#/there’s over 150 documented but less than that are at the mansion/the area around it

[pizzaclone-brainrot]

Been thinking on and off about a comic about a group of clones being sent out to look for any others that may be lost but still alive

[gabrielawbin-blog]

Oragadam real estate

The lodging industry is one of the oldest businesses to exist in this world. It has been around ever since people started travelling from one place to the other for trade and other purposes. What began as the need of the hour (rest and shelter during long journeys) soon turned into an industry that offered comfort, convenience, even luxury, to their boarders. For example, The Greeks built thermal baths that allowed their guests to rest and recuperate. Romans constructed palatial mansions for travelers, while Caravanserais along the famous Silk Road from Turkey to China offered shelter not just for men but also their beasts.

In the 21st century, hotels have evolved into a flourishing business that has become an inseparable part of the travel industry. The styles range from flamboyant properties to bare-bone youth hostels, and all-inclusive honeymoon resorts to quaint country inns.

However, as competition grew and hotels started offering standard services across the chain, there was need for Oragadam companies something innovative in the market. People, tired of impersonal services, started moving towards smaller hotels that offered personalized attention and unique experiences.

And thus was born the darling of the hospitality industry - boutique hotels. Today, they are the most sought after stay option for leisure travellers and the ultimate name in exclusivity. More and more people are choosing to stay in boutique hotels, because they're almost always guaranteed to have a good time and get great value for their money

Given the popularity they enjoy, it's worthwhile taking a peek into the fascinating history of boutique hotels and trace their evolution over time.

History of Boutique Hotels

The earliest boutique hotels appeared in the early 1980s, the first two of them being The Blakes Hotel in South Kensington, London, and the Bedford in Union Square, San Francisco. The term 'boutique hotel', though, appeared much later in 1984, coined by Steve Rubell. He compared his own establishment, Morgans Hotel, to a small boutique, obviously wishing to highlight its exclusivity and set it apart from other hotels that were cropping up everywhere, much like the monolithic department stores.

This is not to say that boutique hotels are a modern invention. There are plenty of documented instances of similar lodging experiences dating back to the 13th century when staging posts were set up for travellers in Mongolia and China.

Here are a few more examples of one-of-a-kind boutique hotels that were popular back in the days:

In 1705, César Ritz opened a boutique hotel at Place Vendôme, which earned him high praise from King Edward VII who called him "king of hoteliers and hotelier to kings". In 1822, Venitian artist Giuseppe Rubino transformed an old palace into a gorgeous hotel and called it "il Rubino". In 1880, the Sagamore Hotel on Lake George (in the state of New York) became the first to provide electricity in each of its guest rooms, creating no small stir among visitors in those times. In 1900, Edouard Niiermans, known as the 'architect of palaces' transformed Emperor Napoléon III's summer residence - Villa "Eugenie - into a beautiful and niche hotel. In 1919, Barcelona inaugurated a stylish hotel that was equipped with hot and cold water in its bathrooms. As you can see, there have been numerous occasions throughout the history of the lodging industry when hoteliers applied creativity and offered top-notch services to stay ahead of the competition and offer something extraordinary to their visitors. Boutique Hotel of the 21st Century - Characteristics that Set It Apart

Today, the term 'boutique hotel' is used to describe small establishments with around 150 rooms. They are privately owned, or part of a small group of hotels, and are best known for iconic, memorable and, at times, eccentric design themes. The concept of boutique hotels became a trend after hotelier Ian Schrager and French designer Philippe Starck used unique designs to build their hotels. And now, it has become a flourishing industry of its own, complete with unique traits and qualities.

Here's looking at some of the more important ones.

Size Does Matter

Boutique hotels are generally considered small, but they're not in the same category as Bed and Breakfast hotels or homestays that have less than 10 rooms. Boutique hotels can have up to 150 rooms, which does make it appear smaller when you compare it to most chain hotels.

However, it is this intimate scale that helps create a home-like ambiance with peace and privacy aplenty. These cozy properties often have a communal "living space" where the guests can sit and interact with each other.

Personality Speaks Volumes

Since boutique hotels are independently owned and not affiliated to any big chain, they are a brand in themselves. They have a distinctive vibe to them that sets them apart from the others. It is their unique personality and absence of cookie cutter solutions that guests find refreshing, thereby drawing more and more people towards boutique hotels.

Design by Desire

Boutique hotels are known for their intriguing interiors, which are very often created by leading designers and architects. Generally speaking, these niche hotels tend to maintain an upmarket look, combining historic elegance with chic details. The décor conveys a progressively forward style and the overall design could range from contemporary and quaint, to homely and artistic. Each guest room is decorated individually, complete with exclusive amenities and upscale linen.

It's All in the Charm

You know how you walk into a big hotel, but nothing really spectacular or interesting jumps out at you? Boutique hotels will have none of that and the first thing that grabs your attention is their eccentric personality. They are funky, trendy, and offbeat. For instance, the Hotel Monaco in Washington D.C. will bring a goldfish in a bowl to your room, if you don't have a pet of your own.

Lovely Location

While there aren't any hard and fast rules about where a boutique hotel should be situated, it's no coincidence that the best of them have a great location going for them. When designing boutique hotels, most hoteliers choose the hippest and most happening places to set them in. You may even find them in high-end neighborhoods, removed from the hustle and bustle, but still close to the attractions and highlights of the city. Yet another popular choice for boutique hotels would be in areas that are far removed from the city, in the lap of nature and surrounded by lush greenery.

[itswomanswork]

How to Make Money with a Drone: Up to $200 an Hour on the Side

Today’s contribution comes from Josh Boughner, who turned his birthday present drone into a money-making machine.

Hooked after his first paid drone-flying gigs, Josh now runs SoldByAir.com, the largest real estate drone network in the US. The site has over 1000 registered pilots (at least one pilot in every state), and connects those drone operators with jobs across the country. 

Take it away, Josh!

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I’m one of those tech guys who loves his toys. My wife realizes this, so for one of my previous birthdays she bought me a drone.

Nick’s Notes: Nice wife! Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are usually equipped with a camera to take photos or video. They look like miniature futuristic helicopters and you fly them via remote control.

A few weeks later a realtor in the family asked me to take aerial photos of a property they had for sale. And they were going to pay me.

Make money flying a toy?

I was in!

When you consider the costs, starting a drone business is cheap. Why not put a drone to work and make some extra cash? Drones are a perfect fit for a fun and profitable side hustle.

What Are Some Ways to Make Money With a Drone?

Real Estate Photos & Video

The first place most drone pilots try to drum up work is in the real estate market. It’s easy and familiar.

Realtors need attractive photos to help market properties online, and drones can provide an elevated vantage point to show off different features of a house or property.

Personally I prefer doing real estate because I love seeing amazing properties. Not every house needs drone photos, but high end listings purchase drone photos more often.

There have been times where I get to a shoot and no one is there but me and I have to stop and just stare at the house in amazement.

There are these incredible mansions I didn’t even know existed near where I live. I love it.

Roof Inspections

It costs money for insurance companies to send someone up on a ladder. Drones are often much cheaper.

These jobs can be quick and easy. They often come in large quantities and then dry up quickly directly after large storms.

Stock Photography/Video

If you like traveling and documenting amazing sights you can try your hand at selling stock photos/video.

You’ll have to amass quite a bit of footage before you can expect to see much from sales but if you are good there are a number of websites where you can list your work.

Get Creative and Technical

Drones are so new that there are many industries still learning how to utilize them. If you are creative there is the potential to find or create your own niche. Some industries using drones are more technical than others. Cell tower inspection, thermal imagery, high end video productions are a few examples.

Once your name gets out in your area you will get requests for drone jobs that don’t really have a specific category. I did a job for a contractor who was bidding on a job to create a walking trail.

The job was basically to fly the drone down a few miles of a potential walking path and take video of it that they could show to the potential client. It was relatively easy work, and jobs like this are a ton of fun as they help to keep things interesting.

Other Potential Ways to Make Money with a Drone

Aerial reconnaissance and surveillance

Delivery and disaster relief

YouTube

Hotel and resort ads / videos

Wedding videos

Structural or building inspection

Agricultural or environmental inspection

Marketing at events (think low-flying billboards)

How Much Money Can You Make With Your Drone?

The amount you charge is really up to you. This is a new and exciting market so nothing is set in stone.

If you go into some of the more complex verticals like cell tower inspection or thermal imagery you can charge a lot more for your services. However, working in the higher dollar areas require technical knowledge, more expensive gear and quite often having connections to people in those industries.

Since the real estate industry is where most people start, let me use that as an example.

Pricing is generally in the range of $75-200 for drone photos, though it varies based on local market conditions. For real estate video you can charge more.

I’ve found it’s difficult to charge extra just because it’s an expensive house, but you can charge extra for houses on large plots of land. Acreage simply takes more time to fly with a drone.

Most drone pilots start out on the lower end of pricing and increase their rates as their skill level increases and they build their portfolio.

For example, I did my very first job for $50. At the time I thought it was awesome.

I quickly realized I wasn’t charging enough, so I added $25 to my price.

When no one complained, I added $25 again. I did that and raised my prices until I started hearing people say they had other cheaper options.

I didn’t go back down to the cheaper guys’ prices, but I had now found a fair market price to set my fees for my area.

The Costs of Starting a Drone Business

Starting a drone business is relatively cheap. All in, you are looking at around $1500-$2000 to have a minimum viable drone business up and running.

If you hustle and push hard you can have that paid off quickly (we were profitable in a few months).

The startup costs include:

The drone (duh)

Extra batteries (have at least 3 total)

ND filters for videography

Photo and video editing software

An FAA drone pilot’s license (seriously!)

Which Drone is Best?

You can get a high quality drone for less than $1,500.

There are many drones on the market, but the best are all made by DJI. They dominate the drone market for good reason as they always seem to be a step ahead of the competition.

The exact drone you buy really depends on the type of work you plan to use it for.

For entry level drones you can use professionally, look at the Phantom 4 Pro and the Mavic Pro Platinum.

The Phantom has the better camera but the Mavic is much quieter while in the air. Each have their place. I give the slight edge to the Phantom as the camera is a pretty significant jump up (+8 megapixels).

Photo and Video Editing Software

Drones have become fairly advanced very quickly. They have automated flight patterns and are extremely steady in the air. Flying the drone and taking pictures/video is one of the easiest parts of the job.

Still, you are going to want to familiarize yourself with photo and video editing software. You don’t have to be an expert at Photoshop but you will want to learn the basics.

Some valuable techniques/topics to study up on include:

Sky Replacements

HDR Photography

Color Correction

The Magic Eraser and Clone Stamp tool

On the video front, you can use something like iMovie before upgrading to Adobe Premiere or After Effects. Practice on your own videos first to learn how the software works.

Because the cost of entry is so low, there is competition in the field. Post production is something that can set you apart from the kid down the street.

Your Drone License: FAA Part 107

In order to make money with a drone you are required to be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

To get licensed you have to pass a test that seems more geared towards general aviation then it does to drones.

Don’t be intimidated by the test — it’s not very difficult and has a 91% pass rate. The FAA provides all the study material you’ll need, and there are many study guides and training classes available for those who need some extra help.

The test itself costs $150 and is good for 2 years. I personally studied for about two weeks and passed it easily.

Where to Find Drone Pilot Jobs

Now that you’ve got your drone, it’s time to re-coup your initial investment and start making some money.

So how do you find the work?

Luckily there are websites you can join that specialize in drone pilot jobs. They will usually take a percentage of the payment in exchange for sending you the job.

These marketplaces include:

SoldbyAir.com (my site)

Dronebase.com

DroneJobs.org

VideoToOrder.com

If you just want to fly and not deal with cold calling or finding customers, these sites may be right for you.

If you prefer to be a little more proactive, you can reach out to realtors, their agencies, or insurance companies themselves to offer your services.

Nick’s Notes: This is freelancing and we’ve seen tons of creative ways people have marketed their freelance services.

Advertising in local Facebook groups can help. Try to think of places where the customers are and go there. There are various real estate gatherings that can get you in front of realtors. Think outside the box.

I’ve also been known to stop at open houses from time to time.

Before You Fly – Verify the Legal Requirements

As with everything else, there are laws you have to abide by when flying drones.

Are you near any airports? Airmap is a cool little app to show you what the local airspace is like. Busy airports require authorization to fly nearby. There is a process the FAA is implementing to speed up authorization requests but for the time being legally flying jobs near airports can be very difficult.

It’s also illegal to fly drones in national parks.

State laws and local ordinances vary. While the FAA has ultimate authority over the skies, they seem to avoid getting involved in drone disputes at local or state levels so it’s best to follow your local and state laws even if they seem more restrictive than what the FAA has on the books.

Your First Paying Drone Job

Planning is key to a successful shoot.

Make sure to schedule when there’s no rain or strong winds in the forecast. Be sure your batteries are charged and don’t forget the SD card.

A common mistake new pilots make is to fly too high. If you are flying real estate the goal is to sell the house, not show off the roof.

Keep the entire house in the frame of the photos and provide a variety of photos showing off different angles and key points of interest for the property. Show off the location of the property relative to areas of interest such as golf courses, shopping centers, waterways or similar.

Over time you will want to come up with a repeatable process. Plan to take the same set of photos at every shoot to speed up the work. When I first started, I might spend 45 minutes to an hour at a property. Now I am in and out in 15 minutes if there’s no one there to talk to.

Are You Spying on My Daughter?

The media has painted drones as scary spying devices. Some people think drones are awesome technology and will talk your ear off asking questions the entire time you fly. Others are paranoid about them.

If you do enough jobs you will eventually get someone asking you, “Hey are you spying on my daughter?”

They’re usually half joking/half serious.

Be friendly; let them know why you are there and you shouldn’t have any problems.

I remember one particular occasion vividly. I was on a weekend shoot and brought my son with me, since he likes drones too. It was a vacant large plot of farmland so I assumed that we wouldn’t run into anybody.

I was wrong.

Just as we’d finished and were packing up, a guy in his minivan comes driving down down the lane with his hand out the window recording us on his cell phone.

He starts the conversation by saying. “You are lucky I didn’t have my shotgun handy or I would have shot that thing out of the sky!”

Calmly I pointed to the realtor sign on the plot of land and explained to him that we were just there to get photos of the farmland for sale. I showed him one of the photos and he calmed down dramatically. He even asked if he could fly the drone!

Post Production

Drone video is obviously more complex than photography but it doesn’t have to be hard.

The general rule of thumb is to keep your videos short — hardly anyone watches videos online for longer than a minute.

Take short clips and splice them together. Any jerky movements should be edited out.

Drone video can be sold to a variety of customers. Not only do realtors want video of the house being listed, but they sometimes want video of the town that the house is in they can re-use in future listings. You can charge a premium for reusable video.

Businesses like drone videos for commercials or Facebook ads. We’ve even have people request aerial video of private parties/events.

Video is less forgiving than photos as you can’t just photoshop objects out of it. Make sure to get much more footage than you think you’ll need as it’s much easier and quicker to cut out a bad clip then it is to fix it.

Track your Mileage

Drone work is much like other ‘gig’ work. Once you have a steady stream of customers you’ll be driving around from job to job.

Save yourself a headache in the future and get a process in place for tracking your mileage. I recommend MileIQ. Even though it has an annual subscription it quickly pays for itself in tax savings.

In Conclusion

There are days when I’m out flying my drone at a customer site and I think to myself, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid for this!”

It is extremely fun and pretty exciting to be involved in a cutting edge field. To be fair there’s not really enough work yet to easily make it a full time gig, which is actually a great thing for those looking for a cool side hustle!

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For more info, be sure to check Josh out at SoldByAir.com.

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