The Most Profitable Business Everyone Overlooks⏐Ep. #288

Chris Koerner (0:00)

Guys, this is one of the best episodes I've ever recorded. One of the best conversations I've ever had. And I'm not just saying that. About four years ago, I fell in love with this YouTube channel called Drone Deer Recovery, where these business owners in Ohio would be paid about 500 bucks a pop to go recover deer that Hunter shot but didn't recover. I thought, that's incredible. I interviewed that guy. I found him. And turns out he's making a lot, a lot, a lot more than 500 bucks. He's been on over 100 podcast episodes before, but he's never revealed his revenue or his profit until today. And the thing is, drone deer recovery, that's a cool business, right? You can make good money on it. But there's something else that you can do with drones that I've never talked about before. It's not roof inspections. Like, you will not see this coming. That is so freaking profitable and unique and brand new. I have not been this hyped about an episode for a very long time. You're going to love Mike. We became fast friends. We swapped phone numbers at the end of this. He's got amazing energy and you're going to learn some really cool ways of making a lot of money. So please enjoy.

Mike Yoder (1:05)

When I came up with this business idea, it was part of the whole thing. It was like, okay, I'm going to do this service, but I also want to create a YouTube channel. And so that was right off the rib.

Chris Koerner (1:15)

Did you think that the channel or the service would be bigger or more profitable than the other?

Mike Yoder (1:20)

I thought originally my thought was I will make more money on YouTube ad revenue than I would on service. And I quickly figured out that that's not the case in my content. I don't pull enough. I just don't pull enough views to pay. I mean, my first, what was it? My first 10 weeks doing deer recovery just here in the state of Ohio, I made $50,000 in 10 weeks.

Chris Koerner (1:49)

So first like deer season in Ohio.

Mike Yoder (1:52)

Yeah, correct. First deer season, first time I ever went public with it.

Chris Koerner (1:57)

So you were at break even within a couple of weeks. And then it was mostly profit after that.

Mike Yoder (2:01)

Yep. So basically the my goal was when I bought the drone, I was like, I just want to make enough to pay the drone off. And then I'm good. But I quickly found out I was like, holy smokes. I think we got something here.

Chris Koerner (2:13)

Yeah. Yeah. We need a bigger boat. So you just bought that drone for this YouTube channel idea, for this business idea. You didn't already have it.

Mike Yoder (2:23)

That's correct. Yep. So I actually bought, if we back up how it actually started is I bought a cheaper drone. It was called a DJI Dual. DJI Dual, it was a thermal and a zoom camera, but it was not good at all. I made some video, one video about it, flying over my hunting land and just looking at deer. Then I took that video to an outdoor show, a local outdoor show, and I just had a table with a cloth over it and an old iMac that I had. Then I had this video playing on there and my booth was the talk about booth at the show. No way. It was crazy.

Chris Koerner (2:59)

It was like the most plain Jane booth ever. 100%.

Mike Yoder (3:04)

It had this white sign behind me and it said like Yoder Drone Service or something. Then you had this screen that was playing this thermal. Then it would go from thermal. So you see this heat signature and then you zoom in and it's a deer. The people were like, what the world? Like, how do you see that? So people just stopped in the aisle. It was so bad that the show coordinator said, I have to move my booth. It was because the people wouldn't stop. They just, they literally just stared and watched it. I'm telling you, it was crazy. Dude, I'm not kidding. I ran out of business card. I called my wife. I was like, run to Staples. I'm about out of cards. And I took a picture of that when I was running out of cards. There was one card left. My wife shows up and gave me another box of 250 cards because you could get them at Staples for like super cheap ones.

Chris Koerner (3:52)