance companies would love to (and sometimes do) detect that from satellite imagery instead of boots on the ground. Either way, those are big companies / big contracts, rather than individuals buying imagery directly.
  - heliodor 4y ago
    In Puerto Rico, roofs are flat and get dirty within a few months. You absolutely can easily determine when it was last powerwashed as well as when it was last sealed. Sealing will leave you with a pure white roof for about a month or two. Powerwashing will leave you will light to medium gray. They'll turn dark gray to black within a few months in the parts where the water pools.
    - oakwhiz 4y ago
      It's different for dyed sealant, but there is a time while the work is being done where old sections are stripped back and the new material is drying. Lots of false positives from HVAC work etc. though.
    - geysersam 4y ago
      If this is such an issue, why not have sloped roofs? (Just curious)
  - GasTrader 4y ago
    Actually the roof example can be done at scale cheap enough for a local contractor to market. I'd use hyperspectral but 30 cm optical might work in sure 10cm would. Thanks for the suggestion!
  - wpietri 4y ago
    One might not need that level of detail to put together that message. If you already have a database of car ownership by address, figuring out which vehicle-like blob is parked in the driveway is not a hard problem. Worst case you accidentally send an advertisement to somebody that's not as personalized as you were hoping.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
Depending on what you consider "viable", there's the potential for a few hundred every couple months from archaeologists (I used to be one). Every working archaeologist needs high resolution imagery as cheaply as possible on a fairly regular basis.
- jofer 4y ago
  Oh, agreed! There's definitely a market there. A lot of my friends are archaeologists (I'm a geologist), and I've heard many stories of "if only I could get your company to sell me imagery instead of blowing me off because we can't buy enough". Similarly, my mom was a mine inspector for years (mostly open gravel pits). This sort of imagery would have saved her state department a ton in travel costs, as most of the "boots on the ground" checks were "did a ton of gravel make it into the creek downstream after that big rain". You still have to go out there for water samples/etc, but just getting up to date info on large scale runoff is huge, as you can get out there before the mine can hide the event or claim it didn't come from them. The issue, historically, is that these cases didn't make for large enough contracts for an imaging company to work with. Would you rather chase one $2 billion contract or 1000 $1000 contracts? (No, the amounts aren't the same either -- that's the point.) It's not that the demand isn't there, it's that most companies focus exclusively on the very large contracts, as they're more lucrative.
lukefischer 4y ago
we are STARTING with satellite imagery. drones, airplanes, stratospheric balloons are all in our partnerships. also partnering with analytic companies.
- hammock 4y ago
  I want ultra high res for art. Can't wait
lukefischer 4y ago
A frequent comment we get is "there's no consumer market cause it's been tried before"...false. Of course there has not been a consumer adoption because you have to buy huge chunks of earth, enter a contract for 5-6 figures, and the whole process takes months and months. Previous business model before we started was like Uber saying, "contact sales if you want a ride and they'll get you a custom quote for the year with a minimum price of $10,000". Uber would've lasted a couple weeks with that mindset. So why has the EO industry persisted, cause there has been no other options and the Govt has been the largest spender.
GasTrader 4y ago
We will do our best. It's bot as if we will ignore enterprise accounts but making it easy for everyone benefits enterprise as well. We democratize access for all.

by jofer 4y ago

With that said, I'm still very skeptical that there's enough revenue in the "long tail" of small customers to make a viable satellite imaging company. Please prove me wrong there!

brookst 4y ago

Hello jofer! I couldn’t help noticing your red 2017 Subaru Crosstrek was out in your driveway all winter, and probably needs a spring detail. We’re running a special this week! We’ve also identified signs of water damage on your roof, which was last replaced 22 years ago according to public records. Our local affiliate will provide a repair estimate free of cost, and we’ll throw in a discount on the car detail.

anlsh 4y ago
I think I'm going to vomit :(
- layer8 4y ago
  Don’t do that outside though! You’ll get ads for gastrointestinal medication.
- NavinF 4y ago
  Local contractors driving by your home can do the same thing.
jofer 4y ago
Good luck recognizing that level of detail! This isn't that type of imagery. You can tell just barely tell a truck from a car and can definitely tell the color of the vehicle, but that's about it. You're describing 1cm imagery from drones, not satellite imagery. Regardless, insurance companies are big customers for similar reasons. Recognizing swimming pools in imagery is tougher than you'd think, but a classic thing (and real) that gets brought up is your insurance company raising your rates because you put in a pool and didn't tell them. Insurance companies would love to (and sometimes do) detect that from satellite imagery instead of boots on the ground. Either way, those are big companies / big contracts, rather than individuals buying imagery directly.
- heliodor 4y ago
  In Puerto Rico, roofs are flat and get dirty within a few months. You absolutely can easily determine when it was last powerwashed as well as when it was last sealed. Sealing will leave you with a pure white roof for about a month or two. Powerwashing will leave you will light to medium gray. They'll turn dark gray to black within a few months in the parts where the water pools.
  - oakwhiz 4y ago
    It's different for dyed sealant, but there is a time while the work is being done where old sections are stripped back and the new material is drying. Lots of false positives from HVAC work etc. though.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    If this is such an issue, why not have sloped roofs? (Just curious)
- GasTrader 4y ago
  Actually the roof example can be done at scale cheap enough for a local contractor to market. I'd use hyperspectral but 30 cm optical might work in sure 10cm would. Thanks for the suggestion!
- wpietri 4y ago
  One might not need that level of detail to put together that message. If you already have a database of car ownership by address, figuring out which vehicle-like blob is parked in the driveway is not a hard problem. Worst case you accidentally send an advertisement to somebody that's not as personalized as you were hoping.

AlotOfReading 4y ago

Depending on what you consider "viable", there's the potential for a few hundred every couple months from archaeologists (I used to be one). Every working archaeologist needs high resolution imagery as cheaply as possible on a fairly regular basis.

jofer 4y ago
Oh, agreed! There's definitely a market there. A lot of my friends are archaeologists (I'm a geologist), and I've heard many stories of "if only I could get your company to sell me imagery instead of blowing me off because we can't buy enough". Similarly, my mom was a mine inspector for years (mostly open gravel pits). This sort of imagery would have saved her state department a ton in travel costs, as most of the "boots on the ground" checks were "did a ton of gravel make it into the creek downstream after that big rain". You still have to go out there for water samples/etc, but just getting up to date info on large scale runoff is huge, as you can get out there before the mine can hide the event or claim it didn't come from them. The issue, historically, is that these cases didn't make for large enough contracts for an imaging company to work with. Would you rather chase one $2 billion contract or 1000 $1000 contracts? (No, the amounts aren't the same either -- that's the point.) It's not that the demand isn't there, it's that most companies focus exclusively on the very large contracts, as they're more lucrative.

lukefischer 4y ago

we are STARTING with satellite imagery. drones, airplanes, stratospheric balloons are all in our partnerships. also partnering with analytic companies.

hammock 4y ago
I want ultra high res for art. Can't wait

lukefischer 4y ago

A frequent comment we get is "there's no consumer market cause it's been tried before"...false. Of course there has not been a consumer adoption because you have to buy huge chunks of earth, enter a contract for 5-6 figures, and the whole process takes months and months. Previous business model before we started was like Uber saying, "contact sales if you want a ride and they'll get you a custom quote for the year with a minimum price of $10,000". Uber would've lasted a couple weeks with that mindset. So why has the EO industry persisted, cause there has been no other options and the Govt has been the largest spender.

GasTrader 4y ago

We will do our best. It's bot as if we will ignore enterprise accounts but making it easy for everyone benefits enterprise as well. We democratize access for all.