Manna Drone Delivery CEO Bobby Healy said Elon Musk “may seem crazy” - but his “cult of technology leadership” makes him an inspiration.
In the last three decades, the serial entrepreneur has founded several businesses, from video game development to travel technology, with varying degrees of success.
He told Life and Leadership with Bobby Kerr his two main inspirations across the years have been Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“I witnessed [Michael O’Leary] firsthand,” he said. “If you walk around that building... they all worship him, there's a culture there of winning, of efficiency.
“Everyone in there knows what the right answer is because they know what Michael would do.”
Mr Healy said he doesn’t admire Mr Musk for “all his ego stuff”, but for his technological expertise and innovation.
“If you just look at his Twitter feed on why they went from composite materials to steel for the rocket – that was his decision,” he said.
“He is so all over the detail of that business - that is leadership.
“[It] may seem chaotic and crazy, but that actually is the cult technology leadership.”
He said he tries to do the same thing as Mr Musk while “not trying to be as much an arsehole”.
Mr Healy’s latest endeavour has taken him to the skies, with the Manna Drove Delivery currently trialling in west Dublin.
He said he had the idea over a couple of glasses of wine from his home in Rathfarnham.
A delivery drone“I was sitting here in this chair and looking out in the garden,” he said. “A couple of glasses of wine and I’d love a bag of chips.
“And my local chipper Libro’s... there's literally no way to get that bag of chips other than get my bicycle and go down and get them.
“I knew about drones and had been learning about space and it was very obvious to me [to] strap a bag of chips onto a drone and fly them to my house.”
Healy's drone delivery
The more Bobby Healy investigated drone delivery, the more he saw the potential – and not just to get a bag of chips.
“From a business point of view, the capital economics work, the cash flow part of it works, the unit economics work, the tech is straightforward,” he said.
“To me, anyway, the tech was easy and then the only question was regulatory.
“It'd be very difficult to find such a huge untapped opportunity as drone delivery.”
In its first week, Manna delivered 40,000 products via drone around west Dublin, offering up to 100,000 people the service.
The company plans to expand in the coming months to more Irish locations.
You can listen back to the full interview with Bobby Healy here:
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