so ive been doing drone work on the side for about two years now, mostly real estate and the occasional construction progress shoot, and im seriously starting to wonder if i could make this my main thing. right now i work a regular 9-5 in logistics and i squeeze drone jobs in on weekends. made somewhere around 8k last year from it which honestly surprised me.

the thing is i dont know if thats a fluke or if theres actually enough consistent work out there to replace a salary. i hear people say the market is saturated but then i also hear guys saying they cant keep up with demand. feels like both things are true depending on where you live i guess. im in a mid-size city, not a major metro, so thats probably relevant.

has anyone actually made the jump and how long did it take before you felt stable? genuinely curious what the first year looked like for people

made the jump about three years ago and honestly the first 8 months were pretty rough. not gonna sugarcoat it. the work was there but it was inconsistent and i was basically saying yes to everything just to keep cash flowing ? weddings, roofing inspections, a weird job filming a car dealership, whatever. the real estate stuff started to dry up a bit when the housing market slowed down around here but the inspection side picked up so it kind of balanced out.

the thing that actually stabilized things for me was getting a few recurring clients, like a property management company that needed quarterly shots of their sites. that kind of anchor work makes a huge difference. once you have even two or three of those you can plan around them. the one-off jobs become gravy instead of survival. 8k on the side is actually a decent sign, means you can sell yourself, which a lot of people cant. i'd say if you can get to 15-20k while still at your day job youre probably ready to think seriously about it.

following this thread because im kind of in the same spot, just a bit earlier in the process. curious what kind of gear you're running for the real estate work and whether clients ever push back on pricing