Recently I spoke with Grayson Omans, CEO and co-founder of Phoenix LiDAR Systems, a pioneering company that builds custom drone-based mapping solutions for industries like construction, mining, and utilities. With over a decade of experience navigating the challenges of a highly technical and evolving space, Grayson shares the story of how he turned a bold idea into a successful business. He speaks to the importance of relentless belief in your mission, the deep satisfaction that comes from serving customers well, the need to constantly adapt in the face of regulation and market shifts, and the value of building a tight-knit team that feels more like a family.
The Interview
Background: From Business Classes to Business Launch
Griffin Connolly: So, jumping right in—can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you got to the place of starting your own business?
Grayson Omans: Sure thing. I went to school at Cornell, and even before that, I was always interested in entrepreneurship. But it was really at Cornell where that interest became something more focused. I took an entrepreneurship class that turned out to be my favorite course—it gave me a lot of practical tools that I still use every day. We won a few business plan competitions there too, which was a fun and formative experience.
Once you catch the entrepreneurial bug, it’s hard to shake it. That class really kickstarted everything. In hindsight, I do wish I paid more attention in my finance classes—those are the kinds of lessons you really feel as an entrepreneur. But the journey definitely started back at school.
After Cornell, I moved into product management, which was a key step. It helped me understand market gaps and how to solve real-world problems with well-designed products. I worked for a couple of solar companies—first a German one called Schüco, then at Bosch, which you’ve probably heard of. That phase was crucial in building my understanding of products and markets.
Eventually, I found myself in California and I got involved with LiDAR products. LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. It’s a remote sensing method that uses laser light to measure distances to the Earth, creating detailed 3D maps and models.
I started another company, brushlessgimbals.com, which made camera stabilizers for drones. That was right in the middle of the drone boom around 2010. I bootstrapped Phoenix LiDAR Systems using the momentum from that business.
Phoenix LiDAR makes laser mapping systems for drones. The technology is used in all kinds of industries, from utilities to vegetation mapping. It’s been about 12 or 13 years now, and the journey to get here has been quite a ride. Like most entrepreneurs, I have plenty of war stories of dusting myself off after failed early ventures, but once you see yourself as an entrepreneur there’s no turning back.
Initial Motivations: A Passion for Cutting-Edge Tech and Real-World Impact
Griffin Connolly: I understand you were kind of on the front end of this whole movement. Building off that a little—since LIDAR is such a niche industry—can you talk a bit more about your main motivations for getting into it specifically? How did you come to that point?
Grayson Omans: The company I started just before Phoenix was focused on gimbal stabilization parts—mainly carbon fiber and some electronics. It was cool technology at the time, but I knew it wasn’t a long-term play. You have to be careful of the niche you specialize in. That kind of hardware quickly becomes a commodity, and once you’re competing with major manufacturers out of China, you’re going to get undercut. And that’s exactly what happened, they came in with better value at a third of the price.
So, I knew from the start that Brushless Gimbals was just a steppingstone—a way to bootstrap Phoenix LiDAR. I wanted to move into a space with higher barriers to entry, something with huge, differentiated value that was software heavy. LIDAR happened to be the most expensive tech you could put on a commercial drone at the time, which made it risky for a startup—but that also meant less competition.
So, without any angel or venture funding, we bootstrapped Phoenix from the revenue we earned selling Brushless Gimbals. We aimed for a precision technology niche where deep specialization mattered. LIDAR was perfect—it required not just hardware, but high-value software, which was much harder to replicate or drive down in cost overseas.
We kept refining and optimizing our offerings to serve very specific needs. For example, utilities became a key market. Our systems help them map vegetation encroachment on power lines—because all it takes is one tree in the wrong spot to knock out millions in infrastructure. So, the motivation was to find a defensible niche with real-world impact—and building from there.
Lessons Learned and Things to Do Differently
Griffin Connolly: So building off that—obviously, there were a lot of risks. You mentioned trying different strategies along the way. Looking back on your journey with LiDAR, are there any things you would’ve done differently?
Grayson Omans: Oh man, where do I start? There are a million things, honestly. I think any entrepreneur would tell you the same—it’s just part of the ride. But one of the biggest things for me personally is wishing I had more practical accounting experience. A lot of what you learn in school is just academic exercises, not real-world stuff. More practical experience would have led to some simple changes in how we handled manufacturing that would have saved a ton of headaches on the accounting side.
In a startup, you’re throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, and you’re plugging holes as they pop up. But not paying attention to your books? That catches up with you. I learned the hard way how important it is to “trust but verify”—to stay on top of those accrual accounts and keep things clean.
Another thing I wish I’d prioritized earlier was having the right mentors. Surrounding yourself with experienced people—especially someone like a business management consultant you can check in with weekly—makes a huge difference.
It’s also critical to stay in touch with your customers. As you scale, it’s easy to drift into production mode and lose that customer connection, which means your product roadmap can start being based on internal opinions instead of real feedback.
Also, you’ve got to embrace failure. If failure crushes you, entrepreneurship probably isn’t for you. Every mistake, every failed partnership, taught me something. One of my best lessons was finding a business partner who complemented my skill set—with Phoenix LiDAR, Ben handles the software, I handle the hardware. That division of strengths is everything. Build a diverse team of people that each brings something unique to the table, they will amplify your business. Time management is also critical, staying focused on the needle-movers.
From LA to Austin: A Shift in Space and Community
Griffin Connolly: It’s interesting how much you emphasize mentorship and partnerships. I’ve been thinking more about the community side of entrepreneurship myself. I know you moved your business from LA to Austin a few years ago—how has the sense of community differed between those places, and how has that shaped Phoenix LiDAR and your experience overall?
Grayson Omans: Yeah, great question. In Los Angeles, I don’t think I fully tapped into the network, especially the Cornell alumni network that could’ve been valuable. What we were doing was a bit niche, and honestly, the biggest issue we faced out there wasn’t about community—it was about space. We were packed like sardines in a small office in West LA, and it was incredibly expensive. When you’re trying to scale a manufacturing business, LA just isn’t the place. That’s one of the biggest reasons we made the move to Austin—we needed room to breathe and grow.
Austin’s been great in that respect. It’s more affordable, and we’ve definitely benefited from being near a large university community. That said, the real community that matters most to us is our customer base. While we’re geographically in Austin, our day-to-day interactions and growth are really driven by those customer relationships more than local or university networks.
As for the alumni side of things—I probably could have done more with it. In our case, it hasn’t been a huge contributor to Phoenix’s success, but that’s not to say it isn’t valuable. Depending on your industry and product, tapping into university alumni networks can be huge. A lot of alumni are very open to providing guidance—you just have to ask. For me, though, I’ve leaned more heavily on external mentorship and our core customers.
Living in the Leap: The Risks and Realities of Going All In
Griffin Connolly: That makes sense, especially considering the uniqueness of the industry you were entering. Can you expand on the idea of “living in the leap”? Entrepreneurship often means giving up job security and a steady income. What was that like for you personally?
Grayson Omans: Yeah, it’s definitely a leap. I launched Phoenix LiDAR while also starting another company—Brushless Gimbals—and had a newborn baby at the same time. So, yeah, it was a lot. I left a very stable job at Bosch to pursue entrepreneurship, which meant stepping into the unknown with full commitment. Signing that first three-year lease, for example—that’s a massive financial and psychological leap.
You’ve got to have nerves of steel. But more importantly, you have to believe in your product. I see people start businesses all the time just because the numbers look good. Like, a math professor running numbers on a pizza franchise but not even liking pizza—that’s a mistake. You have to truly care about what you’re building. For me, I was certain UAV drone LiDAR was the future. At the time, it didn’t even exist yet, but I knew how valuable it would be to surveyors—taking a job that once took two weeks and turning it into a two-hour process. I knew what problem it solved for them and how big the impact would be.
That conviction made the risk feel worthwhile. Still, this life isn’t for everyone. I invested my life savings. I had to make countless hard decisions—and not just at the beginning. It’s a continuous cycle. Life throws things at you—like COVID—and you have to adapt, pivot, and keep going.
If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, stick to your nine-to-five. But if you do, and you know you’re solving a real problem, then jumping in becomes a no-brainer. For me, failure just wasn’t an option.
The Fulfillment Factor: Why Customer Impact Matters Most
Griffin Connolly: Yeah, it’s interesting you bring up that failure wasn’t an option. That’s something I’ve heard from a lot of successful entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed—when there’s no backup plan, it pushes them further. Obviously, once things start moving, there are a lot of freedoms and upsides. Can you speak to what you’ve found most fulfilling about entrepreneurship?
Grayson Omans: For me, it’s been 12 years of building something bigger than just a product or a company. Even when we moved the business from LA to Austin, we retained 60% of our team. Phoenix LiDAR really has become like a family—and growing that family has been incredibly rewarding.
But beyond that, the most fulfilling part is seeing how we’ve helped customers solve huge problems. From the spark of an idea to building a product that truly changes their workflows—it’s just awesome. The journey is filled with constant trial and error, constant learning, but when it clicks, and you’ve built something people are genuinely excited about, that’s the magic.
It’s not just about the financial reward. It’s about creating product evangelists—customers who champion your product because it solved a major pain point for them. Maybe they stuck their neck out pitching our solution to their boss, and now everyone at their company wants the technology for their project. That kind of feedback? That’s the real reward.
Seeing how we’ve replaced outdated, expensive methods—like using manned aerial LiDAR or tedious manual surveys—with something faster, cheaper, and more scalable? That’s powerful. And now, what started as a crazy idea is a full-blown industry. Drone LiDAR is a standard tool in any modern surveying toolbox, just like GPS became.
There’s definitely personal growth. But for me, the real fulfillment is in growing the Phoenix family and seeing the success of our customers – seeing that our product has made a lasting impact.
Evolving with the Industry: Specialization, Analytics, and the Challenge of Regulation
Griffin Connolly: Last summer, I did an internship with a company in Colorado called Timber Age, that reminds me a lot of yours—they’re trailblazing in a niche space too, using cross-laminated timber to build homes in a way no one’s done before. And they said the exact same thing: they do it for the customer, and that’s what brings them satisfaction. I think that’s something I find really inspiring about entrepreneurship, the sense of community, of building something that truly helps others.
So, a couple of last questions here: given your experience, especially in such a technical space, what trends have you seen in your industry that are different from when you started 13 years ago? What role has advancing technology played in all of that?
Grayson Omans: It’s changed a lot. In the early days, it was all about figuring out how to strap a LiDAR sensor onto a drone and make it work. That was a huge challenge in itself. We were dealing with incredibly complex tech—fiber optic gyros, lasers with centimeter-level precision at long distances, GPS systems—all just to generate a point cloud. That alone was groundbreaking back then.
But today, the expectation has shifted dramatically. It’s not just about providing a point cloud anymore. Our customers want the full value chain—from acquisition to analytics. We now have to specialize by industry. You can’t be generic anymore. Whether it’s utilities, mining, or construction, you’ve got to tailor the whole system to their specific needs.
For example, in the utility sector, the real gold isn’t the spatial data—it’s the analytics and insights. They don’t care about raw point clouds. They want actionable intelligence, like a heat map that tells them where vegetation is going to knock out a transmission line in the next storm. So, we’ve had to move toward AI-driven analytics that highlight threats automatically, like vegetation too close to power lines. That’s what they value.
One major frustration, though, is regulation. I never thought we’d still be so limited by the FAA. We can’t fly drones beyond visual line of sight or above 400 feet, which severely restricts how we serve customers with long linear assets like power lines. It’s forced us to adapt by relying more on manned aircraft, which defeats a big part of the drone industry’s safety promise. Every year, lives are lost in manned utility flights that drones could prevent if the regulations allowed. The regulations are definitely restricting growth in our industry.
So, the name of the game is constant adaptation. You can’t just set your business plan and expect it to work forever. You have to continually reposition your company—refocus, readjust, re-strategize—based on both opportunity and the realities you can’t control, like regulation. That’s how you survive.
Advice for the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Griffin Connolly: I run a Student Launch Club at school. If you could give us all one piece of advice as budding entrepreneurs, what would it be?
Grayson Omans: I’d say the single most valuable piece of advice I can give is: stay adaptable. If there’s one constant in entrepreneurship, it’s change. The market shifts. Technology evolves. External factors can hold you back in ways you didn’t anticipate. And if you’re not ready to adapt—to adjust your business plan, refocus your product, or reposition your company based on where the real opportunity is—you won’t survive.
The entrepreneurs who make it are the ones who accept that the original plan won’t hold. You have to reposition again and again, based on your strengths and what the market actually needs. That’s the real secret. Adaptation is not just a phase of the business—it is the business.
Griffin Connolly: Absolutely. Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me—it’s been incredibly insightful. I know our Student Launch Club will take a lot away from what you’ve shared, especially about staying adaptable and building with the customer in mind.
Grayson Omans: Absolutely, Griffin. It was a pleasure. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.
Read my previous interview with Swarmbotics AI founder, Stephen Houghton, here.