From Pilot to Autonomous Drones CEO: Growing an Emerging Tech Company with Pramod Raheja

From Spaghetti to Growth

📌Today’s guest on the From Spaghetti to Growth podcast is founder Pramod Raheja.

Pramod is a trained pilot who now operates the emerging tech company Airgility, which produces autonomous drones.

In this insightful episode, we cover the important lessons Pramod took from his earlier aviation career into the world of entrepreneurship and what it takes to pivot into new and daring industries, even if your business plan isn’t quite fleshed out when you get going.

Sometimes the opportunities reveal themselves as you go along. We discuss the importance of knowing your target customer inside and out, raising money for emerging tech projects and how Pramod approaches the typical day to day ups and downs of being a founder. 🌎Reach out to Pramod: Airgility.coLinkedINTwitter Instagram In this episode: 👉Pramod’s lessons from his years as a pilot and what he learned about leadership 👉Taking the first plunge into small business endeavours on the way to founding Agility 👉Operating a company in the field of emerginc tech 👉How to raise money to develop advanced technology 👉The importance of customer discovery to any business Some key points:

(03:46) What led Pramod to go into business in the first place?

(05:03) Pramod started out as a pilot

(07:18) Lessons in leadership from a pilot's career (09:06) As a pilot, many instinctive decisions are required

(13:24) If you are ahead of a trend, how do you build a business around that?

(15:42) Trying to convince your spouse to invest in a risky business (17:49) Lessons from navigating a business in a competitive environment

(20:35) Pivoting into emerging tech and autonomous drones

(23:18) Getting grant funding for emerging tech projects (26:09) Sometimes the technology emerges before the use case

(30:16) Trying to determine your ideal client within a brand new innovative space can be tricky

(38:27) Client paying up front for features that they desire (40:55) New products can spawn off your foundational products. But how do you know which to pursue?

(42:58) Getting investors on board with cutting edge tech (45:16) Expect the unexpected

(46:32) Pramod's proudest moment at Airgility

(48:30) Going from spaghetti to growth at Airgility

(50:14) Stressing the importance of knowing your customer when starting out

🌎Reach out to Seema Ponda Alexander Disruptive CEO Advisory https://www.disruptive.ceo/LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seemaalexander IG: https://www.instagram.com/seemaalexander/?hl=en Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on Apple podcasts by clicking here. 🎤 Podcast post-production EZPZ Podcasting