Changing The Game with Wilson Casado - Royce Crown

Royce Crown is what you could call the quintessential entrepreneur, starting his first business at nine when he decided to sell lemonade to the other kids on his street.

Ten years later he was inaugurating his very first food truck, which would come to be the staple of another future business, but not before he got his hands on a license to work as a helicopter pilot, transporting goods from land to yachts in the Mediterranean.

Coming to Australia in 2012, Royce started his new food company, setting up shops in metropolises across the world before going back to his original passion for aviation

Driven by this passion, Royce started his new company, Monarch, which along with his trajectory, was the main topic of a conversation we had on the “Changing The Game” podcast, but just in case you’re in a hurry, here are some of the highlights:

So, how does a person become a helicopter pilot? What are the requirements? That’s exactly what Royce was discussing with his father, who believed that colorblind people could not get a pilot’s license.

It just so happened that Royce had watched a show called Jeopardy that debunked this assertion, so he, as a colorblind young man, decided to strike a bet that if he could pass the eye exam, his father would have to pay for the course.

And, given everything that I’ve disclosed in the introduction to this article, I think you can guess who won that bet in the end.

At first, Royce didn’t think much would come out of this license, but when he was living in the Mediterranean and applying as a deck hand at a mega yacht, it just so happened that he caught ear that they were needing a pilot.

So, remember, no skill gained goes to waste.

Royce’s experience as a pilot made it so that when he came to Australia in 2012, he brought along an idea for a software that would allow pilots across the world to automate their pricing.

The goal is now to take this price automation system and transfer it to usual places people go to in order to survey flight options, thus widening the customer pool for charter flights.

Royce does, remark that charter flights, in general, tend to be more expensive, but that the price tag more than made up for in comfort, speed and security. Not having to trudge through a crowded airport and bump shoulders with strangers is worth a couple of hundred dollars.

In effect, what Monarch does is make the experience of private flights, which is still seen as exclusive to the rich and famous, more accessible, and despite the increase in the overall passage price, cheaper when you look at the value gained.

Effectively, Monarch is another step forward in an industry-wide movement to make charter, or private, flying more accessible to the general public, while also ensuring that pilots can not only cover all operating costs but make a decent profit.

The idea itself is quite fascinating, a world where private flights are not the privilege of the rich and famous, but just another option anyone can opt for while paying a fair price is a real change in the game.

An example given by Royce was a pilot who got paid to take a client and three of his family members from Sydney to the Gold Coast, with the full rate, and still got to transport 12 backpackers on the way back for $135 per seat.

The clients got to fly comfortably on a private plane for a fraction of what one would expect. The pilot managed to cover all expenses on the first flight and got a good deal of extra income on the way back.

Monarch’s system would only make such operations easier by calculating the price of such ventures based on available seats, fuel, distance and so on. Such an innovation could easily change the way we think about commercial flying.

Speaking about the future of his enterprise, Royce expressed quite a bit of enthusiasm:

“Australia is a great place for testing a new concept, especially for us. Most major cities are an hour away from each other, so under that aspect you have a good range of aircraft for our particular model.”

However, if Australia provided its fair share of opportunities for Monarch, it also brought along its load of challenges as well, with Royce highlighting his company’s difficulty in finding good funding.

He reports being able to raise a certain amount of money through angel groups, but breaking through a conservative investment landscape that is more focused on social good companies has taken over the Australian market.

There’s also the challenge of selling an entirely new concept, which most innovation-focused businesses run into eventually. When it comes to investing, a new idea can take off or crash and burn right on top of you, so most people are comprehensively thorough.

Thinking about how Royce came to where he is at the moment, it’s hard not to recall the butterfly effect, where a small dislocation in the air caused by the insect’s wings can lead to a hurricane.

Likewise, a simple discussion over the dinner table with his father made Royce not only a pilot but a pioneer in the aviation industry that can completely change how we see private flights.

So, as is customary for these articles, I would like to leave you with the following thought exercise: Try to trace back your butterfly moment. That one thing that kickstarted your journey into where it is today.

It might seem like a silly thing, but entrepreneurial life is full of hardship, and being able to nail down the very first moments of your story gives that heroic mental narrative that makes everything worth it.