Blue Collar Builders Episode 2: Scott Sans – Cinematographer With No Coding Experience Turned Software Developer

From Cinematographer to Land-Clearing Entrepreneur to Software Developer with No Prior Coding Knowledge

Scott Lans’ story is nothing if not amazing and inspirational. A cinematographer by trade, Scott racked up 15 years as a steady camera operator, a fulfilling, but demanding job for him.

Eventually, Scott realized that the job was too demanding and left him little family time, so he decided it was time for a change.

He already had a property that needed clearing, so he bought the tools he needed and got the job done. The jump from that to opening his own land clearing company felt natural, but it didn’t come without challenges.

Firstly, all of the business management software available was “super expensive and poor quality”, eating away at his revenue for no visible upside. Secondly, Scott had no experience as a coder or software engineer, so building his own software wasn’t really an option. 

Except it was and he did and it was easier than he expected thanks to AI.

Scott’s AI Experience – A Tell-Tale of Where the Blue Collar Industry is Heading

Scott did what any smart and solution-driven entrepreneur would do – he harnessed the power of AI to build the software he needed, adapted to his trade’s needs. He had the business knowledge, the AI possessed the coding brain.

The strategy paid off big, especially in the financial department, seeing how professional software would cost from several hundred dollars to $15K-$20K in some cases. Scott’s custom-made software would deliver better results for $30-$200, for a whopping 100X cost cut.

As a result, Scott Lans’ land-clearing company, Hudson Valley Forestry, jumped from managing “someone’s backyard that’s a half-acre” to clearing “50-acre solar sites, clear cut for industrial solar”. 

At this point, developing a tracking software device to track his land-clearing goats during jobs that didn’t allow the use of heavy machinery was easy work.

And he owes everything to his ingenuity and persistence and the power of AI.

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Why AI Is Slowly Becoming an Indispensable Tool for Blue Collar Businesses

AI currently has an untapped potential in the blue collar ecosystem and Scott Lans’ story proves it. He found a way to access it and, in his own words, it was easier than he would’ve expected. So much so that today he describes himself as “the obnoxious friend that is constantly bringing up AI when no one else wants to talk about it”.

This sheds light on the current state of the blue collar industry, which overspends on subpar software, not realizing that the solution has already arrived in 2022, with the first LLM models.

Today, AI can help you create customized software for your business, scale your operations, and even gain access to new markets, all for a fraction of the costs associated with standard software models.

More importantly, you don’t need coding knowledge to do it.

Dalton Mills Has Positioned Itself at the Forefront of AI Integration in the Blue Collar Industry

For Scott Lans, the benefits of using his own AI-powered software, over what was already on the market, were clear: save money and time, skyrocket his business scaling, adapt on the fly to the market’s changing requirements and opportunities, and get more family time.

For you, the drives may be different. Maybe you want to kickstart your first business, scale the current one, access new markets, or figure out solutions to problems that’ve forced your business into stagnation.

Whatever it may be, Dalton Mills likely has the solution.

Our AI-powered platform is designed for the blue collar industry by people who understand it the best and it caters to a wide range of businesses, whether it’s plumbing, HVAC, pest control, landscaping, roofing, and many others.

The core idea of Dalton Mills is to provide businesses the infrastructure they need to build their own custom software; no coding knowledge necessary. That’s because only you know what your business needs, whether it’s better operational planning, improved customer support, cost and job estimates, or scaling in general.

If Scott Lans’ story resonates with you, Dalton Mills can help you replicate its success. Apply for early access today to get ahead of the curve.

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