☐ One starter vertical and one graduation target named in writing.
☐ IACRA account created; FTN obtained; exam booked for end of week two.
☐ Study week run with the FAA study guide, weighted toward regulations, airspace, and weather.
☐ Business bank account opened; sole proprietor vs LLC decided.
☐ One-page service agreement drafted.
Checkpoint: budget. Confirm the stack fits your cash before gear money moves: exam $175; aircraft bundle roughly $800-1,400; insurance hourly for now; propellers and kit. If the total strains savings, make the bridge-income or start-small decision deliberately.
Week 2: exam, then aircraft
☐ Exam sat early in the week (a miss leaves time to restudy and retake).
☐ Passed: IACRA application filed the same day.
☐ Aircraft ordered while the TSA check runs.
☐ Waiting days used: simple site with a working, tested contact form; Google Business Profile; COI conversation with an insurer; folder template copied and ready.
Checkpoint: your season. Name the month you are launching in and what it does: late fall in a northern state means short days, low sun, wind, and scarce flight days (plan indoor-heavy study and editing weeks); spring means agents are hungry and outreach lands warmest. There is no wrong launch month, only a wrong launch plan.
☐ Full flight-day protocol flown every time, driveway and field both, until the pre-flight checklist is muscle memory.
☐ Aircraft registered, marked, Remote ID verified.
☐ Five portfolio subjects shot (property with land, commercial roofline, construction site from public access, venue, golf course panorama).
☐ Demo reel cut to the best sixty seconds you own; watermarked.
Launch-week gate, before outreach begins
☐ Certificate in hand, temporary or permanent, and a photo of it on your phone.
☐ Aircraft registered, marked, Remote ID verified, and you have flown the full pre-flight routine at least ten times.
☐ Insurance active: hourly policy working or annual quoted, COI process tested.
☐ Demo reel cut, watermarked, and live on a site with a tested contact form.
☐ One-page contract drafted and read aloud once, so the weather clause survives a real phone call.
Week 4: outreach and the first paid flight
☐ Network message sent to thirty people on Monday.
☐ Twenty direct notes to vertical buyers Tuesday and Wednesday, tracked in a sheet: name, vertical, sent, replied, followed up.
☐ First legitimate job taken at market rate, not at a panic discount.
☐ Flown with the full protocol; delivered early with the follow-up message.
☐ Whole job logged, hours and dollars, in the utilization sheet.
Median month-end: a certificate, a tested kit, a live portfolio, fifty-plus outreach touches, one to three paid jobs flown, and the beginnings of a client list that knows your name. The order does not flex: certification before gear, gear before portfolio, portfolio before outreach.