My name is Joan Calabria and I work with the Business Development of Salesforce, helping companies in Spain develop through digital transformation. About my roots, I come from a Spanish, Italian and Venezuelan family. I’ve been passionate about tech since my father bought me my first personal desktop computer when I was 8 years old. This passion drives me to choose to work in tech companies, the first one being an SAP consultancy company. From that moment, I understood that I wanted to be close to new technology.
My position at the company I work for now is one of my best experiences that I’ve ever had. I’m learning how to look for new business in a very professional way, and how to position a product that is revolutionary. At the same time, this company was selected as ‘#1 Best Place to Work in Europe’ in 2018. I decided to leave my last company after 6 years and 4 changes of position to work here – it was an amazing decision.
In 2013, I was in a conversation with a client who said to me: ‘Joan, I need to hang up as I need to take some “Aerial pictures” of my beach house.’ That got me thinking about how he would be able to do that. When I started to research this, I saw all the news about drones and the aerial photography industries. Tourism was taking great advantage of it. At the time, I would have liked to fly planes and be a pilot. With aerial photography, a drone with a camera and an FPV (first person view system), you can feel like you are actually flying. My hobby soon started to be an opportunity to offer this option to people who wanted to record their special moments, such as events, parties, weddings, etc. At that moment, Animadrone was born, my small website brand that offers these drone services.
I’m a big fan of flying and of movie productions. I like to hear music and imagine a video using that music I heard. If you combine good music, a good drone, and nice clips with a good camera, you can feel you are in a movie or you are producing a movie. Before, it was impossible to think about having this on your hands. Nowadays, any person that wants to save this special moment can do it easily and at a reasonable price. I stay average with my drones; you don’t need to have the most expensive one. I’m working with DJI as they are improving very fast the software and security on drones. This helps to offer a secure and professional service to the customer. For now, I’m working with the Phantom 4.
The first time shooting a film from the air was like a dream. It made me remember when I flew my first remote controller airplane when I was 8 with my father, uncle, and friends. It brings me back to my childhood moments, and make me achieve something that I’ve always loved to do … Fly! I still like doing it for fun, but the majority of the time is for work. There’s nothing like going to a mountain and filming something for you!
I started with Animadrone seriously when I thought that my hobby could be my own business. It was around 2014 – I did my first website and asked for help about SEO and SEM. I remember when they wrote me my first email asking for a quote. In the beginning, I built my first “ready to fly” drone. Yes, it was ready to fly, but was more “ready to crash”! It was good as I learned a lot about drones, but it was frustrating to do a job and see how the drones would sometimes lose control and crash in front of the customer.
I think many people dream to have their own company aligned with what they are passionate about. Animadrone is really close to being that dream for me in the future. When I bought my first drone ( a ready-to-fly cheap one), it was difficult to avoid crashing it. My girlfriend told me to “stop using a PC drone type and use the Mac-type one”. She was telling me to avoid flying one constructed by myself and buy a professional one. Good advice for me, and for anybody that start in this business.
Drones photography is here to stay. The size, prices of service and flexibility of a drone changes the game about big cameras on rails, helicopters or on cars. Drones can fly now on “autopilot”. My company is pitching products with an A.I. layer that helps to improve KPIs at work and avoid admin time. A.I. is now in all of our lives. Drones will fly in autopilot, companies as well. The Internet is everywhere in our day-to-day – everything is connected.
You can check out Joan’s website, Animadrone, using the following link:
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