Las Vegas entrepreneur focuses on developing tools for drones

Jinger Zeng, 27, is CEO and co-founder of Dronesmith Technologies, founded in 2014. Dronesmith Technologies creates development tools for drone developers, allowing them to create software applications for drones and giving them the ability to move data from the drone to the internet.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Question: What problem were you trying to solve?

Answer: Zeng said she was looking to serve independent developers who are working on drone ideas. “The developer shouldn’t be worrying about making tools, they should be worrying about the applications they want to make. So, we became the toolmaker of drones.”

Q: What advice can you give to an entrepreneur who was in your position, say, two years ago?

A: Zeng said her advice would be to surround yourself with a great ecosystem, even if that means getting out of Nevada to seek that out. “Nevada really lacks an ecosystem.”

Q: How could the Las Vegas startup scene serve you better?

A: Zeng would like to see Las Vegas have more access to capital and more opportunities for mentorship. She also described a problem that comes with a small talent pool: There aren’t enough people pushing innovation. She would like to see more “people who are more motivated and who have a bigger vision.”

Q: Where are you looking to now? Where is that ecosystem?

A: Zeng and her team were recently admitted to a New York-based accelerator called Techstar, “so we’re actually moving to New York for three months. After that, I mean we’re always going to keep our Las Vegas operations, but I do want to expand.” The exposure to a larger ecosystem will be good for the team’s professional development, she said.

Q: How much money have you raised?

A: In the past two years, Zeng said Dronesmith raised about $1 million from different investors, the vast majority of whom are from outside the state. “I think if we had gone outside of the valley, we would’ve achieved that much faster and easier,” she said.

Q: What were some of those local challenges in access to capital?

A: “I think inherently people — and this is not just Nevada — I think there’s a difference between investors who are investing in women and investors who are investing in like a women’s market. … . There are investors who say they would invest in women but they only invest in women doing women’s stuff, you know. So when it’s a woman, let’s say like me running a robotic startup or hardware, I think inherently that actually makes them a little bit uncomfortable.

There are a lot of success stories but I still think inherently, you know, a lot of investors are not exactly that comfortable.” She said she tries to avoid talking about this subject, but “it’s a thing.”

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